INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES:

PERSONALITY AND ABILITY

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Personality
• Personality:
Personality The pattern of relatively
enduring ways in which a person feels,
thinks, and behaves.
– Develops over a person’s lifetime
– Generally stable in the context of work
– Can influence career choice, job satisfaction,
stress, leadership, and even performance
• Trait:
Trait A specific component of personality
that describes particular tendencies a
person has to feel, think, and act in
certain ways.
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Advice to Managers
• Acknowledge and appreciate that workers’ feelings, thoughts,
attitudes, and behaviors are partly determined by their
personalities, which are difficult to change. Realize that you
might need to adjust your own feelings and actions to work
effectively with others.
• When you are trying to understand why workers have certain
attitudes and behave in certain ways, remember that attitudes
and behaviors are determined by the interaction of an
individual’s personality and the situation in which the individual
works.
• When feasible, structure an individual’s work situation to fit his
or her personality. A good match is likely to result in positive
attitudes and behaviors.
• Encourage an acceptance and appreciation of the diverse
personalities in your organization.
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The Big Five Model of Personality

• Extroversion: The tendency to experience positive
emotional states and feel good about oneself and the
world around.
• Neuroticism: The tendency to experience negative
emotional states and view oneself and the world around
negatively.
• Agreeableness: The tendency to get along well with
others.
• Conscientiousness: The extent to which a person is
careful, scrupulous, and persevering.
• Openness to Experience: The extent to which a person is
original, has broad interests, and is willing to take risks.
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Locus of Control
External Locus of Control:
Describes people who believe
that fate, luck, or outside forces
are responsible for what
happens to them.

Internal Locus of Control:

Describes people who believe
that ability, effort, or their own
actions determine what
happens to them.
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Self-Monitoring

The extent to which

people try to control
the way they present
themselves to others.
– Can be high or low
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Self-Esteem

The extent to which

people have pride in
themselves and their
capabilities.
– Can be high or low
– Not situation specific
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Type A vs. Type B Personality

Type A: A person who
has an intense desire to
achieve, is extremely
competitive, and has a
strong sense of urgency.

Type B: A person who

tends to be easygoing and
relaxed.
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McClelland’s Needs
Need for Achievement: The
desire to perform challenging
tasks well and to meet one’s
own high standards.
Need for Affiliation: The
desire to establish and maintain
good relations with others.
Need for Power: The desire to
exert emotional and behavioral
control or influence over others.
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Advice to Managers
• Realize and accept that some workers are more likely than others to
be positive and enthusiastic because of their personalities. Similarly,
realize and accept that some workers are more likely than others to
complain and experience stress because of their personalities.
• Provide an extra measure of direct supervision to workers who don’t
take the initiative to solve problems on their own and always seem
to blame someone or something else when things go wrong.
• Provide additional encouragement and support to workers with low
self-esteem who tend to belittle themselves and question their
abilities.
• Realize and accept that Type A individuals can be difficult to get
along with and sometimes have a hard time working in teams.
• Let subordinates who seem overly concerned about other people
liking them know that sometimes it is necessary to give honest
feedback and be constructively critical (such as when supervising
others).
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Ability
• The mental or physical capacity to do something.
• Types of ability
– Cognitive ability
– Physical ability
• Motor skill – physically manipulate objects in the
environment
• Physical skill – persons fitness and strength.
– Emotional intelligence – ability to understand and manage
one’s own feelings and emotions and the feelings and emotions
of others.
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Managing Ability in Organizations

• Selection
– Identify tasks to be accomplished
– Identify abilities needed to
accomplish tasks
– Develop accurate measures of
abilities
• Placement
– Match workers to jobs to
capitalize on their abilities
• Training