Chapter 3 SB: Individuals Differences & Emotions

Individual differences

A term used to collectively describe people's traits and behaviors that are influenced by genetics and environment.

Intelligence

An individual's capacity for constructive thinking, reasoning, and problem solving.

Conscientiousness

A personality dimension described as dependable, responsible, achievement oriented, and persistent; it has the strongest and most positive effect on performance.

Psychopath

A person who has no close friends, lowers office morale through aggression and counterproductive work behaviors, and feels no remorse when his or her actions cause harm to others.

Extroversion

A personality dimension described as outgoing, talkative, social, and assertive, which predicts job performance better than agreeableness.

Agreeableness

A personality dimension described as trusting, good-natured, cooperative, and softhearted.

Emotional Stability

A personality dimension described as relaxed, secure, and unworried. Its relationship with outcomes is best represented by an inverted-U on a graph.

Openness

A personality dimension described as intellectual, imaginative, curious, and broad-minded.

Machiavellian

A person who is willing to manipulate others and use any method, even those that are unethical or unfair, to gain an advantage over others in the workplace.

Core self-evaluations

A broad personality trait composed of four narrow traits: self-esteem, self-efficacy, emotional stability, and locus of control.

Internal locus of control

Possessed by people who believe they control the events and consequences that affect their lives.

External locus of control

Possessed by those who believe their performance is a product of circumstances beyond their immediate control or explained by environmental factors.

Emotional intelligence

The ability to monitor your own emotions and those of others, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide your thinking and actions.

Emotion display norms

Rules that dictate which types of emotions are expected and appropriate at a given time within an organization.

Social competence

The aspect of emotional intelligence formed by the dimensions of social awareness and relationship management.

Emotions

Complex, relatively brief responses aimed at a particular target such as a person, information, experience, event, or nonevent.