Organizational Behaviors
Chapter Two-Individual differences: personality and ability
Key Words:
 Individual differences: the ways in which people differ from each
other
 Personality: the pattern of relatively enduring ways that a person
feels, thinks, and behaves
 Nature: biological heritage, genetic makeup
 Nurture: life experiences
 Attraction-selection-attrition framework: the idea that an
organization attracts and selects individuals with similar
personalities and loses individuals with other types of personalities
 Trait: a specific component of personality
 Extraversion: the tendency to experience positive emotional states
and feel good about oneself and the world around one; also called
positive affectivity
 Neuroticism: the tendency to experience negative emotional states
and view oneself and the world around one negatively; also called
negative affectivity
 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
 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
 Self-monitoring: the extent to which people try to control the way
they present themselves to others
 Self-esteem: the extent to which people have pride in themselves and
their capabilities
 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
 Need for achievement: the desire to perform challenging tasks well
and to meet ones own high standards
 Need for affiliation: the desire to establish and maintain good
relationship with others
 Need for power: the desire to extent emotional and behavior control or
influences over others
 Ability: the mental or physical capacity to do something
 Emotional intelligence: the ability to understand and mange ones
own feelings and emotions and the feelings and emotions of other
people
Key concepts:
 Managers need to understand individual difference because they have
an impact on the feelings, thoughts, and behaviors of each member of
an organization
 Individual differences include personality differences and differences in
ability
 Personality develops over time responding to the experiences people
have as children and as adults
 Personality is useful for explain and predicting how employees feel,
think, and behave on the job
o In organizations in which situations pressures on employees
behaviors are strong, personality may not be a good
predictors of on-the job behavior
 Effective managers recognize that the various situations and
personality types interact to determine feelings, thoughts, attitudes,
and behaviors at work
 Overtime, ASA processes may result in these organizations being
composing or large numbers of the same type of people. The nature of
the organization influences employees feelings only making their
personalities, behaviors and beliefs stronger
 The hierarchical organization of personality
o Extraversion: positive emotions, gregariousness, warmth
o Neuroticism: anxiety, self-consciousness, vulnerability
o Agreeableness: trust, straightforwardness, tendermindedness
o Conscientiousness: competence, order, self-discipline
o Openness to experience: fantasy, actions, ideas
 Research suggests that the big five traits are important for
understanding work-related attitudes and behaviors and thus our
understand of organizational behavior
 People differ in how much control they believe they have over
situations they are in and over what happens to them
 Organizationally relevant personality traits
o Locus of control
o Self-monitoring
o Self-esteem
o Type A and Type B personality
o Need for achievement
o Need for affiliations
o Need for power
 When looking at individual differences and the way they affect the
attitudes and behaviors of employees, we much look not only at each
employee’s personality but also at the abilities, aptitudes, and skills
the employee possesses.
 General intelligence
o Verbal ability
o Numerical ability
o Reasoning ability
o Deductive ability
o Ability to see relationships
o Ability to remember
o Spatial ability
o Perceptual ability
 Nature: biological heritage  cognitive and physical abilities 
nurture: education, practice, and exercise
 The management of ability in organizations
o Selection: mangers can control ability by selecting
individuals who have the abilities they need
o Placement: once individuals are selected and become part of
an organization, managers must accurately match each
employee to a job that will capitalize on his or her abilities
o Training: training related to the nurture aspects of ability
and can be effective means of enhancing employees abilities