Chapter 9 Personality, Cultural Values, & Ability PDF

Preview

Summary

Personality, Cultural Values, and Ability...

Description

Chapter 9 Personality, Cultural Values, & Ability

Personality, Cultural Values, and Ability 

“Individual differences” can tell us a lot o Personality captures what people are like  It refers to the structures, propensities, and traits inside a person that explain his/her characteristic patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior o Ability captures what people can do  It refers to the relatively stable capabilities people have o Cultural values captures where people are from (in a cultural sense)  Shared beliefs about modes of conduct in a given culture

Traits Associated with the Big Five Personality Dimensions  

Personality is a collection of multiple specific traits Traits are trends in people’s responses to their environment

Conscientiousness 

Dependable, organized, reliable, ambitious, hardworking o Has the biggest positive influence of job performance o Prioritize accomplishment striving  Conscientious employees have a strong desire to accomplish task-related goals as a means of expressing personality

Agreeableness 

Warm, kind, cooperative, helpful, courteous o Agreeable people focus on “getting along,” not necessarily “getting ahead.” o Prioritize communion striving  Have a strong desire to obtain acceptance in personal relationships  Beneficial in some positions but detrimental in others  Service jobs; Managerial positions

Neuroticism 



Nervous, moody, emotional, insecure, and jealous o Associated with high negative affectivity  Dispositional tendency to experience unpleasant moods (e.g. hostility, nervousness, and annoyance) o Is negatively related to job performance  Because neurotic people are more likely to appraise situations as stressful & believe they cannot cope Is related to locus of control (whether people attribute causes of events to themselves or the environment) o More neurotic people: external locus of control (believe events are driven by luck, chance, or fate) o Less neurotic people: internal locus of control (believe events are driven by their behavior)

Openness to Experience 

Curious, imaginative, creative, sophisticated o Valuable in jobs that:  Are dynamic & changing  Require learning  Require high levels of creativity  The capacity to generate novel and useful ideas and solutions

Extraversion 

Talkative, sociable, assertive, bold, dominant o Easiest to judge when you first meet someone o Prioritize status striving  Reflects a strong desire to obtain power and influence o Associated with high positive affectivity  Dispositional tendency to experience pleasant moods o Extraverted people tend to be rated as more effective in leadership roles

How does Personality Develop?



Nature and Nurture



Study of Identical Twins o Extraversion and Openness may be genetic

Longitudinal Study: Changes in Big Five Dimensions

Cultural Values   

Influence traits, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of individuals Influence expression of traits Important to multinational companies o Differences in management styles, negotiation approaches, and reward preferences

o Ethnocentrism is defined as a propensity to view one’s own cultural values as “right” and those of other cultures as “wrong” Hofstede’s Dimensions of Cultural Values 

Found employees working in different countries prioritize different values o Values clustered into distinct dimensions  Individualism vs. Collectivism  Power Distance  Uncertainty Avoidance  Masculinity vs. Femininity  Short-Term vs. Long-Term Orientation

Ability 

Capabilities to perform certain activities o Is relatively stable o Is a function of genes and the environment o Includes cognitive ability and emotional ability

Cognitive Ability



Capabilities related to the acquisition & application of knowledge o Includes:  Verbal ability  Capabilities associated with understanding and expressing oral and written communication o Oral comprehension – ability to understand spoken words o Written comprehension – ability to understand written words o Oral expression – ability to communicate ideas by speaking o Written expression – ability to communicate ideas in writing  Quantitative ability  Mathematical capabilities o Number facility – capability to do math operations o Mathematical reasoning – the ability to apply formulas to solve problems that involve numbers  Reasoning ability  Capabilities associated with solving problems using insight and logic o Problem sensitivity – ability to sense that there’s a problem o Deductive reasoning – use of rules to solve problems o Inductive reasoning – ability to consider several specific pieces of information and then reach a more general conclusion regarding how those pieces are related o Originality – ability to develop novel ways to solve problems  Spatial ability  Two types: o Spatial orientation – having an understanding of where one is relative to other things o Visualization – ability to imagine how things will look if they were put together



Perceptual ability  Being able to understand & recall patterns of information o Speed and flexibility of closure – picking out a pattern of information quickly in the presence of distracting information o Perceptual speed – examining and comparing numbers, letters, and objects quickly

Types and Facets of Cognitive Ability

The “g-factor” (General Cognitive Ability)   

Explains why people who are high on one ability also tend to be high on other abilities Underlies the specific cognitive abilities Accounts for the brain’s ability to process information

Emotional Ability 



Emotional intelligence – ability that affects social functioning o Is defined in terms of four abilities: 1) Self-awareness – ability to understand & express your own emotions 2) Other awareness (empathy) – ability to understand others’ emotions 3) Emotional regulation – ability to recover quickly from emotional experiences 4) Use of emotions – ability to harness emotions & use them to improve the situation It is an important determinant of job performance for people with lower levels of cognitive intelligence

Personality, Ability, & Performance & Commitment 

General cognitive ability & conscientiousness have the strongest influences on performance & commitment o Cognitive ability:

  

Is not strongly related to organizational commitment Is a strong predictor of task performance Is a driver of maximum performance

Effects of Cognitive Ability on Performance and Commitment

Personality, Ability, & Performance & Commitment 

Conscientiousness: o Has a moderate relationship with task performance o Is a driver of typical performance o Influences engagement in more citizenship behaviors & less counterproductive behaviors o Increases organizational commitment...