CHAPTER 3

Individual Differences and

Emotions

Chapter 3 | Slide 1
 INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES AND EMOTIONS
3 How Does Who I Am Affect My
Performance?

3.1 The Differences Matter

3.2 Intelligences: There is More to the Story Than IQ
3.3 Personality, OB, and My Effectiveness
3.4 Core Self-Evaluations: How My Self-Esteem, Self-Efficacy, Locus of
Control, and Emotional Stability Affect My Performance
3.5 The Value of Being Emotionally Intelligent
3.6 Understand Emotions to Influence Performance

Chapter 3 | Slide 2
 The Differences Matter

What Are Individual Differences (IDs)?

• Broad category used to collectively describe
the vast number of attributes that describe a
person

Chapter 3 | Slide 3
 The Differences Matter

Applying Knowledge about IDs

• Some differences are relatively stable over time and
across situations and are difficult to change
• Other differences are relatively flexible

Chapter 3 | Slide 4
 The Differences Matter

Implications of IDs for Managers

• Managers have little or no impact on fixed IDs:
– Intelligence
– Personality
• Managers can help employees manage:
– Attitudes
– Emotions
• Managers have more influence on relatively flexible IDs
that influence individual-level work outcomes:
– Performance
– Job satisfaction

Chapter 3 | Slide 5
 Intelligence:
There is More to the Story than IQ
What is Intelligence?
• An individual’s capacity for:
– Constructive thinking
– Reasoning
– Problem solving

Chapter 3 | Slide 6
 Intelligence:
There is More to the Story than IQ
Intelligence Matters…

Chapter 3 | Slide 7
 Intelligence:
There is More to the Story than IQ
Multiple Intelligences (MI)

• Linguistic
• Logical-Mathematical
• Musical
• Bodily-Kinesthetic
• Spatial
• Interpersonal
• Intrapersonal
• Naturalist

Chapter 3 | Slide 8
 Intelligence:
There is More to the Story than IQ
Practical Intelligence
• The ability to solve everyday problems by utilizing
knowledge gained from experience in order to
purposefully adapt to, shape, and select environments

Chapter 3 | Slide 9
 Intelligence:
There is More to the Story than IQ
Implications for Managers
• Identify Intelligences Relevant to the Job
– Select Individuals
– Place Individuals
– Develop Individuals

Chapter 3 | Slide 10
 Personality, OB, and My Effectiveness

What is Personality?
• Combination of stable physical, behavioral, and
mental characteristics that give individuals their
unique identities
• Product of interacting genetic and environmental
influences

Chapter 3 | Slide 11
 Personality, OB, and My Effectiveness

• Big Five Personality Dimensions

• Extraversion
• Agreeableness
• Conscientiousness
• Emotional Stability
• Openness to Experience

Chapter 3 | Slide 12
 Personality, OB, and My Effectiveness

• Extraversion - outgoing, sociable, assertive

• Agreeableness – good natured, cooperative, soft
hearted
• Conscientiousness – dependable, responsible,
persistent
• Emotional Stability – relaxed, secure, unworried
• Openness to Experience – imaginative, curious,
broad-minded

Chapter 3 | Slide 13
 Personality, OB, and My Effectiveness

What is a Proactive Personality?

• Someone who is relatively unconstrained by
situational forces and who affects environmental
change

• Identifies Opportunities
• Acts on Opportunities
• Takes Action
• Perseveres Until
Meaningful Change Occurs

Chapter 3 | Slide 14
 Personality, OB, and My Effectiveness

Proactive Managers and Employees

Increased
Level of Job
Proactive Proactive Performance,
Manager Employee Satisfaction,
and
Commitment

Chapter 3 | Slide 15
 Personality, OB, and My Effectiveness

Personality Traits and Performance

• Conscientiousness has the strongest effect on job
performance and job satisfaction
• Extraversion is a stronger predictor of job
performance than agreeableness
• Employees with proactive personalities are more likely
to be engaged

Chapter 3 | Slide 16
 Personality, OB, and My Effectiveness

Personality Testing in the Workplace

• Personality testing is commonplace
• The typical personality test is not a valid predictor of
job success due to:
― Test takers do not describe themselves accurately
― Tests are bought off the shelf and given by untrained
employees
― Personality tests are meant to measure personality, not
what individual differences are needed to perform a
particular job

Chapter 3 | Slide 17
 Core Self-Evaluations:
How My Self-Efficacy, Self-Esteem, Locus of Control, and
Emotional Stability Affect My Performance

What are Core Self-Evaluations (CSEs)?

• A broad personality trait comprised of four narrow
and positive individual traits:
– Generalized self-efficacy
– Self esteem
– Locus of control
– Emotional stability

Chapter 3 | Slide 18
 Core Self-Evaluations:
How My Self-Efficacy, Self-Esteem, Locus of Control, and
Emotional Stability Affect My Performance

What is Self-Efficacy?
• A person’s belief about his or her chances of
successfully accomplishing a specific task
• Self-efficacy can be developed

Chapter 3 | Slide 19
 Core Self-Evaluations:
How My Self-Efficacy, Self-Esteem, Locus of Control, and
Emotional Stability Affect My Performance
Mechanisms of Self-Efficacy

Chapter 3 | Slide 20
 Core Self-Evaluations:
How My Self-Efficacy, Self-Esteem, Locus of Control, and
Emotional Stability Affect My Performance

What is Self-Esteem?
• General belief about self-worth

Personal Achievement
and Praise Raise Self-
Esteem

Prolonged
Unemployment and
Destructive Feedback
Lower Self-Esteem

Chapter 3 | Slide 21
 Core Self-Evaluations:
How My Self-Efficacy, Self-Esteem, Locus of Control, and
Emotional Stability Affect My Performance

Practical Considerations Regarding Self-Esteem

• Deemphasize Self-Esteem When Doing
Business in Collectivist Cultures
• Self-Esteem Remains Fairly Stable Over the
Course of a Person’s Life
• Differences Between Men and Women are
Small

Chapter 3 | Slide 22
 Core Self-Evaluations:
How My Self-Efficacy, Self-Esteem, Locus of Control, and
Emotional Stability Affect My Performance

What is Locus of Control?

• Relatively stable personality characteristic that
describes how much personal responsibility
someone takes for their behavior and its
consequences

Chapter 3 | Slide 23
 Core Self-Evaluations:
How My Self-Efficacy, Self-Esteem, Locus of Control, and
Emotional Stability Affect My Performance

Locus of Control – Internal or External?

Why Does
I Make Things
Everything
Happen
Happen To Me?
Internal External
Look What I Can Locus of Locus of Why Bother?
Do!
Control Control
There is Nothing
I Can Determine
I Can Do About
My Future
My Future

You Make Things Happen Things Happen To You

Chapter 3 | Slide 24
 Core Self-Evaluations:
How My Self-Efficacy, Self-Esteem, Locus of Control, and
Emotional Stability Affect My Performance

What is Emotional Stability?

Tend to be
Relaxed,
Secure,
Individuals Have Higher
Unworried,
With High Job
Less Likely to
Levels of Performance,
Experience
Emotional More OCB,
Negative
Stability Fewer CWBs
Emotions
Under
Pressure

Chapter 3 | Slide 25
 Core Self-Evaluations:
How My Self-Efficacy, Self-Esteem, Locus of Control, and
Emotional Stability Affect My Performance

Practical Considerations Regarding CSEs

• Is more always better?
– Effect on OCBs – as emotional stability increases OCBs
decline
– Effect on CWBs – there is a tipping point when stress
becomes too much and emotional stability does not protect
employees from committing CWBs
– Emotional stability is an asset but it only goes so far
• The whole of CSE is greater than its parts
• CSEs can be used for:
– Employee selection
– Training

Chapter 3 | Slide 26
 The Value of Being Emotionally Intelligent

What is Emotional Intelligence (EI)?

• Ability to monitor one’s own emotions and those of
others, to discriminate among them, and to use this
information to guide one’s thinking and actions

Chapter 3 | Slide 27
 The Value of Being Emotionally Intelligent

Key Components of Emotional Intelligence (EI)

Personal Social
Competence Competence
Benefits/Drawbacks of EI:
• Self- • Social • Better Social
Awareness Awareness Relationships
• Self- • Relationship • Better Well-Being
Management Management • Increased Satisfaction
• No Clear Link to
Improved Job
Performance
• Research Remains
Unclear

Chapter 3 | Slide 28
Understand Emotions to Influence Performance

What are Emotions?

• Complex, relatively brief responses aimed at a
particular target:
– Person
– Information
– Experience
– Event
– Nonevent
• Emotions change psychological and /or physiological
states

Chapter 3 | Slide 29
Understand Emotions to Influence Performance

Emotions as Reactions to Goal Achievement

Negativ
Positive Mixed
e

Chapter 3 | Slide 30
Understand Emotions to Influence Performance

Past Vs. Future Characteristic of Emotions

• People are angry about what happened or

Anger did not happen in the past

• Anger is a “backward-looking” or
retrospective emotion

• People are afraid of things that might

Fear happen in the future

• Fear is a “forward-looking” or prospective
emotion

Knowing this, managers can guide

their own actions as to how they
communicate with employees
knowing their reactions to events
Chapter 3 | Slide 31
Understand Emotions to Influence Performance

Managing Negative Emotions at Work

• Organizations have emotion display norms, or rules
that dictate which types of emotions are expected
and appropriate for their members to show

Chapter 3 | Slide 32
 If you’re feeling… then you might want to
(see Table 3.7)
Fearful – step back and see the situation objectively
Rejected – do you actually respect the opinion of the
person rejecting you
Angry – Get some distance from the situation to avoid
blowing your top in the heat of the moment
Frustrated – Reassess your plan and behavior
Inadequate – See discussion of self-efficacy
Stressed – Consider time constraints; Prioritize; Emails

Chapter 3 | Slide 33
 Deliberate Practice

Success = 10,000 hours of deliberate practice

• Designed to improve performance
• Can be repeated a lot
• Provides feedback on a regular basis
• Is highly demanding mentally
• Isn’t much fun (/ focus on things we aren’t good at)

Chapter 3 | Slide 34
 Integrative Framework for
3 Understanding and Applying OB

Chapter 3 | Slide 35