CH 04

Organizational
Behavior, 9/E
Schermerhorn, Hunt, and
Osborn
Prepared by
Michael K. McCuddy
Valparaiso University
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Chapter 4 Study Questions
 What is personality?
 How do personalities differ?
 What are value and attitude differences
among individuals, and why are they
important?
 What are individual differences and how
are they related to workforce diversity?
Organizational Behavior: Chapter 4 2
Study Question 1: What is personality?
 Personality.
– The overall profile or combination of
characteristics that capture the unique nature
of a person as that person reacts and interacts
with others.
– Combines a set of physical and mental
characteristics that reflect how a person looks,
thinks, acts, and feels.
– Predictable relationships are expected between
people’s personalities and their behaviors.

 Heredity and environment.
– Heredity sets the limits on the development of
personality characteristics.
– Environment determines development within these
limits.
– About a 50-50 heredity-environment split.
– Cultural values and norms play a substantial role in
the development of personality.
– Social factors include family life, religion, and many
kinds of formal and informal groups.
– Situational factors reflect the opportunities or
constraints imposed by the operational context.

 Personality and the self-concept.
– Personality dynamics.
• The ways in which an individual integrates and
organizes social traits, values and motives,
personal conceptions, and emotional adjustments.
– Self-concept.
• The view individuals have of themselves as
physical, social, and spiritual or moral beings.
• Self-esteem.
• Self-efficacy.

Study Question 2: How do
personalities differ?
 “Big Five” personality dimensions.
– Extraversion
• Being outgoing, sociable, assertive.
– Agreeableness.
• Being good-natured, trusting, cooperative.
– Conscientiousness.
• Being responsible, dependable, persistent.
– Emotional stability.
• Being unworried, secure, relaxed.
– Openness to experience.
• Being imaginative, curious, broad-minded.

 Social traits.
– Surface-level traits that reflect the way a
person appears to others when interacting in
various social settings.
– An important social trait is problem-solving
style.
• The way a person goes about gathering and
evaluating information in solving problems and
making decisions.
 Information gathering in problem solving.

– Getting and organizing data for use.
– Sensation-type individuals prefer routine and
order and emphasize well-defined details in
gathering information.
– Intuitive-type individuals like new problems
and dislike routine.

 Information evaluation in problem solving.
– Making judgments about how to deal with
information once it has been collected.
– Feeling-type individuals are oriented toward
conformity and try to accommodate
themselves to other people.
– Thinking-type individuals use reason and
intellect to deal with problems and downplay
emotions.

 Personal conception traits.

– The way individuals tend to think about their
social and physical settings as well as their
major beliefs and personal orientation.
– Key traits.
• Locus of control.
• Authoritarianism/dogmatism.
• Machiavellianism.
• Self-monitoring.

 Locus of control.
– The extent to which a person feels able to
control his/her own life.
– Externals.
• More extraverted in their interpersonal
relationships and more oriented toward the world
around them.
– Internals.
• More introverted and more oriented towards their
own feelings and ideas.

Study Question 2: How do personalities differ?

 Authoritarianism/dogmatism.
– Authoritarianism.
• Tendency to adhere rigidly to conventional values
and to obey recognized authority.
– Dogmatism.
• Tendency to view the world as a threatening place.

 People with a high-Machiavellian personality:
– Approach situations logically and
thoughtfully.
– Are capable of lying to achieve personal goals.
– Are rarely swayed by loyalty, friendships, past
promises, or others’ opinions.
– Are skilled at influencing others.
– Try to exploit loosely structured situations.
– Perform in a perfunctory or detached manner
in highly structured situations.
 People with a low-Machiavellian personality:

– Accept direction imposed by others in loosely
structured situations.
– Work hard to do well in highly structured
situations.
– Are strongly guided by ethical considerations.
– Are unlikely to lie or cheat.

 Self-monitoring.
– A person’s ability to adjust his/her behavior to
external situational factors.
– High self-monitors.
• Sensitive to external cues.
• Behave differently in different situations.
– Low self-monitors.
• Not sensitive to external cues.
• Not able to disguise their behaviors.
 Emotional adjustment traits.
– How much an individual experiences distress
or displays unacceptable acts.
– Type A orientation.
• Characterized by impatience, desire for
achievement, and perfectionism.
– Type B orientation.
• Characterized as more easygoing and less
competitive in relation to daily events.
Study Question 3: What are value and attitude
differences among individuals, and why are they
important?
 Values.
– Broad preferences concerning appropriate
courses of action or outcomes.
– Values influence behavior and attitudes.
– Parents, friends, teachers, and external
reference groups can influence individual
values.
– Values develop as a product of learning and
experiences.
important?
Pick up Figure 4.5 from the textbook.

important?
 Gordon Allport’s values categories.

– Theoretical values.
– Economic values.
– Aesthetic values.
– Social values.
– Political values.
– Religious values.

important?
 Maglino’s categories of workplace values.

– Achievement.
– Helping and concern for others.
– Honesty.
– Fairness.

important?
 Attitudes.
– Are influenced by values and are acquired
from the same sources as values.
– Are more specific and less stable than values.
– An attitude is a predisposition to respond in a
positive or negative way to someone or
something in one’s environment.
important?

important?
 The attitude-behavior relationship is

stronger when:
– Attitudes and behaviors are more specific.
– There is freedom to carry out the behavioral
intent.
– The person has experience with the attitude.

important?
 Attitudes and cognitive consistency.

– Cognitive dissonance.
• Describes a state of inconsistency between an
individual’s attitudes and his or her behavior.
– Cognitive dissonance can be reduced by:
• Changing the underlying attitude.
• Changing future behavior.
• Developing new ways of explaining or
rationalizing the inconsistency.
important?
 Attitudes and cognitive consistency (cont.).

– Dissonance reduction choices are influenced
by:
• The degree of control a person has over the
situation.
• The magnitude of the rewards involved.

Study Question 4: What are individual differences
and how are they related to workforce diversity?
 Workforce diversity.
– The presence of individual human
characteristics that make people different
from one another.
 Challenge of workforce diversity.
– Respecting individuals’ perspectives and
contributions and promoting a shared sense
of organizational vision and identity.
 As workforce diversity increases, the
possibility of stereotyping and

discrimination increases.
– Demographic characteristics may serve as the
basis for stereotypes.

 Equal employment opportunity.

– Nondiscriminatory employment decisions.
• No intent to exclude or disadvantage legally
protected groups.
– Affirmative action.
• Remedial actions for proven discrimination or
statistical imbalance in workforce.

 Demographic characteristics.
– The background characteristics that help shape what a
person becomes.
 Important demographic characteristics for the
workplace.
– Gender.
– Age.
– Able-bodiedness.
– Race.
– Ethnicity.
 Gender.
– No consistent differences between men and
women in:
• Problem-solving abilities.
• Analytical skills.
• Competitive drive.
• Motivation.
• Learning ability.
• Sociability.

 Gender (cont.).
– As compared to men, women:
• Are more conforming.
• Have lower expectations of success.
• Have higher absenteeism.
• Are more democratic as leaders.

 Age.
– Aging workforce.
– Older workers are more susceptible to stereotyping.
– Age discrimination lawsuits are increasingly common
in the United States.
– Small businesses tend to value older workers.
– Experienced workers, who are usually older, tend to
perform well, be absent less, and have low turnover.
 Able-bodiedness.
– Despite evidence of effective job performance,
most disabled persons are unemployed.
– Most disabled persons want to work.
– More firms are likely to hire disabled workers

in the future.
 Racial and ethnic groups.

– African Americans, Asian Americans, and
Hispanic Americans make up an ever-
increasing percentage of the American
workforce.
– Potential for stereotypes and discrimination
can adversely affect career opportunities.
– Race cannot be a BFOQ.

 Important lessons regarding demographic

characteristics.
– Respect and deal with the needs and concerns
of people with different demographics.
– Avoid linking demographics to stereotypes.
– Demography is not a good indicator of
individual-job fits.
 Aptitude.
– A person’s capability of learning something.
 Ability.
– A person’s existing capacity to perform the
various tasks needed for a given job.
– Includes relevant knowledge and skills.

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Organizational

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 4 4

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 4 6

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 4 7

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 4 8

 Information gathering in problem solving.

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 4 10

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 4 12

 Personal conception traits.

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 4 13

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 4 14

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 4 15

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 4 16

 People with a low-Machiavellian personality:

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 4 18

Pick up Figure 4.5 from the textbook.

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 4 22

 Gordon Allport’s values categories.

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 4 23

 Maglino’s categories of workplace values.

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 4 24

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 4 26

 The attitude-behavior relationship is

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 4 27

 Attitudes and cognitive consistency.

 Attitudes and cognitive consistency (cont.).

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 4 29

 As workforce diversity increases, the

possibility of stereotyping and

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 4 31

 Equal employment opportunity.

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 4 32

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 4 34

• Have lower expectations of success.

• Have higher absenteeism.

• Are more democratic as leaders.

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 4 35

– More firms are likely to hire disabled workers

 Racial and ethnic groups.

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 4 38

 Important lessons regarding demographic

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 4 40

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 4 41

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