Understanding People at Work: Individual Differences and Perception

Chapter 3

1. THE INTERACTIONIST PERSPECTIVE: THE ROLE OF FIT

● Human beings bring in their personality, physical and mental abilities, and other
stable traits to work.
● While human beings bring their traits to work, every organization is different, and
every job within the organization is also different.
● According to the interactionist perspective, behavior is a function of the person and
the situation interacting with each other. Think about it. Would a shy person speak up
in class? While a shy person may not feel like speaking, if the individual is very
interested in the subject, knows the answers to the questions, and feels comfortable
within the classroom environment, and if the instructor encourages participation and
participation is 30% of the course grade, regardless of the level of shyness, the
person may feel inclined to participate. Similarly, the behavior you may expect from
someone who is proactive, creative, and willing to take risks will depend on the
situation.
● When hiring employees, companies are interested in assessing at least two types of
fit.
○ Person–organization fit refers to the degree to which a person’s values,
personality, goals, and other characteristics match those of the organization.
○ Person–job fit is the degree to which a person’s skill, knowledge, abilities, and
other characteristics match the job demands.
● The first thing many recruiters look at is the person–job fit. This is not surprising,
because person–job fit is related to a number of positive work attitudes such as
satisfaction with the work environment, identification with the organization, job
satisfaction, and work behaviors such as job performance. Companies are often also
interested in hiring candidates who will fit into the company culture

2. INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES: VALUES AND PERSONALITY

Values

● Values refer to stable life goals that people have, reflecting what is most important to
them. Values are established throughout one’s life as a result of the accumulating life
experiences and tend to be relatively stable.
● The values that are important to people tend to affect the types of decisions they
make, how they perceive their environment, and their actual behaviors.
● Moreover, people are more likely to accept job offers when the company possesses
the values people care about.
● Terminal values refer to end states people desire in life, such as leading a
prosperous life and a world at peace.
● Instrumental values deal with views on acceptable modes of conduct, such as being
honest and ethical, and being ambitious.
 ● Where do values come from? Research indicates that they are shaped early in life
and show stability over the course of a lifetime. Early family experiences are
important influences over the dominant values.

Personality

● Personality encompasses the relatively stable feelings, thoughts, and behavioral

patterns a person has.
● Our personality differentiates us from other people, and understanding someone’s
personality gives us clues about how that person is likely to act and feel in a variety
of situations. In order to effectively manage organizational behavior, an
understanding of different employees’ personalities is helpful
● Big Five Personality Traits
 ● openness The degree to which a person is curious, original, intellectual,
creative, and open to new ideas.
● conscientiousness The degree to which a person is organized, systematic,
punctual, achievement oriented, and dependable.
● extraversion The degree to which a person is outgoing, talkative, sociable,
and enjoys being in social situations.
● agreeableness The degree to which a person is nice, tolerant, sensitive,
trusting, kind, and warm.
● neuroticism The degree to which a person is anxious, irritable, aggressive,
temperamental, and moody.

● Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

○ In MBTI, people are grouped using four dimensions. Based on how a person
is classified on these four dimensions, it is possible to talk about 16 unique
personality types, such as ESTJ and ISTP

● Positive and Negative Affectivity

○ You may have noticed that behavior is also a function of moods. When people
are in a good mood, they may be more cooperative, smile more, and act
friendly. When these same people are in a bad mood, they may have a
tendency to be picky, irritable, and less tolerant of different opinions..
○ Negative affective people focus on the “glass half empty” and experience
more anxiety and nervousness.
○ Positive affective people tend to be happier at work, and their happiness
spreads to the rest of the work environment.
● Self-monitoring
○ refers to the extent to which a person is capable of monitoring his or her
actions and appearance in social situations. In other words, people who are
social monitors are social chameleons who understand what the situation
demands and act accordingly, while low social monitors tend to act the way
they feel.
● Proactive personality
○ refers to a person’s inclination to fix what is perceived as wrong, change the
status quo, and use initiative to solve problems. Instead of waiting to be told
 what to do, proactive people take action to initiate meaningful change and
remove the obstacles they face along the way. In general, having a proactive
personality has a number of advantages for these people.
● Self-esteem
○ is the degree to which a person has overall positive feelings about his or
herself. People with high self-esteem view themselves in a positive light, are
confident, and respect themselves. On the other hand, people with low
self-esteem experience high levels of self-doubt and question their selfworth.
High self-esteem is related to higher levels of satisfaction with one’s job and
higher levels of performance on the job.
● Self-efficacy
○ is a belief that one can perform a specific task successfully. Research shows
that the belief that we can do something is a good predictor of whether we
can actually do it. Self-efficacy is different from other personality traits in that it
is job specific.
● Locus of control
○ deals with the degree to which people feel accountable for their own
behaviors. Individuals with high internal locus of control believe that they
control their own destiny and what happens to them is their own doing, while
those with high external locus of control feel that things happen to them
because of other people, luck, or a powerful being. Internals feel greater
control over their own lives and therefore they act in ways that will increase
their chances of success.

Personality Testing in Employee Selection

● Personality is a potentially important predictor of work behavior. Matching people to

jobs matters, because when people do not fit with their jobs or the company, they are
more likely to leave, costing companies as much as a person’s annual salary to
replace them.
● In job interviews, companies try to assess a candidate’s personality and the potential
for a good match, but interviews are only as good as the people conducting them. In
fact, interviewers are not particularly good at detecting the best trait that predicts
performance: conscientiousness.
● One method some companies use to improve this match and detect the people who
are potentially good job candidates is personality testing

3. PERCEPTION

● Our behavior is not only a function of our personality, values, and preferences, but
also of the situation. We interpret our environment, formulate responses, and act
accordingly.
● Perception may be defined as the process with which individuals detect and interpret
environmental stimuli. What makes human perception so interesting is that we do not
solely respond to the stimuli in our environment.
● We go beyond the information that is present in our environment, pay selective
attention to some aspects of the environment, and ignore other elements that may be
immediately apparent to other people.
 ● Our perception of the environment is not entirely rational.

Visual Perception

● Our visual perception definitely goes beyond the physical information available to us.
First of all, we extrapolate from the information available to us
● Our visual perception is often biased because we do not perceive objects in isolation.
The contrast between our focus of attention and the remainder of the environment
may make an object appear bigger or smaller.

Self-Perception

● Human beings are prone to errors and biases when perceiving themselves.
Moreover, the type of bias people have depends on their personality. Many people
suffer from self-enhancement bias.
● This is the tendency to overestimate our performance and capabilities and see
ourselves in a more positive light than others see us.
● People who have a narcissistic personality are particularly subject to this bias, but
many others are still prone to overestimating their abilities. At the same time, other
people have the opposing extreme, which may be labeled as self-effacement bias.
● This is the tendency for people to underestimate their performance, undervalue
capabilities, and see events in a way that puts them in a more negative light.

Social Perception

● How we perceive other people in our environment is also shaped by our values,
emotions, feelings, and personality. Moreover, how we perceive others will shape our
behavior, which in turn will shape the behavior of the person we are interacting with.
● One of the factors biasing our perception is stereotypes. Stereotypes are
generalizations based on group characteristics.
● One other perceptual tendency that may affect work behavior is that of first
impressions. The first impressions we form about people tend to have a lasting
impact. In fact, first impressions, once formed, are surprisingly resilient to contrary
information. Even if people are told that the first impressions were caused by
inaccurate information, people hold onto them to a certain degree.

Attributions

● Our behavior is a function of our perceptions. More specifically, when we observe

others behave in a certain way.
● An attribution is the causal explanation we give for an observed behavior. If you
believe that a behavior is due to the internal characteristics of an actor, you are
making an internal attribution
● An external attribution is explaining someone’s behavior by referring to the situation.
4. THE ROLE OF ETHICS AND NATIONAL CULTURE

Individual Differences and Ethics

● Our values and personality influence how ethical we behave. Situational factors,
rewards, and punishments following unethical choices as well as a company’s culture
are extremely important, but the role of personality and personal values should not
be ignored. Research reveals that people who have an economic value orientation,
that is, those who value acquiring money and wealth, tend to make more unethical
choices. In terms of personality, employees with external locus of control were found
to make more unethical choices.

Individual Differences Around the Globe

● Values that people care about vary around the world. In fact, when we refer to a
country’s culture, we are referring to values that distinguish one nation from others. In
other words, there is systematic variance in individuals’ personality and work values
around the world, and this variance explains people’s behavior, attitudes,
preferences, and the transferability of management practices to other cultures.