Personality & Individual Differences

What are values?

Stable life goals that people have, reflecting what is most important to them

What can values affect?

The types of decisions people make and their behaviors

What can values impact?

How people perceive their environment

When are values formed and can they change?

Values are shaped early in life, but can change in response to historical context

How do generations and cohorts differ in values at work?

Different generations and cohorts may prioritize different values at work, for example security versus autonomy

How do major events affect organizations?

Major events can shift organizational culture and employee expectations even if underlying personalities remain the same

Why is historical context important for leaders?

Leaders who ignore historical context risk misreading employee motivation, engagement, and resistance to change

What are the four reasons values matter in organizational behavior?

They shape motivation and priorities, influence reactions to leaders and policies, drive conflict and fit at work, in complement personality and predicting behavior

What do values and personality tell us?

Values tell us what matters to people, while personality tells us how they tend to behave

What is personality?

Relatively stable thoughts, feelings, and behavioral patterns a person has

Personality helps explain the differences in what five things?

How people behave in organizations, the types of careers people choose, how satisfied people are with their jobs, how well people handle stress, and how effective people are as leaders

What are the big five traits?

Openness to experience, conscientiousness, agreeableness (agreeable vs. disagreeable), neuroticism, and extroversion (extrovert vs. introvert)

What does extraversion and introversion assess?

The tendency to seek social interaction and stimulation

What are the traits of introverts?

They are quiet and deliberative

What are the traits of extroverts?

They are outgoing and bold

Does shyness equal introversion?

No

What is shyness the fear of?

Negative judgment

In what areas of life does extraversion seem to matter more in?

Jobs where the rules of behavior are ill defined, for example leadership or sales

What is agreeableness?

The tendency to challenge others versus accommodate others (disagreeable vs. agreeable)

What are the strengths of being disagreeable?

Speaking up or out and holding firm on your beliefs

What are the vulnerabilities of being disagreeable?

Being seen as rude or confrontational and failing to pick battles

What are the strengths of being agreeable?

Promoting positive interactions and being appeasing and gaining consensus and teamwork

What are the vulnerabilities of being agreeable?

Becoming a pushover and compromising important values

What is neuroticism?

Emotional stability or the degree to which a person is anxious, irritable, temperamental, and moody

What is low neuroticism?

Having high emotional stability?

What is high neuroticism?

Having low emotional stability

What are the traits of a low neurotic?

Better at self regulating emotions and may underreact in situations

What are the traits of a high neurotic?

Tendency towards anxiety, tend to prepare (lots of overlap with perfectionism), often overreact or infer ulterior motives

What is openness to experience?

Someone who is curious, original, intellectual, creative, and open to new ideas. They also tend to seek novelty vs. familiarity

What are the strengths of being traditional?

Clarity of beliefs and principles and preserving traditions

What are the vulnerabilities of being traditional?

Resisting change and defending the status quo

What are the strengths to being open?

Receptivity to change and creativity and breadth of experience

What are the vulnerabilities of being open?

Having lack of focus and fluctuating identity

What is conscientiousness?

Someone who is organized, systematic, punctual, achievement oriented, and dependable

What are the traits of someone with high conscientiousness?

They are focused and structured

What are the traits of someone who has low conscientiousness?

They are carefree and playful

What are the strengths of conscientiousness?

Attention to detail, setting in achieving goals, and strongest predictor of job performance across the big five (although only a modest correlation)

What are the vulnerabilities of conscientiousness?

Blindly following rules and not seeing the big picture

What is the hexaco model?

A framework that conceptualizes human personality in terms of six dimensions (honesty and humility, openness to experience, agreeableness, extroversion , and conscientiousness)/ mostly focuses on honesty and humility

What is honesty and humility?

The sixth trait which consist of sincerity, fairness, modesty, and lack of greed or entitlement. This trait predicts counterproductive work behavior better than the big five, for example, theft, exploitation and dishonesty.

Why does the hexaco model matter at work?

Employees high in honesty or humility are less likely to exploit others or the organization, and it compliments the big five by capturing an ethical dimension

What is the difference between the big five and the hexaco model?

The big five explains a lot, but the hexaco model sharpens our ability to predict workplace misbehavior

According to the interactionist perspective (the role of fit) behavior is a function of what?

The person in the situation interacting with each other

What is the person organization fit?

The degree to which a person’s values, personality, goals, and other characteristics match those of the organization

What is the person job fit?

The degree to which a person’s skill, knowledge, abilities, and other characteristics match the job demands

What is overqualification?

A situation in which the employee has more skills, education and experience than the job requires

Behavior is also a function of what?

Moods, both good and bad

Positive effective people experience what moods more frequently?

Positive

Negative effective people experience what moods with greater frequency?

Negative

What personality traits set the tone in the work atmosphere?

Positive and negative affective people and good and bad moods

What is locus of control?

It deals with the degree to which people feel accountable for their own behaviors

what are the traits of high internal locus of control people?

They believe they control their own destiny, feel greater control over their own lives, are more involved with their jobs, demonstrate higher levels of motivation, and adopt problem focused coping strategies

What are the traits of high external locus of control people?

They feel that things happen to them

Are traits tendencies or rigid categories?

Tendencies

What shapes how personality shows up?

Context, for example job demands, culture, and leadership

How does self insight help us?

It helps us play to our strengths and manage our blind spots

What are the key takeaways of the big five traits?

The big five traits are openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and eroticism, and they help shape your job fit, performance and interactions

What are the key takeaways of personality and fit?

Matching personality to role demands boost jobs satisfaction, engagement, and reduces turnover

What are the key takeaways of locus of control?

Your sense of personal control (internal vs. external) influences your motivation, reactions to feedback, and resilience at work