Personality and Learning

at work
OBHR101 MPW G14 Week 4

Today

What is intelligence (GMA)?

What is personality?
How would you measure all of the above?
Why should we care about intelligence? And personality?
Intelligence broadly predicts performance
Personality tests are useful in hiring decisions and help managers forecast
who is best for a job.

Or not?
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Intelligence: A Pragmatists view

Intelligence as the
magnitude and quality of
the human cognitive
toolbox, which contains
basic cognitive operations
(Elshout, 1983).

Intelligence: A Pragmatists View

Content and quality of toolbox
determined by:
1. Biological determinants:
E.g. hereditary factors, brain
damage
2. Environmental determinants:
E.g. opportunities for learning
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Biological determinants of intelligence

Genetic component
Intelligence scores exhibit a modest degree of
correlation among relatives.
The closer the relatives, the stronger the correlations.
There ARE differences between people

Biological determinants of intelligence

Aging and deterioration
Some brains physically
deteriorate with age e.g.
Alzheimers disease but what
about ageing in non-diseased
brains? What do you think?

Age and Intelligence

(Campbell,

Hasher & Thomas, 2010)

The older you get, the more your focus widens

Cant latch onto just one fact
Go more slowly
Also more easily distracted
BUT, better problem solvers
Lots of info they can transfer from one situation to another

ENVIRONMENTAL DETERMINANTS OF Intelligence

Environments provide opportunities for learning (e.g. family,
at work)
More on this later

Relationship between Intelligence and Performance

Proficiency of performance in educational achievement, work
organizations, or military service requiring intellectual skills is
correlated with scores on a general intelligence test
Grades = performance; Grades intelligence
KPI = performance; KPI intelligence

How does intelligence affect Performance?

Indirect effect

Individual Differences
Ability (Intelligence)

Motivation

Personality

Choice to perform

Interests

Level of Effort

Education, Training,
Experience

Persistent of Effort

Declarative
Knowledge
(facts, info)

Procedural
Knowledge & Skill
(how to do things)
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Performance

Intelligence and Performance

Of course, intelligence matters
The best ARE better than the rest
The 84th compared to 50th percentile of workers
Produce 19% more in low skilled jobs
Produce 32% more in high skilled jobs
Produce 48% more in managerial and professional jobs

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Intelligence: Measurement
Intelligence (GMA) is a behavioral trait.
A behavioral trait means we can observe its actions only
through behaviors.

Measures of such a trait must be:

Reliable
Valid

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Structure of Intelligence
Intelligence

General factor g
Other Stuff

Verbal

Numerical

Reasoning

Deductive

Spatial

Specific factor s
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Structure of Intelligence: Importance of g

1. Latent factor structure like gravity, intelligence itself is not directly
observed nor directly measurable but is instead inferred though the
measurement of observable cognitive abilities (quantities)
General intelligence g factor is hypothesized to be common to all
cognitive abilities
2. Multidimensional structure intelligence is measured through
multiple kinds of cognitive abilities
Relationships between s and g are reliably greater than zero. Such
correlations, while positive, are small.
Each s alone does not make g, but each s has a common underlying
effect of g
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Hmm
What are intelligence tests measuring?
And what about changing my intelligence?

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Intelligence tests actually measure

Test taking ability
Effect of reading skill and educational
background

Culturally bound knowledge (i.e. general

knowledge)
Instead use culture-free tests, i.e. Ravens
Matrices
Evaluates general intelligence using abstract
relations underlying the specific abilities (ss)
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Implicit Theories of intelligence

Carol Dweck
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiiEeMN7vbQ

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Implicit Theories of intelligence

Sure, intelligence matters.. But your beliefs
about intelligence also predict performance!
Entity theorists

Growth theorists

Are concerned with preserving

the appearance of their
competence;

Are not afraid of making errors;

Despondent from failure

Learn from failure
React that way to failure
React that way to failure
because it attacks their beliefs
because they do not see it as
about themselves
an attack on their self-concept
Implication on learning and performance at work?
Seek out opportunities to learn, create them?

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IMPLICIT THEORY AND OB

In negotiation
Growth mindset negotiators: have stronger negotiating skills, believing that with
effort a better deal can be reached.

In managers performance appraisal and coaching

Fixed mindset managers: tend to inadequately recognize actual changes in
employee performance and are disinclined to coach employees regarding how to
improve their performance.
But growth mindset intervention can change the fixed mindset and managers
subsequently provide more accurate performance appraisals and helpful
employee coaching
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Personality

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What Is Personality?
Personality: the sum total of ways in which an individual
reacts to and interacts with others
Personality traits: Enduring characteristics that describe an
individuals behavior
Recurring patterns, regularities in behaviors, or behavioral
propensities

Behavioral consistency across time and situations.

The more important the trait, the more consistent
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Origins of Personality
Like intelligence.
Nature
Genetics
Twin studies
50% of variance!

Nurture
Life Experiences
Develops over time

Slowly
Rank order doesnt
change
Relatively fixed by the
time you are 30

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HOW TO Measure Personality?

1. Self report
But what if you fake?
When applicants know a score will be used for hiring they raise
their score by half a standard deviation (on conscientiousness and
emotional stability) (Birkland et al 2006)

2. Other report
Observer ratings predict better (Oh, Wang & Mount, 2011)
Highly correlated though, so use both.
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PA/NA
The Big Five
Locus of
Control
CSE
Self
monitoring

Intelligence g

Extraversion

Neuroticism

Agreeableness

Openness
Conscientiousness

personality

Construct Validity

Intelligence g

Trait Model of Personality

Five personality traits derived through the lexical hypotheses
and subsequent factor analysis (called the Big Five):
1. Extraversion. Comfort level with relationships.
Extroverts: gregarious, assertive, sociable. Introverts: reserved,
timid, quiet.
2. Agreeableness. Individuals propensity to defer to others.
High agreeableness people: cooperative, warm, trusting. Low
agreeableness people: cold, disagreeable, antagonistic.
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Trait Model of Personality

3. Conscientiousness. A measure of reliability.
High conscientious people: responsible, organized, dependable, persistent.
Low conscientiousness: easily distracted, disorganized, unreliable.
4. Neuroticism/Emotional stability. A persons inability to withstand
stress.
Low neurotics: calm, self-confident, secure. High neurotics: nervous,
anxious, depressed, insecure.
5. Openness to experience. The range of interests and fascination with
novelty.
Extremely open people: creative, curious, artistically sensitive. Low open
people: conventional, find comfort in the familiar.

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Predictive Power in OB
These five traits are sufficient to describe a persons personality.
Butwith regards to WORK
Only Conscientiousness is reliably related to job
performance and training performance across ALL jobs
Neuroticism/Emotional Stability is also related to
performance, but not as highly (more coworker and
customer interactions)
It IS most strongly related to life satisfaction and low stress
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Predictive Power in OB
Openness to Experience related to training performance, but not
reliably to job performance
Tend to be more creative too

Extraversion higher performance on jobs with lots of teamwork and

interaction (happier life too)
Agreeableness also higher performance on jobs with lots of
teamwork and interaction and less deviant behavior
Tend to earn less though

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Social status Changes of Extraverts and Neurotics

(Bendersky & Shah, 2013)

Study 1: Field design

MBA students in group projects
Big five traits measured at the beginning of the term
Status measured at the beginning and end of term
e.g.To what extent does each individual influence the groups
decisions?, How much status (social respectability) does each
individual have in the group?

Contribution measured at the beginning and end of term

Controls: the other BF traits, competence (GMAT and individual
grade), gender, perceiver status, self-status
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Social status Changes of Extraverts and Neurotics

Study 2: Experimental design
Working adults online survey
Rate colleague workplace scenario
Manipulated the personality of a colleague whose help the respondent
ostensibly solicits in a workplace scenario.
Measured status and task contribution expectations
Manipulated colleagues response: either a generous or ungenerous
contribution to the task
Measured task contribution evaluations and subsequent status ratings
again
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Social status Changes of Extraverts and Neurotics

Field study & Experimental study findings?
Extraverts have higher initial status, compared to neurotics,
and introverts
Neurotics have lower initial status, compared to emotionally
stable people
Extraverts later status decreases, whereas neurotics later
status increases
External and internal validity
Why? Partial mediation: expectation of contribution and
actual contribution; contribution matters!
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Social status Changes of Extraverts and Neurotics

Traits alone are free of value
Dark side of E, Bright side of N
Depends on the process/outcome you want to look at

Implications: overvalue extraverts and undervalue

neurotics
What does this mean for group discussions and
dynamics?
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The Dark Triad

Triad of personality -- Psychopathy,
Machiavellianism and Narcissism.
Not fully represented in Five Factor Models of
personality

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The Dark Triad

Mach
Callousness
Goals
Temporal
orientation

Psychopathy

Narcissism

Callous core leading to interpersonal

manipulation
Ego-identity
Instrumental goals
goals
Long term
Short term
N/A
temporal
temporal
orientation
orientation
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The Dark Triad

1. Mach: pragmatic, emotionally distant, ends
justify the means
Win in short term, lose gains over time

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The Dark Triad

2. Psychopathy: Lack of concern for others, lack of
guilt or remorse
Not as well linked to Job performance
Evidence in leaders
Threats, intimidation, bullying

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The Dark Triad

3. Narcissism: arrogant, grandiose, entitled, needs
admiration
Have more charisma (Leader)
High CWB
Not rated highly as leaders (although they think they should
be)

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Bright side of Mach & Psyc

Machs
aspire to positions of management and formal authority, tend to have a
high motivation to lead (Mael, Waldman, & Mulqueen, 2001) High mach
leaders proved to have a wider range of appropriate behaviors than the
low mach leaders (Drory & Gluskinos, 1980, Bass, 1990 and Yukl, 2002).
Machs serve the longest, seem to be more effective (but only when they
have intellectual brilliance) (Simonton, 1986)

Boldness associated with psychopathy is an important but

neglected predictor of presidential performance and interpersonal
behavior (Lilienfeld et al, 2012)
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Other Personality constructs

Self-monitoring
Core Self-Evaluation
Positive and Negative Affectivity
Locus of control *not included in results

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Self-monitoring
The extent to which people observe and regulate how they appear and
behave in social settings and relationships.
High self-monitors take great care to observe and control the images that they
project.

High self-monitors are more likely to change employers and locations

and to receive more promotions.
They are successful and we like them more.

They do not feel comfortable in ambiguous social settings in which it is

hard to determine what behaviours are socially appropriate.
Dealing with unfamiliar cultures might provoke stress.
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CORE SELF-EVALUATION
The degree to which a person has a positive selfevaluation.
Sees themselves as effective capable and in control.
People with high CSE have favourable self-images.

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Positive and Negative Affectivity

People who are high on positive affectivity (PA) experience
positive emotions and moods and view the world in a positive
light.
People who are high on negative affectivity (NA) experience
negative emotions and moods and view the world in a negative
light.
PA and NA are emotional dispositions that predict peoples general
emotional tendencies.
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Positive and Negative Affectivity

People with higher PA:
report higher job satisfaction
higher job performance
more creative at work.

People with higher NA:

experience more stress and strain
More CWB
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Interpreting your personality scores

Absolute scores mean little
Relative scores: normed against comparison group; Z-scores,
ranks; percentiles

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Other Personality Constructs:

Locus of Control
A set of beliefs about whether ones behaviour is
controlled mainly by internal or external factors.
Internals believe that the opportunity to control their
own behaviour resides within themselves.
Externals believe that external forces determine their
behaviour.
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The Internal/External Locus of Control Continuum

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Locus of Control: Research

Internals are:
more satisfied with their jobs,
earn more money,
achieve higher organizational positions.

Internals also:
perceive less stress,
cope with stress better,
engage in more careful career planning.
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What you thought Profs Big 5 personality scores

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What it really is Profs Big 5 personality scores

Extraversion: 1.86; Conscientiousness = 2.4;
Agreeableness = 4.11; Neuroticism = 3.25; Openness = 4
WHAT IS GOING ON!?

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Personality in Organizations
Long history in organizational behaviour.
Person-situation debate move away from the person
approach
1. The situational approach (situational strength) the way
personality translates into behavior depends on the
strength of the situation
2. The interactionist approach - function of both dispositions
and the situation
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Situational approach: Situation strength

Situation strength, we mean the degree to which norms, cues,
or standards dictate appropriate behavior.
Weak Situations
Roles are loosely defined,
few rules and weak reinforcement
and punishment contingencies
Personality has the strongest
effect

Strong Situations
Roles, rules, and contingencies
are more defined
Personality has less of an impact
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Behaviors
Talk
Situations
Classroom

Laugh

Make bodily
noises

Cry

Eat anything
you want

First Date
Bar
Home
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The Interactionist Approach

Organizational behaviour is a function of both dispositions and
the situation.
In other words: To predict and understand organizational
behaviour, we need to know something about an individuals
personality and the work setting.
This is the most widely accepted approach to organizational
behaviour.

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Personality and the Situation

6 ways on how personality and situations affect each other

1. Trait Activation Theory (TAT; textbook)

Some situations activate a trait more than others
Weak situations will allow traits to be activated
Situation must be trait-relevant (i.e. cant really assess trait
Aggression at Sunday Mass)
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Personality and the Situation

2. Situations Choose the Person
Recruitment
3. Person Choose their situations
Extraverted Party
Introverted Library
You are offered the position, but you still choose whether you
enter
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Personality and the Situation

4. Situations prime different parts of the
person
i.e. Biculturalism
Impact Attributions
Behavior
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Why is the first fish swimming in front?

(Morris, Nisbett & Peng, 1995)

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Why is the first fish swimming in front?

(Morris, Nisbett & Peng, 1995)

China primes: front fish is being

chased (external attribution)
US primes: front fish is leading
(internal attribution)

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(Morris, M. & Peng, K. 1994)

Personality and the Situation

5. Persons Change the situation
Manipulation

6. Situations Change the Person

Socialization

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Returning to Profs Big 5 personality scores

When Im in the Classroom: strong situation strength Job
demands
Be energetic, interesting, engaging
Be systematic
Enforce classroom rules for fairness concerns

Once I am out of the classroom Resources and recovery

Sleep enough, eat enough, vacation enough, meditate, exercise, find
meaning in my work

Personality and Age Gaining Self-awareness

Know limits
Used to deal badly with emotions; but it gets better with age
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Implications of the Interactionist Approach

Some personality characteristics are useful in certain
organizational situations.
There is no one best personality.
Although.

The importance of fit - putting the right person in the right job,
group, or organization
Creativity is rewarded/expected differently across jobs/industries

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Together now: Personality and Intelligence

Validity as selection methods in the organization
Get smarty pants

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Kim & Glomb (2010)

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What are the main hypotheses of this paper? What underlying theory or mechanism is used to explain the
hypotheses?
What is the research design of the study (e.g., experimental, cross-sectional, longitudinal design)? What are the
benefits of this research design?
Regarding the measures, what types of measurement reliabilities did authors provide?
Is the construct validity of agency and communion measures limited or good? Please refer to p893-894 and
p898.
Please indicate whether the correlations between victimization and various predictors (antecedents) are small,
medium, or large?
Based on the results, please describe the finding illustrated in Figure 1.
Based on the results, please describe the finding illustrated in Figure 2.
Please evaluate external validity of the study and what are your concerns regarding the generalizability of the
finding?
Please think about the three conditions of causality and evaluate the internal validity of the study. What are
your concerns about the causal relationship between cognitive ability and victimization?
On p897, authors mentioned that high performance might be the alternative explanation for the finding, how
would you rule out this explanation?

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Kim & Glomb (2010)

Research question: Are smart people bullied?
Theory: Victim Precipitation Model
Victims exhibit behaviors that provoke potential perpetrators
to respond to them with harmful behaviors
Perpetrators: social comparison negative cognitive and
affective states
Victims: social comparison increased perception as threat to
others
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Kim & Glomb (2010)

Hypothesis 1:
CA positively relates to victimization

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Kim & Glomb (2010)

Theory: Personality and Reciprocity theories
Agency engage in negative reciprocity, not in positive
reciprocity
Communion engage in positive reciprocity, not in negative
reciprocity
Thus
H2: High agency is positively related to victimization
H3: High communion is negatively related to victimization
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Kim & Glomb (2010)

H4 & H5:
Agency x GMA interaction:
When targets are high in cognitive ability, targets high in
agency will experience more victimization than those lower on
agency
Communion X GMA interaction:
When targets are high in cognitive ability, targets high in
communion will experience less victimization than those lower
on communion
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Kim & Glomb (2010)

IVs:
Agency: Dominance (subfacet of Extraversion)
Measured

Communion: Agreeableness
Measured

Intelligence
Measured

DVs: Bully
Measured by 20-item Aggressive Experiences Scale (AES)-Target
scale
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Implications?
Personality and
intelligence interact
Personality moderates
the relationship
between intelligence
and bullying

Dark side of high GMA?

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The Meyers-Briggs Type Inventory

Lacks test-retest reliability
if you retake the test after only a five-week gap, there's
around a 50% chance that you will fall into a different
personality category.
Predictive Validity
Few consistent relationships between type and managerial
effectiveness have been found.
Poles in a category are actually independent
feeling type is supposed to tap into my orientation toward
people and emotions. But this lumps together three separate
traits that capture a positive orientation toward others, the
tendency to feel negative emotions, and the receptivity
toward these emotions
Comprehensiveness of test
Lacks emotional stability aspect
E vs I? Its a continuum, not a category

Intelligence and Emotions

Next week, Group 2
10 minute presentation + 5 minute Q&A
RE MBTI Are Thinking and Feeling opposites?
Is the intelligent but emotionally incompetent trope
true?
If you have strong analytical skills, are you worse off at
recognizing, understanding, and managing emotions?
Why does SMU use MBTI in Finishing Touch?
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Recap
Intelligence & Personality are important
predictors of job performance
BUT! caveats: measurement,
interactions, value: outcome dependent
Next week: we expand our
understanding of the input-processoutput model in OB
We will look at some these other
things/inputs: values
Other OB outcomes: Job satisfaction,
commitment, withdrawal, etc
And we will start looking look at an
important process: emotions
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Next week deliverables

Complete survey on values and emotional regulation
tinyurl.com
Read: Chapters 5 (values) , 3 & 4
Class ticket on dropbox/elearn

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