Chapter Three: Individual Differences at Work
Chapter Synopsis
This chapter introduces the variables that influence individual behavior/performance by focusing on
five major variables: demographic factors, abilities and skills, perception, attitudes, and personality.
Learning Objectives
After completing this chapter, students should be able to:
1. Identify the major individual variables that influence work behavior
2. Explain how organizations can leverage employee diversity
3. Differentiate between abilities and skills
Key Terms
ability—A person’s talent to perform a mental or physical task.
mental ability—Refers to one’s level of intelligence and can be divided into subcategories,
including verbal fluency and comprehension, inductive and deductive reasoning, associative
memory, and spatial orientation.
tacit knowledge—The work-related practical know-how that employees acquire through
observation and direct experience on the job.
attitudes— Mental states of readiness learned and organized through experience.
extroversion—One of the Big Five personality dimensions; it is a trait that indicates a person’s
outgoing, sociable behavior.
emotional stability—One of the Big Five personality dimensions; it is the ability to be calm,
relaxed, and secure.
agreeableness—One of the Big Five personality dimensions; it is the tendency to be courteous,
forgiving, tolerant, trusting, and soft-hearted.
conscientiousness—One of the Big Five personality dimensions; it is the tendency to be dependable,
organized, thorough, and responsible.
openness to experience—One of the Big Five personality dimensions; it reflects the extent to which
an individual is broadminded, creative, curious, and intelligent.
Lecture Outline
The Chapter outline is organized to correspond with the PowerPoint slides.
The chapter title slide may be used as a background to introduce the class.
Learning objectives
Review the chapter learning objectives. These will be reviewed on the last slide of the pack.
Individual Differences Influence Work Behavior
Individual differences impact all areas and aspects of the organization.
There is virtually no area of an organization that is unaffected by individual difference.
Individual Differences in the Workplace
To understand individual differences
Observe and recognize the differences
Study relationships among variables that influence individual behavior
Work behavior is anything a person does in the work environment
Exhibit 3.1 Individual Differences Affect Workplace Behavior
The individual variables presented in Exhibit 3.1 are classified as diversity, abilities, skills,
attitudes, personality, emotions, and perceptions (to be covered in chapter 4). These variables
all impact key work behaviors such as employee productivity, creativity, and performance.
human differences
Population Trends
The workforce is becoming more diverse
Minorities will become the majority of the US population by 2060.
White non-Hispanic will be 50 percent of population
Hispanic or Latino will be 29 percent of population
African-Americans will be 18 percent of population
Asian-Americans will be 9.3 percent of population
Close to one-quarter of Americans will be aged 65 or older by midcentury
Diversity Factors
The six primary (and stable) dimensions include age, ethnicity, gender, physical attributes,
race, and sexual/affectional orientation. Secondary (and changeable) dimensions include
educational background, marital status, religious beliefs, health, and work experience.
important benefits, including 1. Enhanced decision quality. Diverse board members,
executives, managers, and employees bring a wide variety of experiences, frames of reference,
perspectives, professional contacts, and information networks to bear on complex problems. 2.
Better connection with customers. As the U.S. population becomes increasingly diverse, this
means an organization’s customers (as well as other key stakeholders such as vendors,
regulators, investors, etc.) are also becoming more diverse.
Diversity in the Workplace (1 of 2)
Generational diversity: Gen Y or Millennials (those who are in their 20s and younger) are
different in key ways when compared to Gen X (those in their 30s to low 40s) and baby
boomers (those who are in their mid-40s and older). Gen X and baby boomers, as managers,
need to realize that Millennials can be used to leverage their skills at online social networking
Diversity in the Workplace (2 of 2)
What are the implications of diversity differences in the global and domestic workplace? It is
important to understand that even the perception that these differences exist influences the
behavior of men, women, and minorities in the workplace. A male manager, for example, who
assumes a female employee is less committed to the organization because of family
responsibilities is likely—perhaps unconsciously—to behave differently toward her than he
otherwise would. In turn, the female employee’s behavior will likely be influenced—again,
perhaps unconsciously—by the manager’s behavior.
Abilities and Skills (1 of )
skills.
Abilities and Skills (2 of 4)
When selecting candidates for a particular position, one of the better predictors of training
proficiency and job success is mental ability .Often referred to as intelligence, mental ability
can be divided into several subcategories: verbal fluency and comprehension, inductive and
deductive reasoning, associative memory, and spatial orientation. One of the more popular
cognitive ability tests is the Wonderlic Personnel Test.
Abilities and Skills (3 of 4)
observation and direct experience. By gaining hands-on work experience, successful
employees learn the ins and outs of their jobs, the norms of their work teams, and the values of
Chapter 03 – Individual Differences at Work
the organizational culture.
Abilities and Skills (4 of 4)
According to Robert J. Sternberg, people who develop and use tacit knowledge will increase
their chances of success within organizations. He believes that practically intelligent leaders
and managers tend to:
•Capitalize on their own strengths and overcome their weaknesses.
•Realize they are not good at everything.
Attitudes
An attitude is a mental state of readiness learned and organized through experience, exerting a
specific influence on a person’s response to people, objects, and situations with which it is
related. Each person has attitudes on numerous topics.
Attitudes: Implications for the Manager
attempt to account for the formation and change of attitudes.
Components of Attitudes
One such theory proposes that people “seek a congruence between their beliefs and feelings
toward objects” and suggests that the modification of attitudes depends on changing either the
feelings or the beliefs. The theory proposes that cognition, affect, and behavior determine
attitudes and that attitudes, in turn, determine cognition, affect, and behavior. The Cognitive
component of an attitude consists of the person’s perceptions, opinions, and beliefs. It refers to
the thought processes with special emphasis on rationality and logic. An important element of
cognition is the evaluative beliefs held by a person. Evaluative beliefs are manifested in the
way about a person, group, or situation. The behavioral component of an attitude refers to the
tendency of a person to act in a certain way toward some-one or something. A person may act
ways. Such actions could be measured to examine the behavioral component of attitudes.
Cognitive Dissonance
Sometimes there may be discrepancies between attitudes and behaviors. This kind of
discrepancy is called cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is a mental state of anxiety
that occurs when there is a conflict among an individual’s various cognitions (for example,
attitudes and beliefs) after a decision has been made. The concept of cognitive dissonance is
developed further in Chapter 14.
EXHIBIT 3.2 The Three Components of Attitudes:
Cognition, Affect, and Behavior
and behavior responses. In essence, the stimulus results in the formation of attitudes, which
then lead to one or more responses.
Attitudes and Job Satisfaction (1 of 2)
Job satisfaction is an attitude people have about their jobs. It results from their perception of
their jobs and the degree to which there is a good fit between them as individuals and the
organization.
Attitudes and Job Satisfaction (2 of
A number of factors have been associated with job satisfaction. Among the more important
ones are these:
Job security—the belief that one’s position is relatively secure and continued employment with
the organization is a reasonable expectation
EXHIBIT 3.3 Satisfaction– Performance Relationships: Three Views
One of the most widely debated and controversial issues in the study of job satisfaction is its
relationship to job performance or effectiveness. Three general views of this relationship have
been advanced: (1) job satisfaction causes job performance; (2) job performance causes job
satisfaction; and (3) the job satisfaction–job performance relationship is moderated by other
variables such as rewards. Exhibit 3.3 shows each of these viewpoints. The first two views
participation, have been suggested as affecting the relationship. Most attention, however, has
focused on rewards as influencing the relationship. Generally, this view suggests that the
rewards one receives as a consequence of good performance, and the degree to which these
rewards are perceived as reasonable or equitable, affect both the extent to which satisfaction
job satisfaction.
Personality (1 of2)
The relationship between behavior and personality is perhaps one of the most complex matters
that managers have to understand. When we speak about an individual’s personality, we are
referring to a relatively stable set of feelings and behaviors that have been significantly formed
by genetic and environmental factors.
Personality (2 of 2)
respects and similar to other persons in other respects.
Personality & Behavior in Organizations
In the years following World War II, many researchers and managers believed that measures
of personality could predict job performance and other behaviors at work. It was common for
companies to administer psychological inventories to job applicants the 1960s, however, the
validity or accuracy of such personality tests was questioned. One of the main reasons for this
concern was the fear that such personality tests would lead to the unfair treatment of minority
groups commonly discriminated against in the past. Despite the concern over the potential
indicative of the increasing popularity of personality tests in general.
The Big Five Personality Dimensions (1 of 2)
Literally hundreds of personality dimensions or traits have been identified by psychologists
over the last century. However, within the past 30 years or so, a consensus has emerged that,
for the most part, the human personality can be described by five dimensions or factors. The
Big Five personality dimensions include: extroversion, emotional stability, agreeableness,
conscientiousness, and openness to experience.
Extroversion refers to the tendency to be sociable, gregarious, assertive, talkative, and active.
People high in extroversion tend to enjoy talking and interaction with co-workers, and they
gravitate toward jobs that have a good deal of social interaction
Emotional stability is the tendency to experience positive emotional states, such as feeling
psychologically secure, calm, and relaxed. Anxiety, depression, anger, and embarrassment are
characteristics of low emotional stability.
curiosity, broad-mindedness, creativity, imagination, and intelligence
The Big Five Personality Dimensions (2 of 2)
A review of the personality research suggests that even with the Big Five, not one trait or
group of traits predicts with precision how well someone will perform on a particular project
or in a specific job. In addition to assessing one’s personality, firms should use a variety of
selection tools to try to match a person’s interests and skills with a particular job. These can
among peers.
EXHIBIT 3.4 The Big Five Personality Dimensions: A Summary
As Exhibit 3.4 indicates, research on the Big Five personality dimensions is promising due to
the evidence that shows personality does influence important work behaviors such as job
performance, training proficiency, and job satisfaction. This personality model also has
implications for global management and organizational behavior. The five factors have been
Germany, France, the Netherlands, Norway, and Spain.
Locus of Control
In addition to assessing applicants and employees on certain dimensions of the Big Five,
organizations often choose a few relevant personality traits that they believe are closely linked
to performance in certain jobs and in their organization. We now will look at three such
personality traits of interest to many organizations: locus of control, self-efficacy, and
creativity.
The locus of control of individuals determines the degree to which they believe their behaviors
influence what happens to them.
Self-Efficacy (1 of 2)
Self-efficacy relates to personal beliefs regarding competencies and abilities. Specifically, it
refers to one’s belief in one’s ability to successfully complete a task. Individuals with a high
how generalized across different situations the belief in capability is.
Self-Efficacy (2 of 2)
Beliefs regarding self-efficacy are learned. The most important factor in the development of
positive self-efficacy appears to be past experience. If over a period of time we attempt a task
and are increasingly successful in our performance, we are likely to develop self-confidence
and an increasing belief in our ability to perform the task successfully; conversely, if we
repeatedly fail in our attempts to perform a task well, we are not as likely to develop strong
feelings of self-efficacy. Self-efficacy tends to be task specific; that is, a belief that we can
high in self-efficacy tended to perform at a higher level. Also supporting these conclusions is
the research by Bandura and Locke, who found that, when combined with goal setting,
individuals with high levels of self-efficacy tend to display higher levels of motivation and
performance.
Creativity
Creativity is a personality trait that involves the ability to break away from habit-bound
thinking and produce novel and useful ideas. Creativity produces innovation, and innovation is
the lifeblood of a growing number of corporations.
Developing Creativity
Creativity is a personality trait that can be encouraged and developed within organizations by
giving people opportunity and freedom to think in unconventional ways. For example, one
major impediment to increasing creativity in work settings is the fear of failure. If an
organization is intolerant of mistakes and failure, it should not expect employees to take the
risks often inherent in creative approaches to problems.
Emotions are defined as a state of physiological arousal accompanied by changes in facial
expressions, gestures, posture, and subjective feeling.
Emotions play an important role at the workplace.
Emotions (2 of 2)
Research suggests that there are eight primary emotions: surprise, joy, anticipation,
acceptance, fear, sadness, disgust, and anger.
transfer of mood between persons. Research seems to support this notion
Emotional Labor
Managing emotions in order to perform one’s job is called emotional labor. In organizations,
emotional labor may involve enhancing, faking, or suppressing emotions to modify the
emotional expression. The rules or norms regarding expectations about emotional expression
may be acquired by observing colleagues, or they may be stated in selection or training
material.
While emotional labor results from modifying emotional expression in an interaction, this
labor is also experienced through empathy. Employees observing co-workers being treated
unfairly showed increased emotional labor even though they themselves were being treated
fairly.
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to manage one’s own and others’ emotions in order to
guide one’s behavior and achieve goals.
Research suggests that leaders who manage their moods and emotions may be more effective
at developing group goals and objectives, motivating others, generating cooperation and trust,
and encouraging flexibility in decision making. The ability to manage one’s and others’
emotions extends to anyone who works with other people in organizations.
Four Dimensions of EI
While there are several different ways to conceptualize emotional intelligence, a popular
approach suggests that EI consists of the following four dimensions:
1. Self awareness: Emotionally intelligent individuals have a greater awareness of their own
emotions and feelings. By accurately assessing their feelings, these individuals are in a better
Self-management: An important aspect of having EI is not letting your emotions or mood
swings disrupt your productivity or relationships with your supervisor, co-workers, or
customers. 4. Relationship management: Maintaining positive and productive relationships
with people at work requires that we listen to their needs, communicate in a positive manner,
collaborate with them on projects, and support their ideas and initiatives
In Review, Did We…
Review progress against objectives.
Summary of Key Points
❑ Major individual variables that influence work behavior include demographic factors (e.g.,
age, sex, race), abilities and skills, perception, attitudes, and personality. These combine with
various organizational variables (resourced, leadership, rewards, job design, structure) to
shape productive, nonproductive, and counterproductive work behaviors.
❑ Although the job satisfaction-job performance relationship is a complex one that is not fully
understood, it seems clear that these two variables are related under certain conditions. One
current view is that the rewards one receives as a consequence of good performance, and the
degree to which these rewards are perceived as reasonable, affect both the extent to which
satisfaction results from performance and the extent to which performance is affected by
satisfaction.
❑ Personality exerts a strong influence on human behavior in organizations. Human personality
can be described by the Big Five personality factors: extraversion, emotional stability,
agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience.
Review and Discussion Questions
1. So many factors influence an individual’s behavior that it is impossible to predict accurately
what that behavior will be in all situations. Why, then, should managers take time to
understand individual differences?
2. What are some of the best ways to acquire tacit knowledge? How can mentoring help?
Ans: Student answers will vary. Sample answer: According to Robert J. Sternberg, people who
3. Have you ever had a “bad attitude” toward a situation, a certain course that you didn’t like,
or an unattractive job assignment? How did that attitude affect your behavior (i.e.
performance, attendance, and so on)? How did you attempt to improve your attitude?
Ans: Student answers will vary. This question should generate some interesting class discussion.
4. Think of an important attitude you have regarding a career. Identify the three components
of that attitude and indicate what each outcome response would be.
Ans: Student answers will vary. However, all answers should include the following components:
5. As the U.S. workforce becomes much more diverse, what implications will that have for
managers as they attempt to create and maintain a work environment that allows all types of
employees to contribute to the organization How should employees’ individual differences be
treated: accepted/valued or assimilated into the organizational culture?
Ans: Having a more diverse workforce will mean that managers must fine-tune their observation and
management skills in order to more accurately predict employee responses and behavior. Perception
6. The text identified job satisfaction as an important attitude. What other attitudes might be
important in work settings?
Ans: Other attitudes that might be important in work settings could be: optimism, a willingness to
opportunity, being patient, looking forward to change, having a positive self-view.
7. Are you an internal or an external? Would you rather have a boss who is an internal or an
external? Why?
Ans: Student answers will vary. Students who perceive their abilities and accomplishments to be due
to their own efforts have higher internal locus of control. Students who believe their successes and
8. Of the Big Five personality dimensions, conscientiousness is the most important factor in
predicting job performance across most occupations. How can a person develop a greater
amount of conscientiousness in his/her work? What steps can you, as a manager, take to
encourage employees to be more conscientious?
Ans: Student answers will vary. Sample answer: A person can develop a greater amount of
9. As a manager, how might you increase a subordinate’s feelings of self-efficacy regarding a
job assignment? How might you attempt to increase the creativity of your subordinate?
Ans: There are numerous ways that a manager can help increase subordinates’ self-efficacy. The
following represent some relevant examples:
1. Give employees jobs that they are competently able to perform.
2. Provide assistance to employees who are performing complicated tasks, as opposed to
simply taking over or reassigning the job.
To encourage employee creativity:
1. Encourage the viewing of problems from new perspectives.
10. What steps can you take to increase your level of emotional intelligence?
Ans: Learning about emotional skills and how to apply them is an exciting idea. It suggests a
EXERCISE 3.1: Personality Insights
Purpose
To facilitate student’s insights into aspects of their personality.
The Exercise in Class
It is probably best to assign this self-assessment questionnaire as a homework assignment,
encouraging students to take their time in responding (which increases response validity). In
discussing the results, pose these questions to students:
Consider your scores in each of the four areas. Now, think back on your past life experiences.
Are there experiences or specific influences that significantly affected one or more of these
four dimensions of your personality?
Some personality theorists/researchers believe that once you’ve turned 30 or so, your
Case 3.1: Personality Testing: Yes or No?
1. Is Mark making a good decision to drop the use of personality testing? Why?
Ans: Student answers will vary, depending on their opinion. Sample answer: No, Mark is not
2. The better quality personality tests are difficult to fake. Other than attempting to land the
job, why would a job candidate fake a personality test?
3. Could personality testing be used for management decisions other than hiring? Explain.
Ans: Yes. It could be used to determine if current employees would be well suited for particular
assignments or for overseas assignments. For example, you would not want to promote someone to a