BBA 420

Lecture 2 : Individual Differences and Work Attitudes

After this Lecture, you should be able to do the following:

Part 1

1. Define personality and describe how it affects work behaviors.

2. Understand the role of values in determining work behaviors.
3. Explain the process of perception and how it affects work behaviors.
4. Understand how individual differences affect ethics.
5. Understand cross-cultural influences on individual differences and perception.

Part 2

1. Define attitudes;
2. Describe various components of attitudes;
3. Discuss various sources of attitudes;
4. Define various types of attitudes;

Individuals bring a number of differences to work, such as unique personalities, values,

emotions, and moods. When new employees enter organizations, their stable or
transient characteristics affect how they behave and perform. Moreover, companies
hire people with the expectation that those individuals have certain skills, abilities,
personalities, and values. Therefore, it is important to understand individual
characteristics that matter for employee behaviors at work.

The impact of individual differences on organisational behaviour is becoming more and

more tremendous. Especially in organisation’s recruitment and selection process,
individual differences are highly concerned by employers. Considering the development
of organisational effectiveness, researchers spent more time on the study of individual
differences to discover how they may affect individual performance so to influence
organisation’s performance. Robbins (2003, p.103) states that organisations want to
match individual to specific jobs by taking individual differences into account and
organisations have expanded their interest to the individual-organisation fit recently.
How to effectively manage people within a diverse context is becoming a serious issue
for all managers. According to Mullins (2007, p.122), people differ from each other and
individual differences are the basis of diversity. Thus, an effective manager in modern
business world is required to be able to identify individual differences and coordinate
individual with organisation’s requirement. 
Individual differences matter in the workplace. Human beings bring in their personality,
physical and mental abilities, and other stable traits to work. Imagine that you are
interviewing an employee who is proactive, creative, and willing to take risks. Would
this person be a good job candidate? What behaviors would you expect this person to
demonstrate?

1. How do we Recognise Individuality ?

 Managing Relationships at Work

 The effective management of people requires not only an understanding of
individual employees but also recognition of the culture of the organisation.
 Managers are required to be competent at selecting the individuals who will be
valuable to the organisation

2. Discussion on the many ways in which Individuals Differ ?

Individual differences can be easily recognised from people’s appearance at the first
time meet. Everyone can be appeared differently from their gender, race, age, ethnicity
and etc. All these characteristics are referring to demography. According to Ashleigh and
Mansi (2012, p.80), demographics refer to differences within a population such as race,
age, educational level, gender, and etc. Due to the globalisation, the world is becoming
smaller, the barriers of entering to another country becomes lower at the same time.
Nowadays, it is normal to see people from different part of the world working together.
It can be concluded as an increasing diversity of workforce. Diversity refers to
dissimilarities or differences among people based on demographics. (Ashleigh et al,
2007, p.136). People have to admit that individual differences based on demographic
factor have an impact on work performance. For instance, there was a research
suggested that female executives have better performance than male colleagues on
certain skills. (Sharpe, cited in Ashleigh et al, 2007, p.139). 

3. What is the definition of Personality ?

 Personality may be viewed as consisting of stable characteristics that explain why

a person behaves in a particular way.
 A person who is independent may show that characteristic by displaying a strong
sense of self sufficiency
 Some individuals may exaggerate or suppress certain personality traits.
 When hiring employees, companies are interested in assessing at least two types of
fit. Person–organization fit1 refers to the degree to which a person’s values,
personality, goals, and other characteristics match those of the organization.
Person–job fit2 is the degree to which a person’s skill, knowledge, abilities, and other
characteristics match the job demands. Thus, someone who is proactive and creative
may be a great fit for a company in the high-tech sector that would benefit from risk-
taking individuals, but may be a poor fit for a company that rewards routine and
predictable behavior, such as accountants. Similarly, this person may be a great fit
for a job such as a scientist, but a poor fit for a routine office job. The opening case
illustrates one method of assessing person–organization and person–job fit in job
applicants.

Personality

Personality encompasses the relatively stable feelings, thoughts, and behavioral

patterns a person has. Our personality differentiates us from other people, and
understanding someone’s personality gives us clues about how that person is likely to
act and feel in a variety of situations. In order to effectively manage organizational
behavior, an understanding of different employees’ personalities is helpful. Having this
knowledge is also useful for placing people in jobs and organizations.

If personality is stable, does this mean that it does not change? You probably remember
how you have changed and evolved as a result of your own life experiences, attention
you received in early childhood, the style of parenting you were exposed to, successes
and failures you had in high school, and other life events. In fact, our personality
changes over long periods of time. For example, we tend to become more socially
dominant, more conscientious (organized and dependable), and more emotionally
stable between the ages of 20 and 40, whereas openness to new experiences may begin
to decline during this same time.Roberts, B. W., Walton, K. E., & Viechtbauer, W. (2006).
Patterns of mean-level change in personality traits across the life course: A meta-
analysis of longitudinal studies. Psychological Bulletin, 132, 1–25. In other words, even
though we treat personality as relatively stable, changes occur. Moreover, even in
childhood, our personality shapes who we are and has lasting consequences for us. For
example, studies show that part of our career success and job satisfaction later in life
can be explained by our childhood personality.Judge, T. A., & Higgins, C. A. (1999). The
Big Five personality traits, general mental ability, and career success across the life
span. Personnel Psychology, 52, 621–652; Staw, B. M., Bell, N. E., & Clausen, J. A. (1986).
The dispositional approach to job attitudes: A lifetime longitudinal test. Administrative
Science Quarterly, 31, 56–77.
Big Five Personality Traits

How many personality traits are there? How do we even know? In every language, there
are many words describing a person’s personality. In fact, in the English language, more
than 15,000 words describing personality have been identified. When researchers
analyzed the terms describing personality characteristics, they realized that there were
many words that were pointing to each dimension of personality. When these words
were grouped, five dimensions seemed to emerge that explain a lot of the variation in
our personalities.

The Big Five personality traits are broad domains/dimensions of personality and include the
following traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and
neuroticism (under the acronym, OCEAN). Each Big Five trait represents a continuum. For
example, the trait of extraversion’s opposite is introversion. Together, extraversion and
introversion make up opposing ends of a spectrum for that Big Five trait. People can be very
extraverted or very introverted, but most people will fall somewhere in between the
extremes of the spectrum. 
It's also important to remember that each trait of the Big Five is very broad, representing a
cluster of many personality characteristics. These characteristics are more specific and
granular than each of the five traits as a whole. Thus, each trait can be defined in general
and also broken down into several facets.
Openness to Experience
If you possess high openness to experience, you are open to all the original and complex
things life has to offer, both experientially and mentally. The opposite of openness to
experience is close-mindedness.
Individuals with this trait are usually:
 Curious
 Imaginative
 Artistic
 Interested in many things
 Excitable
 Unconventional
Conscientiousness
Conscientiousness means having good impulse control, which enables individuals to fulfill
tasks and meet goals. Conscientious behavior includes planning and organization, delaying
gratification, avoiding compulsive action, and following cultural norms. The opposite of
conscientiousness is lack of direction.
Key facets of conscientiousness include:
 Competence
 Order, or organizational skills
 Dutifulness, or a lack of carelessness
 Achievement through hard work
 Self-discipline
 Being deliberate and controlled
Extraversion
Extraverted individuals who draws their energy from their interactions with the social
world. Extraverts are sociable, talkative, and outgoing. The opposite of extraversion is
introversion.
Extraverts are typically:
 Gregarious
 Assertive
 Active
 Excitement-seeking
 Emotionally positive and enthusiastic
 Warm and outgoing
Agreeableness
The trait of agreeableness refers to a positive and altruistic orientation. This trait enables
individuals to see the best in others, trust others, and behave prosocially. The opposite of
agreeableness is antagonism.
Agreeable people are often:
 Trusting and forgiving
 Straightforward and undemanding
 Altruistic
 Affable and amenable
 Modest
 Sympathetic to others
Neuroticism
Neuroticism refers to a tendency towards negative emotions and includes experiences like
feeling anxious and depressed. The opposite of neuroticism is emotional stability.
Key facets of neuroticism include:
 Anxiety and tension
 Angry hostility and irritability,
 Depression,
 Self-consciousness and shyness,
 Being impulsive and moody
 Lack of self-confidence
The acronym OCEAN is a handy device for the traits specified by the Big Five.
Goldberg, L. R. (1990). An alternative “description of personality”: The big-five factor
structure. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 59, 1216–1229. Keep in mind that
these five are not necessarily the only traits out there. There are other, specific traits
that represent dimensions not captured by the Big Five. Still, understanding the main
five traits gives us a good start for describing personality. 

4. What are Values

Values

Values refer to stable life goals that people have, reflecting what is most important to
them. Values are established throughout one’s life as a result of the accumulating life
experiences and tend to be relatively stable.Lusk, E. J., & Oliver, B. L. (1974). Research
Notes. American manager’s personal value systems-revisited. Academy of Management
Journal, 17(3), 549–554; Rokeach, M. (1973). The nature of human values. New York:
Free Press. 

The values that are important to people tend to affect the types of decisions they make,
how they perceive their environment, and their actual behaviors. Moreover, people are
more likely to accept job offers when the company possesses the values people care
about.Judge, T. A., & Bretz, R. D. (1992). Effects of work values on job choice
decisions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 77, 261–271; Ravlin, E. C., & Meglino, B. M.
(1987). Effect of values on perception and decision making: A study of alternative work
values measures. Journal of Applied Psychology, 72, 666–673. Value attainment is one
reason why people stay in a company, and when an organization does not help them
attain their values, they are more likely to decide to leave if they are dissatisfied with
the job itself.George, J. M., & Jones, G. R. (1996). The experience of work and turnover
intentions: Interactive effects of value attainment, job satisfaction, and positive
mood. Journal of Applied Psychology, 81, 318–325.

What are the values people care about? There are many typologies of values. One of the
most established surveys to assess individual values is the Rokeach Value
Survey.Rokeach, M. (1973). The nature of human values. New York: The Free Press. This
survey lists 18 terminal and 18 instrumental values in alphabetical order. Terminal
values refer to end states people desire in life, such as leading a prosperous life and a
world at peace. Instrumental values deal with views on acceptable modes of conduct,
such as being honest and ethical, and being ambitious.

According to Rokeach, values are arranged in hierarchical fashion. In other words, an

accurate way of assessing someone’s values is to ask them to rank the 36 values in order
of importance. By comparing these values, people develop a sense of which value can
be sacrificed to achieve the other, and the individual priority of each value emerges.

5. Self Esteem

Self-esteem is the degree to which a person has overall positive feelings about his or
herself. People with high self-esteem view themselves in a positive light, are confident,
and respect themselves. On the other hand, people with low self-esteem experience
high levels of self-doubt and question their self-worth. High self-esteem is related to
higher levels of satisfaction with one’s job and higher levels of performance on the
job.Judge, T. A., & Bono, J. E. (2001). Relationship of core self-evaluations traits—self
esteem, generalized self efficacy, locus of control, and emotional stability—with job
satisfaction and job performance: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86,
80–92. People with low self-esteem are attracted to situations in which they will be
relatively invisible, such as large companies.Turban, D. B., & Keon, T. L. (1993).
Organizational attractiveness: An interactionist perspective. Journal of Applied
Psychology, 78, 184–193. Managing employees with low self-esteem may be challenging
at times, because negative feedback given with the intention to improve performance
may be viewed as a judgment on their worth as an employee. Therefore, effectively
managing employees with relatively low self-esteem requires tact and providing lots of
positive feedback when discussing performance incidents.

6. What is a trait ?
  A distinguishing feature, as of a person's character
 A distinguishing characteristic or quality, especially of one's personal nature
 Component of a person's behavior that is assumed to serve as an explanation of
his or her enduring personal characteristics

7. What are the five main Traits & Characteristics of an Effective Organization:

(i) Corporate Responsibility

(ii) Clear Direction
(iii) Open Communication
(iv) Member Empowerment
(v) Teamwork

8. What are the main Fundamental Traits of Organizational Effectiveness ?

(a) Everyone has a good idea of the decision and actions for which he or she is
responsible.
(b) Important information about the competitive environment gets to
headquarters quickly.
(c) Once made, decisions are rarely second-guessed
(d) Information flows freely across organizational boundaries.
(e) Field and line employees usually have the information they need to
understand the bottom-line impact of their day-to-day choices.

9. Perception

Perception may be defined as the process with which individuals detect and

interpret environmental stimuli. What makes human perception so interesting
is that we do not solely respond to the stimuli in our environment. We go
beyond the information that is present in our environment, pay selective
attention to some aspects of the environment, and ignore other elements that
may be immediately apparent to other people. Our perception of the
environment is not entirely rational. For example, have you ever noticed that
while glancing at a newspaper or a news Web site, information that is
interesting or important to you jumps out of the page and catches your eye? If
you are a sports fan, while scrolling down the pages you may immediately see
a news item describing the latest success of your team. If you are the parent of
a picky eater, an advice column on toddler feeding may be the first thing you
see when looking at the page. So what we see in the environment is a function
of what we value, our needs, our fears, and our emotions.Higgins, E. T., &
Bargh, J. A. (1987). Social cognition and social perception.

10. Social Perception

How we perceive other people in our environment is also shaped by our values,
emotions, feelings, and personality. Moreover, how we perceive others will shape our
behavior, which in turn will shape the behavior of the person we are interacting with.
One of the factors biasing our perception is stereotypes. Stereotypes are generalizations
based on group characteristics. For example, believing that women are more
cooperative than men, or men are more assertive than women, is a stereotype.
Stereotypes may be positive, negative, or neutral. Human beings have a natural
tendency to categorize the information around them to make sense of their
environment. What makes stereotypes potentially discriminatory and a perceptual bias
is the tendency to generalize from a group to a particular individual. If the belief that
men are more assertive than women leads to choosing a man over an equally (or
potentially more) qualified female candidate for a position, the decision will be biased,
potentially illegal, and unfair.

11. Individual Differences and Ethics

Our values and personality influence how ethical we behave. Situational factors,
rewards, and punishments following unethical choices as well as a company’s culture
are extremely important, but the role of personality and personal values should not be
ignored. Research reveals that people who have an economic value orientation, that is,
those who value acquiring money and wealth, tend to make more unethical choices. In
terms of personality, employees with external locus of control were found to make
more unethical choices.Hegarty, W. H., & Sims, H. P. (1978). Some determinants of
unethical decision behavior: An experiment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 63, 451–457;
Hegarty, W. H., & Sims, H. P. (1979). Organizational philosophy, policies, and objectives
related to unethical decision behavior: A laboratory experiment. Journal of Applied
Psychology, 64, 331–338; Trevino, L. K., & Youngblood, S. A. (1990). Bad apples in bad
barrels: A causal analysis of ethical decision-making behavior. Journal of Applied
Psychology, 75, 378–385.
Our perceptual processes are clear influences on whether or not we behave ethically
and how we respond to other people’s unethical behaviors. It seems that self-
enhancement bias operates for our ethical decisions as well: We tend to overestimate
how ethical we are in general. Our self-ratings of ethics tend to be higher than how
other people rate us. This belief can create a glaring problem: If we think that we are
more ethical than we are, we will have little motivation to improve. Therefore,
understanding how other people perceive our actions is important to getting a better
understanding of ourselves.
How we respond to unethical behavior of others will, to a large extent, depend on the
attributions we make. If we attribute responsibility to the person in question, we are
more likely to punish that person. In a study on sexual harassment that occurred after a
workplace romance turned sour, results showed that if we attribute responsibility to the
victim, we are less likely to punish the harasser.Pierce, C. A., Broberg, B. J., McClure, J.
R., & Aguinis, H. (2004). Responding to sexual harassment complaints: Effects of a
dissolved workplace romance on decision-making standards. Organizational Behavior
and Human Decision Processes, 95, 66–82. Therefore, how we make attributions in a
given situation will determine how we respond to others’ actions, including their
unethical behaviors.

12. The two approaches in Personality Studies are :

The Nomothetic Approach – is a measurable and specific perspective that looks at

identification of traits and personality as a collection of characteristics

The Idiographic Approach – is a holistic and dynamic perspective which insists that
managers take into account a whole understanding of the individual at work.

13. Emphasis of Idiographic and Nomothetic Theoretical Approches ?

 Idiographic approaches emphasise the development of the individual and of

individual’s view of themselves – their self concept.
 Supporters of idiographic approaches are critical of the nomothetic approach
that attempts to categorise individuals on the basis of group data.

14. In which situations can Personality theories be applied at the work place? The
following are some examples: -

 Recruitment and Selection

 Personal Development and Team-working
 Personality and Social Expectations

Part 2
1. INTRODUCTION

In organizations, attitudes are important because they affect job behaviors. If employees
believe that supervisors, auditors, bosses engineers are all in a conspiracy (scheme) to
make the employee work harder for the same or less money, then it makes sense to try
and understand how attitudes were formed, their relationship to actual job behavior
and how they can be made more favorable.

2. MEANING AND CONCEPT OF ATTITUDES

Attitudes can be defined as an individual’s feelings about or inclinations towards other

persons, objects, events, or activities. Attitudes encompass such affective feelings as
likes and dislikes, and satisfactions and dissatisfactions. Our needs, past experiences,
self concept, and personality shape the beliefs, feelings, and opinion we hold towards
the perceived world. Once we have formed our likes and dislikes, we generally cling on
to them and find it difficult to change our attitudes, unless we make a conscious and
determined effort to do so. An interesting phenomenon is that our values shape our
attitudes.

Traditionally, behavioral scientists have divided attitudes into two major groups:

i) those that are cognitive (for example, beliefs or expectations about cause-effect
relationships between events) i.e. an employee’s belief that superior job performance
would be rewarded by praise from a superior. ii) those that are evaluative (for example,
liking or disliking for event). i.e. the degree to which he or she would like or value such
praise.

3. COMPONENTS OF ATTITUDES

There are three components of attitudes such as Cognitive (Thinking), Affective (Feeling)
and Conotive (Behavioral).

i) Cognitive Component (thinking)

Cognitive component deals with thinking, evaluation, comparison, rational, logical issues
with respect to the targeted object. This will facilitate to form a strong belief or further
strengthen the belief system towards various objects.

By observing and analyzing the various features of Sony lap top computer, you may
form a very good opinion stating that Sony laptop is best among others. Such an
evaluation is based on the cognitive component of attitudes.
ii) Affective Component (feeling)

Affective component deals with feelings or emotional issues of the targeted objects.

I do not like Ramesh as he had hunted down a rare species of deer’s in the forest. As
deers are harmless creatures, I love them very much. The disliking of Ramesh is due to
emotional aspects or personal feelings towards the targeted object.

iii) Behavioral Components (conotive)

This refers to intention to behave in a certain way towards someone or something. As I

do not like rock music, I am not interested to attend the concert. The action of not
attending is due to a part of disliking of rock music concert. All these three components
collectively act together for the formation of attitudes.

4. SOURCES OF ATTITUDES

Attitudes are formed through various sources. We acquire or learn from parents,
teachers, peer group members.

i) Family Members

Parents or siblings influence strongly to form favorable or unfavorable attitudes towards

various objects.

The child rearing practices, the types of reinforcement received from parents or siblings
will help mould certain attitudes such as strong preference towards color, religious faith,
choices of food habits etc which would be stable and long lasting over a period of time.

ii) Reference Group

People tend to form a strong attitude based on the influence of powerful personalities
whom they admire a lot.

For example, celebrities, charismatic political or religious leaders significantly influence

either to strengthen the existing attitudes or form new attitudes. Marketing managers
rely on celebrity figures to endorse the products to subtly influence their admirers to
buy the products.

iii) Peer Group influence

Friends or colleagues at work place will have a strong influence on the formation of
certain attitudes or belief system due to pressure to conforming to their norms,
standards, values etc. People need people. The acceptance or reassurance of group
members will strongly reinforce the chosen attitudes and behavior.

iv) Socialization and Learning process

The way in which people are brought up in family, the do’s and dont’s laid down by the
parents, educational and educational institutions, the rules and regulations of work
place, the types of rituals, cultures, norms of society etc will strongly influence the
formation of attitudes.

5. TYPES OF ATTITUDES

There are three types of job-related attitudes such as job satisfaction, job involvement,
and organizational commitment.

i) Job Satisfaction

The term job satisfaction refers to an individual’s general attitudes towards their job.
The likes or dislikes differ from individual to individual with respect to job contextual
factors or job content factors. Some people give much importance to job contextual
factors like salary, security, supervision, supportive colleagues, company policy, working
conditions, perquisites, promotions, equitable rewards etc.

A person with a positive attitude is likely to have more job satisfaction, while a person
with negative attitude is likely to have job dissatisfaction towards his or her job. The
following are some of the major determinants of job satisfaction – mentally challenging
work, equitable rewards, supportive working conditions, supportive fellow employees,
personality-job fit, company policies and programs.

ii) Job Involvement

This refers to the extent to which a person identifies psychologically with her or his job.
The person feels that the job is more meaningful and it utilizes one’s talent and skills to
the fullest extent. There is a perfect harmony between the types of skills a person
possesses and the work content. The individual experiences as if the whole work is
being carried out by him having full control over everything related to the work. Due to
this perception, performance level will be increasing significantly and enhance the
overall self worth. Employees with a high level of job involvement strongly identify with
and really care about the kind of work they do in their job. Job involvement measures
the degree to which a person identifies psychologically with her or his job and considers
her or his perceived performance level important to her or his self-worth. Employees
with a high level of job involvement strongly identify with and really care about the kind
of work they do in their job. There is high level of relationship between job involvement
and fewer absences and lower resignation rates of an individual.

iii) Organizational Commitment

It refers to the extent to which an employee identifies with a particular organization and
its goals, and wishes to maintain membership in the organization. The person shows
much of association and loyalty to their organization. People, who feel a perfect
congruence between his values, beliefs, attitudes, and the organizational policies,
practices, programs and its overall work culture, are likely to have more commitment
than those who have incongruence.

Organizational commitment can also be enhanced through organizational

communication process, team briefing, supportive leadership etc. A good fit between
the personality and the job, an internal locus of control, positive realistic expectations,
opportunities for career advancement etc are the good predictors of organizational
commitment.