CHAPTER 2 PERCEPTION, PERSONALITY, AND...

Chapter 2 Perception, Personality, and Emotions

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CHAPTER 2 PERCEPTION, PERSONALITY, AND EMOTIONS

CHAPTER OUTLINE

What Is Perception, and Why Is It Important? Factors Influencing Perception

The Perceiver The Target The Situation

Perceptual Errors Attribution Theory Distinctiveness Consensus Consistency How Attributions Get Distorted Selective Perception Halo Effect Contrast Effects Projection Stereotyping Prejudice Why Do Perception and Judgment Matter? Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Personality

What Is Personality? Personality Determinants

Heredity Environmental Factors Situational Conditions

Personality Traits The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator The Big Five Model

Major Personality Attributes Influencing OB Locus of Control

Machiavellianism Self-esteem Self-monitoring Risk-Taking Type A Personality Proactive Personality

Personality and National Culture Personality and Perception

Emotions What Are Emotions? Choosing Emotions: Emotional Labour? Gender and Emotions Why Should We Care About Emotions in the Workplace? Emotional Intelligence Negative Workplace Emotions Affective Events Theory (AET)

Summary and Implications OB at Work

Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education Canada

Full file at http://testbank360.eu/solution-manual-organizational-behaviour-4th-edition-langton


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CHAPTER-OPENING QUESTIONS

1. What is perception? 2. What causes people to have different perceptions of the same situation? 3. Can people be mistaken in their perceptions? 4. Does perception really affect outcomes? 5. What is personality and how does it affect behaviour? 6. Can emotions help or get in the way he when we're dealing with others?

CHAPTER SYNOPSIS

Perception is important in the study of OB because behaviour is based on people’s perceptions of what reality is, not reality itself. Evidence suggests that what an individual perceives about his or her work situation will influence productivity, absenteeism, job satisfaction, turnover, and organizational commitment. Since people act on their perceptions, understanding the factors that affect perception is important in OB. Personality is important to the study of perception because personality characteristics such as locus of control affect one’s perceptions. Employees bring an emotional component with them to work every day, and no study of OB could be comprehensive without considering the role of emotions in workplace behaviour.

STUDY QUESTIONS

It is impossible to cover all the material contained in the chapter during one or two lectures. To deal with this problem, I present my students with a list of study questions to indicate what material they will be responsible for on exams. I tell them that they will be responsible for these, even if the material is not covered in class. I have found that this reduces anxiety overall, and I find it helps to make students aware that not everything in a chapter is required material. I realize instructors vary in their approach, so this is simply my approach.

My study questions for this chapter are: • What is perception? • What factors affect our perception? • What does attribution theory tell us? • What are the shortcuts and biases people use in judging others? • What is the self-fulfilling prophecy? • What is personality? What are its determinants? • Describe the Big Five Model of personality. • What major personality attributes most influence OB? • What are emotions? How do they affect the workplace? • What is emotional labour? • What is emotional intelligence? • What is affective events theory?




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SUGGESTED TEACHING PLAN

In this class I go over judgment shortcuts and personality issues through the use of a mini-lecture. We then do two sets of exercises:

1) A perception exercise (a handout for doing this exercise can be found at the end of this chapter)

2) A review of their personality tests (they are asked to fill these out ahead of time) and then I collect numbers for each of the different types (Type A, locus of control, etc.) This gives them some insights into personality distributions.

The video ”Novascotian Crystal” illustrates how the personalities of two business owners relate to their attitudes and values, motivations, and ways of making decisions. Be sure to examine “Exploring Topics on the Web” in the supplemental section below for possible additional ideas to cover in class or assign for homework.

Be sure to examine the supplemental section below for additional exercises that can be used in class.

ANNOTATED LECTURE OUTLINE

A. What Is Perception, and Why Is It Important? Notes:

– Perception is the process by which individuals organize and interpret their impressions in order to give meaning to their environment.

– Why Is It Important? Because people’s behaviour is based on their perception of

what reality is, not on reality itself. The world as it is perceived is the world that is behaviourally

important.

– Why We Study Perceptions We study this topic to better understand how people make

attributions about events. We don’t see reality. We interpret what we see and call it

reality. The attribution process guides our behaviour, regardless of the truth of the attribution

B. Factors Influencing Perception Notes:

(See Exhibit 2-1 Factors that Influence Perception) – A number of factors operate to shape and sometimes distort perception. These include the perceiver, the target and the situation.

1. The Perceiver

– When an individual looks at a target and attempts to interpret what he or she sees, that interpretation is heavily influenced by personal characteristics of the individual perceiver.




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B. Factors Influencing Perception Notes:

– The more relevant personal characteristics affecting perception of the perceiver are attitudes, motives, interests, past experiences, and expectations.

Teaching Tip: Ask students to compare their perceptions of the first day of class for two different courses. What factors about them the target and the situation influenced their perceptions?

2. The Target

(See Exhibit 2-2 Figure-Ground Illustrations) – Characteristics of the target can also affect what is being perceived.

This would include attractiveness, gregariousness, and our tendency to group similar things together. For example, members of a group with clearly distinguishable features or color are often perceived as alike in other, unrelated characteristics as well.

3. The Situation

– The context in which we see objects or events also influences our attention. This could include time, heat, light, or other situational factors.

C. Perceptual Errors Notes:

– We use a number of shortcuts when we judge others. An understanding of these shortcuts can be helpful toward recognizing when they can result in significant distortions.

1. Attribution Theory

(See Exhibit 2-3 Attribution Theory) – Attribution Theory has been proposed to develop explanations for

the fact that when individuals observe behaviour, they attempt to determine whether it is internally or externally caused.

Externally-caused refers to the environment. Internally-caused behaviour is attributed to those events

that are believed to be under the personal control of the individual.

• Distinctiveness

– Does individual act the same way in other situations? If it is, the observer is likely to give the behaviour an

external attribution. If this action is not unusual, it will probably be judged as

internal.




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• Consensus

– Does individual act the same as others in same situation? If yes, you would be expected to give an external attribution. If no, your conclusion as to causation would be internal.

• Consistency

– Does the individual act the same way over time? If yes, the observer is inclined to attribute it to internal

causes. Teaching Tip: Point out to students that attribution theory helps one make sense of situations, but that we often tend to blame others more for their “wrongs”, while being convinced when we do something “wrong” it’s because of external factors. Ask them if they have examples of this to share.

• How Attributions Get Distorted

– Fundamental Attribution Error: This is the tendency to underestimate the influence of external factors and overestimate the influence of internal factors when making judgments about the behaviour of others.

– Self-Serving Bias: This is the tendency for individuals to attribute their own successes to internal factors while putting the blame for failures on external factors.

2. Selective Perception

– People selectively interpret what they see based on their interests, background, experience, and attitudes

– A group’s perception of organizational activities is selectively altered to align with the vested interests they represent. Managers view the organization from their perspective; employees often have a very different view, which is demonstrated in union conflicts.

Teaching Tip: Most students will have had some recent experience with labour strife (garbage strike, postal strike, employees at the university on strike, teachers' strikes, etc. Have them discuss the perceptions of the different sides, and how this affected the process of collective bargaining.

– Selectivity works as a shortcut in judging other people by allowing us to “speed-read” others, but not without the risk of drawing an inaccurate picture. Because we see what we want to see, we can draw unwarranted conclusions from an ambiguous situation.




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3. Halo Effect

– Drawing a general impression about an individual based on a single characteristic

Teaching Tip: This phenomenon frequently occurs when students appraise their classroom instructor. Students may give prominence to a single trait such as enthusiasm and allow their entire evaluation to be tainted by how they judge the instructor on that one trait.

4. Contrast Effects

– A person’s evaluation is often influenced by other people that we have recently encountered. For example, an interview situation in which one sees a pool of job applicants can distort perception. Distortions in any given candidate’s evaluation can occur as a result of his or her place in the interview schedule.

5. Projection

– Attributing one’s own characteristics to other people

– When managers engage in projection, they compromise their ability to respond to individual differences. They tend to see people as more homogeneous than they really are.

Teaching Tip: This is an opportunity to point out to students that we often assume that people will act the same way that we do, and this is an example of engaging in projection. For instance, if we answer our cell phone every single time it rings, without thinking of the situation first, we may assume that when someone else does not do so, they are being rude, or worse yet, trying to avoid us. Rather, they may have

different boundaries than we do about appropriate cell phone use.

6. Stereotyping

– Judging someone on the basis of your perception of the group to which that person belongs.

– In organizations, we frequently hear comments that represent stereotypes based on gender, age, race, ethnicity, and even weight.

– From a perceptual standpoint, if people expect to see these stereotypes that is what they will perceive, whether or not they are accurate.

• Prejudice: An unfounded dislike of a person or group based on their belonging to a particular stereotyped group. Prejudice can lead to negative consequences in the workplace, particularly discrimination.




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Teaching Tip: An easy way to generate discussion about stereotypes is to ask students to develop a list of characteristics of Arts students vs. Business students. Then have students evaluate how well they themselves fit the “Business student” stereotype and whether their friends in Arts closely fit the “Arts student” stereotype.

You can also have them work on the Working with Others Exercise, which has students confront some of their own stereotypes.

D. Why Do Perception and Judgment Matter? Notes:

– There are a variety of occasions where judgment is used in organizations. Below are a few to emphasize the point.

Employment Interview

– Evidence indicates that interviewers make perceptual judgments that are often inaccurate. – Interviewers generally draw early impressions that become very quickly entrenched. Studies indicate that most interviewers’ decisions change very little after the first four or five minutes of the interview. – Because interviews usually have so little consistent structure and interviewers vary in terms of what they are looking for in a candidate, judgments of the same candidate can vary widely.

Performance Expectations

– Evidence demonstrates that people will attempt to validate their perceptions of reality, even when those perceptions are faulty. – A study was undertaken with 105 soldiers in the Israeli Defense Forces who were taking a fifteen-week combat command course. Soldiers were randomly divided and identified as having high potential, normal potential, and potential not known. Instructors got better results from the high potential group because they expected it confirming the effect of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Performance Evaluation

– An employee’s performance appraisal is very much dependent on the perceptual process. – Although the appraisal can be objective, many jobs are evaluated in subjective terms. Subjective measures are, by definition, judgmental. – To the degree that managers use subjective measures in appraising employees, what the evaluator perceives to be good or bad employee characteristics or behaviours will significantly influence the outcome of the appraisal.




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D. Why Do Perception and Judgment Matter? Notes:

Employee Effort

– An individual’s future in an organization is usually not dependent on performance alone. An assessment of an individual’s effort is a subjective judgment susceptible to perceptual distortions and bias.

Teaching Tip: The perception exercise in the supplemental section below helps to illustrate how one’s perceptions affect their behaviour on teams.

1. Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

– The term self-fulfilling prophecy, or Pygmalion effect, has evolved to characterize the fact that people’s expectations determine their behaviour. In other words, if a manager expects big things from his people, they’re not likely to let him down. Similarly, if a manager expects people to perform minimally, they’ll tend to behave so as to meet those low expectations.

E. Personality Notes:

1. What Is Personality?

– The sum total of ways in which an individual reacts and interacts with others.

2. Personality Determinants

• Heredity: Heredity is an approach that argues that the ultimate explanation of an individual's personality is the molecular structure of the genes, located in the chromosomes. The most persuasive research on this comes from studying monozygotic twins who were separated at birth and raised in very different environments. Different research studies with these kinds of twins have determined that genetics accounts for about half of the personality differences in people.

• Environmental Factors: These factors include culture in which we are raised, our early conditioning, the norms among our family, friends, and social groups, and other influences that we experience play a critical role in shaping our personalities.

• Situational Conditions: These conditions influence the effects of heredity and environment on personality. Personality does change in different situations. A person will be different in a job interview as compared to being at dinner with friends. We cannot look at personality patterns in isolation.




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3. Personality Traits

– Enduring characteristics that describe an individual’s behaviour such as shyness, aggressiveness, and ambitiousness. The more consistent the characteristic and the more frequently it occurs in diverse situations, the more important that trait is in describing the individual.

– Early Search for Primary Traits—Exhibit 2-4 shows a list of 16 traits that have been found to be generally steady and constant sources of behaviour, allowing prediction of an individual’s behaviour in specific situations by weighing the characteristics for their situational relevance.

• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

– One of the most widely used personality frameworks is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). It is 100-question personality test that asks people how they usually feel or act in particular situations.

– Classifications: Extraverted (E) or introverted (I) Sensing (S) or intuitive (I) Thinking (T) or feeling (F) Perceiving (P) or judging (J)

– These classifications are then combined into sixteen personality types. For example:

INTJs are visionaries. They usually have original minds and great drive for their own ideas and purposes. They are characterized as skeptical, critical, independent, determined, and often stubborn. ESTJs are organizers. They are realistic, logical, analytical,

decisive, and have a natural head for business or mechanics. They like to organize and run activities. The ENTP type is a conceptualizer. He or she is innovative,

individualistic, versatile, and attracted to entrepreneurial ideas. This person tends to be resourceful in solving challenging problems but may neglect routine assignments.

– More than 2 million people a year take the MBTI in the United

States alone, however, there is no hard evidence that the MBTI is a valid measure of personality.

• The Big Five Model

– An impressive body of research supports that five basic dimensions underlie all other personality dimensions. The five basic dimensions are:

Extraversion. Comfort level with relationships. Extraverts tend to be gregarious, assertive, and sociable. Introverts tend to




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be reserved, timid, and quiet. Agreeableness. Individual’s propensity to defer to others.

High agreeableness people—cooperative, warm, and trusting. Low agreeableness people—cold, disagreeable, and antagonistic. Conscientiousness. A measure of reliability. A high

conscientious person is responsible, organized, dependable, and persistent. Those who score low on this dimension are easily distracted, disorganized, and unreliable. Emotional stability. A person’s ability to withstand stress.

People with positive emotional stability tend to be calm, self-confident, and secure. Those with high negative scores tend to be nervous, anxious, depressed, and insecure. Openness to experience. The range of interests and

fascination with novelty. Extremely open people are creative, curious, and artistically sensitive. Those at the other end of the openness category are conventional and find comfort in the familiar.

– Research found important relationships between these personality

dimensions and job performance. (See Exhibit 2-6 Big Five Personality Factors)

Conscientiousness predicted job performance for all

occupational groups. Individuals who are dependable, reliable, careful, thorough,

able to plan, organized, hardworking, persistent, and achievement-oriented tend to have higher job performance. Employees higher in conscientiousness develop higher

levels of job knowledge. For the other personality dimensions, predictability

depended upon both the performance criterion and the occupational group. Extraversion predicted performance in managerial and

sales positions. Openness to experience is important in predicting training

proficiency. Teaching Tip: You may want to introduce Point-Counterpoint here, which discusses whether personality traits are powerful predictors of behaviour, or whether they also reflect the situation that the person is in.

4. Major Personality Attributes Influencing OB

• Locus of Control: The degree to which people believe they are in control of their own fate




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Internals: Individuals who believe that they control what happens to them. Externals: Individuals who believe that what happens to

them is controlled by outside forces such as luck or chance.

– Research shows internals are more satisfied with their jobs, have lower absenteeism, and perform better on certain types of jobs.

Teaching Tip: I often have the students fill out the personality inventories located at the end of the chapter, and then have them work in groups to analyze the results. Specifically I ask them to develop a picture of the group’s personality. What weaknesses and strengths might their group have because of the distribution of personality types within it?

• Machiavellianism: Degree to which an individual is pragmatic, maintains emotional distance, and believes that ends can justify means

– This personality attribute is named after Nicoló Machiavelli, the 16th century author of The Prince.

– High Machs make good employees in jobs that require bargaining skills or that offer substantial rewards for winning.

• Self-Esteem: Individuals’ degree of liking or disliking of themselves

– (SE) is directly related to expectations for success.

– Individuals with high self-esteem will take more risks in job selection and are more likely to choose unconventional jobs than people with low self-esteem.

• Self-Monitoring: A personality trait that measures an individual’s ability to adjust behaviour to external situational factors

– Individuals high in self-monitoring show considerable adaptability. They are highly sensitive to external cues, can behave differently in different situations, and are capable of presenting striking contradictions between their public persona and their private self.

– Low self-monitors cannot disguise themselves in that way. They tend to display their true dispositions and attitudes in every situation resulting in a high behavioural consistency between who they are and what they do.

Teaching Tip: It is often worth linking this to emotional labour, which comes later in the chapter. In both high self monitors, and those who engage in emotional labour, one is aware of their surroundings and tries to adjust their behaviour accordingly.




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• Risk-Taking: Refers to a person’s willingness to take chances or risks

– The propensity to assume or avoid risk has been shown to have an impact on how long it takes managers to make a decision and how much information they require before making their choice.

– High risk-taking managers made more rapid decisions and used less information in making their choices.

• Type A Personality

Always moving, walking, and eating rapidly. Feel impatient with the rate at which most events take

place. Strive to think or do two or more things at once. Cannot cope with leisure time. Are obsessed with numbers, measuring their success in

terms of how many or how much of everything they acquire.

– Type B Personality Never suffer from a sense of time urgency with its

accompanying impatience. Feel no need to display or discuss either their achievements

or accomplishments unless such exposure is demanded by the situation. Play for fun and relaxation, rather than to exhibit their

superiority at any cost. Can relax without guilt.

Teaching Tip: Have students identify their behaviours on this dimension. Most will be able to describe some of their A or B traits. Then ask them which type is likely to be more successful before covering the material below.

– Are Type As or Type Bs more successful?

Type Bs are the ones who appear to make it to the top. Great salespersons are usually Type As; senior executives

are usually Type Bs.

• Proactive Personality

– People with proactive personality identify opportunities, show initiative, take action, and persevere until meaningful change occurs.




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5. Personality In National Culture

– There are certainly no common personality types for a given country.

– One caveat regarding personality tests is that they may be subject to cultural bias when used on samples of people other than those for whom the tests were designed.

6. Personality and Perception

– Some research has shown that people with certain personality characteristics are perceived in a more positive light than others. For instance, people who are more open are perceived to be able to adapt more quickly and effectively to unexpected change.

– High self-monitors have been perceived as being more successful in organizational outcomes such as performance evaluations and promotions.

F. Emotions Notes:

1. What Are Emotions?

– Employees bring an emotional component with them to work every day, and no study of OB could be comprehensive without considering the role of emotions in workplace behaviour.

– Research has identified six universal emotions: anger, fear, sadness, happiness, disgust, and surprise.

Teaching Tip: From Concepts to Skills shows different facial emotions—most of us can figure out those emotions without too much trouble. This reinforces the universality of some emotions.

– Emotions encompass two related terms: Emotions: Intense feelings that are directed at someone or

something. Moods: Feelings that tend to be less intense than emotions

and that lack a contextual stimulus.

2. Choosing Emotions: Emotional Labour

– Sometimes individuals are required to manage their emotions. For instance, you may be very angry with a co-worker or manager, but you may choose to suppress that anger in the interest of keeping the peace and/or your job.

– Emotional labour refers to the requirement to express particular emotions at work (for instance, enthusiasm or loyalty) to maximize organizational productivity.




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F. Emotions Notes:

Teaching Tip: Students often wonder if emotional labour is “honest.” Have them discuss their views on this. Ask them if they would prefer that the McDonalds employee lash out at them if they’re having a bad day. You can also use the Ethical Dilemma Exercise to raise discussion on the ethicalness of emotional labour.

– Employees can experience a conflict between:

Felt emotions – An individual’s actual emotions Displayed emotions – Emotions that are organizationally

required and considered appropriate in a given job.

Teaching Tip: This conflict can happen outside of the workplace too. For instance, most of us know that we’re expected to act sad at funerals, regardless of whether we consider the person's death to be a loss; and to pretend to be happy at weddings, even if we don't feel like celebrating.

3. Gender and Emotions

Teaching Tip: Before covering this material, you could ask students to debate whether men or women are more emotional, the evidence for their argument, and their explanations for why this might be the case.

– Men and women display their emotions differently. Key differences include:

Women show greater emotional expression than men. Women experience emotions more intensely. Women display more frequent expressions of all emotions,

except anger.

– Three possible explanations for these differences: Men and women have been socialized differently:

– Men are taught to be tough and brave. – Women are taught to be nurturing.

Women may have more innate ability to read others and present their emotions than do men. Women may have a greater need for social approval and,

thus show more positive emotions like happiness.

5. Why Should We Care About Emotions in the Workplace

– People who know their own emotions and are good at reading others' emotions may be more effective in their jobs. That, in




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F. Emotions Notes:

essence, is the theme underlying recent research on emotional intelligence (EI).

• Emotional Intelligence: Noncognitive skills, capabilities, and competencies that influence a person's ability to succeed in coping with environmental demands and pressures.

– Five dimensions of EI: Self-awareness: Being aware of what you're feeling. It is

exhibited by self-confident, realistic self-assessment, and a self-deprecating sense of humour. Self-management: The ability to manage one's own

emotions and impulses. It is exhibited by trustworthiness and integrity, comfort with ambiguity, and openness to change. Self-motivation: The ability to persist in the face of setbacks

and failures. It is exhibited by a strong drive to achieve, optimism, and high organizational commitment. Empathy: The ability to sense how others are feeling. It is

exhibited by expertise in building and retaining talent, cross-cultural sensitivity, and service to clients and customers. Social skills: The ability to handle the emotions of others. It

is exhibited by persuasiveness, and expertise in building and leading groups and teams.

• Negative Workplace Emotions

– Negative emotions can lead to a number of deviant workplace behaviours. They fall in categories such as:

Production (leaving early, intentionally working slowly) Property (stealing, sabotage) Political (gossiping, blaming co-workers) Personal aggression (sexual harassment, verbal abuse)

• Affective Events Theory

– Affective events theory (AET) demonstrates that employees react emotionally to things that happen to them at work and that this reaction influences their job performance and satisfaction. The theory is summarized in Exhibit 2-10.

– AET offers two important messages: 1) Emotions provide valuable insights into understanding

employee behaviour. The model demonstrates how daily hassles and uplifts influence employee performance and satisfaction. 2) Emotions in organizations and the events that cause

them shouldn’t be ignored, even when they appear to be minor; they can accumulate.




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G. Summary and Implications Notes:

1. What is perception? Perception is the process by which individuals organize and interpret their impressions in order to give meaning to their environment. 2. What causes people to have different perceptions of the same situation? A number of factors operate to shape and sometimes distort perception. These factors can be present in the perceiver, in the object or target being perceived, or in the context of the situation in which the perception is made. 3. Can people be mistaken in their perceptions? Perceiving and interpreting what others do is difficult and takes time. As a result, we develop shortcuts to make this task more manageable. These shortcuts, which include attribution theory, selective perception, halo effect, contrast effects, projection, and stereotyping. These strategies are often valuable: they can sometimes allow us to make accurate perceptions quickly and provide valid data for making predictions. However, they are not foolproof. They can and do get us into trouble. 4. Does perception really affect outcomes? Evidence suggests that what individuals perceive about their work situation influences their productivity more than the situation does. 5. What is personality and how does it affect behaviour? Personality is the stable patterns of behaviour and consistent internal states that determine how an individual reacts to and interacts with others. A review of the personality literature offers general guidelines that can lead to effective job performance. As such, it can improve hiring, transfer, and promotion decisions. 6. Can emotions help or get in the way he when we're dealing with others? Emotions are intense feelings that are directed at someone or something. Positive emotions can be motivating for everyone in the workplace. Negative emotions may make it difficult to get along with others.

OB AT WORK

FOR REVIEW

(Note to instructors: The answers here are starting points for discussion, not absolutes!)

1. Define perception. Perception is a process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment.

2. What is attribution theory? What are its implications for explaining behaviour in organizations? Attribution theory describes how we explain the cause of our and other individuals’ behaviour. In organizations, co-workers and supervisors react to, make decisions about, and take action based on their




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attributions about an individual’s behaviour. An implication for explaining organizational behaviour is that appropriate actions should be taken only when the attribution is correct.

3. What is stereotyping? Give an example of how stereotyping can create perceptual distortion. Stereotyping is judging someone on the basis of our perception of the group to which he or she belongs. An example: if you’re blonde, you aren’t an intellectual.

4. Give some positive results of using shortcuts when judging others. When judging others, the use of shortcuts can be valuable because they allow for making reasonably accurate predictions rapidly. For instance, stereotyping makes assimilating easier, permits consistency, and reduces the need to deal with an unmanageable number of stimuli.

5. Describe the factors in the Big-Five model. Which factor shows the greatest value in predicting behaviour? Why does it?

Research supports that five basic dimensions underlie all other personality dimensions. The five basic dimensions are:

• Extraversion: Comfort level with relationships. Extraverts tend to be gregarious, assertive, and sociable. Introverts tend to be reserved, timid, and quiet.

• Agreeableness: Individual’s propensity to defer to others. Highly agreeable people—cooperative, warm, and trusting. Low agreeableness people—cold, disagreeable, and antagonistic.

• Conscientiousness: A measure of reliability. A high conscientious person is responsible, organized, dependable, and persistent. Those who score low on this dimension are easily distracted, disorganized, and unreliable.

• Emotional stability: A person’s ability to withstand stress. People with positive emotional stability tend to be calm, self-confident, and secure. Those with high negative scores tend to be nervous, anxious, depressed, and insecure.

• Openness to experience: The range of interests and fascination with novelty. Extremely open people are creative, curious, and artistically sensitive. Those at the other end of the openness category are conventional and find comfort in the familiar.

Of the five factors “conscientiousness” predicted job performance across all occupational groups. Individuals who are dependable, reliable, careful, thorough, able to plan, organized, hardworking, etc. tend to have a high job performance record.

6. What behavioural predictions might you make if you knew that an employee had (a) an external locus of control? (b) a low Mach score? (c) low self-esteem? (d) a Type A personality? These predictions: (a) An employee with an external locus of control will be less satisfied with work, but specific behavioural predictions are speculative. He or she may be less productive, especially in managerial positions, than individuals with an internal orientation. (b) An individual with a high Mach should work hard and is likely to be aware of organizational politics and consistently concerned with performance. An individual with a low Mach score would be predicted to be little concerned with manipulating and controlling others. (c) A low-esteem employee is the one to worry about the most, as they rely heavily on approval and direction coming from outside themselves. A supervisor of a low-esteem person should look for every opportunity to be supportive and help him or her build self-esteem. (d) A Type A personality could be demanding, impatient, concerned with deadlines and performance, and aggressive.

7. To what extent do people's personalities affect how they are perceived? Perception is not reality, but rather what is observed and interpreted. A person’s personality may get in the way of other aspects of the individual that are less observable. For instance, someone who is




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outgoing may be considered more trustworthy than someone who is shy, even though personality may not be correlated with this characteristic at all. 8. What is emotional labour and why is it important to understanding OB? Emotional labour refers to the demand organizations make on their employees to display “appropriate” emotions during interpersonal transactions. Emotional labour creates dilemmas for employees when their job requires them to exhibit emotions that are different from their actual feelings. For instance, you may have to work with people to whom you find it very difficult to be friendly. If your job requires you to interact with these people on a regular basis, you’ll have to fake friendliness, and this could be stressful.

9. What is emotional intelligence and why is it important? Emotional intelligence refers to an assortment of noncognitive skills, capabilities, and competencies that influence a person's ability to succeed in coping with environmental demands and pressures. It's composed of five dimensions: self-awareness, self-management, self-motivation, empathy, and social skills. People who know their own emotions and are good at reading others' emotions may be more effective in their jobs.

10. Explain affective events theory. What are its implications for managing emotions? AET recognizes that emotions are a response to an event in the individual work environment. The environment creates work events that can be hassles, uplifts, or both. These work events trigger positive or negative emotional reactions that are moderated by the employee’s personality and mood. AET offers two important messages. First, emotions provide valuable insights into understanding employee behaviour. Second, emotions in organizations and the events that cause them shouldn’t be ignored, even when they appear to be minor. This is because they accumulate. It’s not the intensity of hassles and uplifts that leads to emotional reactions, but more the frequency which they occur.

FOR CRITICAL THINKING


1. How might the differences in experience of students and instructors affect each of their perceptions of classroom behaviour (e.g. students’ written work and class comments)? Students may have fewer comparison points than instructors, and may be used to being number one in their previous class. But this does not necessarily make them the top student the instructor has ever had. Students may overvalue the effort they put in, whereas instructors emphasize output. Students generally do not have experience reading the papers of their peers, so are often unaware of the range of quality in written material.

2. An employee does an unsatisfactory job on an assigned project. Explain the attribution process that this person’s manager will use to form judgments about this employee’s job performance. The manager will consider whether the behaviour is internally or externally generated, and then look at (1) distinctiveness, (2) consensus, and (3) consistency. Internally caused behaviour is that believed to be under the personal control of the individual. Externally caused behaviour is seen as resulting from outside causes; that is, the person is seen as having been forced into the behaviour by the situation. Distinctiveness refers to whether an individual displays different behaviours in different situations. If everyone who is faced with a similar situation responds in the same way, we can say the behaviour shows consensus. Finally, an observer looks for consistency in a person’s actions. Does the person respond the same way over time? Thus, the manager would consider whether the employee generally performs at about the same level on other related tasks as on the current task to determine distinctiveness. The manager would consider how




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other employees perform to determine consensus Finally, if the employee’s performance on this current task is consistent over time (high consistency), the manager likely to hold the employee primarily responsible for task performance (internal attribution).

3. One day your boss comes in and he’s nervous, edgy, and argumentative. The next day he is calm and relaxed. Does this behaviour suggest that personality traits aren’t consistent from day to day? This doesn't offset the fact that personality traits tend to be stable and consistent. Personality changes to reflect situations. It also varies moderately from day to day. This situation reflects changes in mood or emotion more than in basic personality traits. The boss’ crankiness could be due more to the morning commute than to personality!

4. What, if anything, can managers do to manage emotions? Are there are ethical implications in any of these actions? If so, what? Managers should be aware of the role that emotions play in the workplace. Anxiety, fear, frustration, doubt, happiness, excitement, and similar emotions can all influence one’s behaviour. Given the same objective data, managers should expect that people may make different choices when they're angry and stressed-out than when they're calm and collected. Negative emotions can result in a limited search for new alternatives and a less vigilant use of information. On the other hand, positive emotions can increase problem solving and facilitate the integration of information. Managers should also try to identify the emotional elements in conflict and to get the conflicting parties to work through their emotions. The manager who ignores the emotional elements in conflicts, focusing singularly on rational and task-focused concerns, is unlikely to be very effective in resolving those conflicts. 5. Give some examples of situations where the overt expression of emotions might enhance job performance? When an employee is courteous rather than hostile in interactions with co-workers or clients, this may lead to greater productivity. Leaders can use emotional displays to "charge the troops," getting individuals to be inspired with their work.

POINT/COUNTERPOINT SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

Summary

Point: The essence of trait approaches in OB is that employees possess stable personality characteristics that significantly influence their attitudes toward, and behavioural reactions to, organizational settings. Trait theorists recognize that all traits are not equally powerful. They tend to put them into one of three categories. Cardinal traits are those so strong and generalized that they influence every act a person performs. Primary traits are generally consistent influences on behaviour, but they may not show up in all situations. Finally, secondary traits are attributes that do not form a vital part of the personality but come into play only in particular situations. Trait theorists do a fairly good job of meeting the average person’s face-validity test. Managers seem to have a strong belief in the power of traits to predict behaviour.

Counterpoint: Few people would dispute that there are some stable individual attributes that affect reactions to the workplace, but trait theorists go beyond that generality and argue that individual behaviour consistencies are widespread and account for much of the differences in behaviour among people. There are two important problems with using traits. First, organizational settings are strong situations that have a large impact on employee behaviour. Second, individuals are highly adaptive, and personality traits change in response to organizational situations.

Organizational settings tend to be strong situations because they have rules and other formal regulations that define acceptable behaviour and punish deviant behaviour, and they have informal norms that dictate appropriate behaviours. These formal and informal constraints minimize the effects of personality traits.




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There is a growing body of evidence that an individual’s traits are changed by the organizations that individual participates in. Moreover, people typically belong to multiple organizations that often include very different kinds of members, and they adapt to those different situations. Instead of being the prisoners of a rigid and stable personality framework, as trait theorists propose, people regularly adjust their behaviour to reflect the requirements of various situations.

Analysis

Traits can be a short-hand way of judging and characterizing people, but one should not forget that even very cheerful people have bad days, conscientious people can make mistakes, etc. Traits, therefore, are tempered by the situation.

COMMENTS ON LEARNING ABOUT YOURSELF EXERCISES

1. Assess Your Locus of Control This instrument taps a person's perception of the source of his or her fate. Internals are people who believe that they are masters of their own fate. They believe that they control their destinies. Externals see themselves as pawns of fate, believing that what happens to them is due to luck or chance. Scores can be interpreted as follows: 8-10 = High internal locus of control 6-7 = Moderate internal locus of control 5 = Mixed 3-4 = Moderate external locus of control 1-2 = High external locus of control The locus of control score can provide insights into how well one accepts blame for one’s actions. It may also help one understand feelings of alienation or dissatisfaction with work. Research shows that high externals are less satisfied with their jobs, are more alienated from the work setting, and less involved in their jobs than are internals. On the other hand, high externals seem to be most satisfied in jobs that are well structured and routine and in which success depends heavily on complying with the direction of others. 2. How Machiavellian Are You? The higher the score, the more Machiavellian the person. Among a random sample of American adults, the national average was 25. 3. How’s Your Self-Esteem? Self-esteem is a measure of how well a person likes themselves. The higher one’s score, the higher one’s self-esteem. Individuals with low self-esteem are more susceptible to external influence than are people high in self-esteem. So a low score means a person is more likely to seek approval from others and more prone to conform to the beliefs and behaviours of respected others. People with high self-esteem take more risks in job selection and are more likely to choose unconventional jobs than people with low self-esteem. 4. Are You a High Self-Monitor? High self-monitors are defined as those with scores of 53 or higher. 5. Are You a Risk-Taker?




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These situations were based on a longer questionnaire. The results are an indication of a general orientation toward risk rather than a precise measure. The lower a person scores, the more risk-taking they are. 6. Are You a Type A? This instrument measures the degree to which a person is competitive and rushed for time. The Type A personality describes someone who is aggressively involved in a chronic, incessant struggle to achieve more and more in less and less time. More specifically, Type As are always moving, walking, and eating rapidly; feel impatient with the pace of most events; strive to do two or more things at once; do not cope well with leisure time; and are obsessed with numbers, measuring their success in terms of how many or how much of everything they acquire. Type Bs are the exact opposites. A total of 120 or more indicates that a person is a hard-core Type A. Scores below 90 indicate that a person is a hard-core Type B. The following gives more specifics: 120 or more points = A+ personality type 106-119 = A 100-105 = A- 90-99 = B+ Less than 90 = B Those who score in the "A" categories need to be aware of tendencies to focus on quantity over quality. They may do better in jobs that are routine and rely on speed rather than creativity for success. In addition, Type As often experience moderate to high levels of stress. 7. What’s Your EI at Work? A score below 70 indicates a problem. EI is not unimprovable. Says Dan Goleman, author of Working With Emotional Intelligence, “Emotional intelligence can be learned, and in fact we are each building it, in varying degrees, throughout life. It’s sometimes called maturity. EQ is nothing more or less than a collection of tools that we can sharpen to help ensure our own survival.”

BREAKOUT GROUP EXERCISE


1. Think back to your perception of this course and your instructor on the first day of class. What factors may have affected your perceptions of what the rest of the term would be like?

Students may describe factors relating to the target (the instructor), the perceiver (the student), and the situation (the classroom and the other students’ behaviours). First impressions of the instructor, based on clothing, mannerisms, “personality”, etc., may have affected the perception. The student’s mood on that particular day may have had an impact. Whether the classroom was noisy, hot, cold, poorly lit might also have affected perceptions. How other students were acting would also affect perceptions.

2. Describe a situation where your perception turned out to be wrong. What perceptual errors did you make that might have caused this to happen?

The possible perceptual errors that might be discussed include attribution theory, selective perception, halo effect, contrast effects, projection, and stereotyping.

3. Compare your scores on the Learning About Yourself Exercises at the end of the chapter. What conclusions could you draw about your group based on these scores?

A variety of responses are possible. Students may find that all of them are risk-takers for instance, or that only one of them is. They should be encouraged to think about how diverse or homogeneous they are as a group, and how this might affect the way they’d behave when they work together.




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COMMENTS ON WORKING WITH OTHERS EXERCISE

Evaluating Your Stereotypes After the students identify themselves, ask the students to discuss how their stereotypes affected their perceptions of the students traits. Have them explain why they matched the volunteers the way they did. Ask them what kinds of physical characteristics they associate with the traits, if any, and whether that led them to their conclusions. Some questions you might ask during the discussion: What are your assumptions about different groups (men, women, older people, etc.)? How did you develop these assumptions? What can you do to correct your assumptions? What can you do when you hear others stereotyping people? From that discussion, suggest that stereotyping is a former of judgment shortcut, and that it can lead to errors, which undoubtedly did happen when they tried to identify the students who belonged to various traits. When one uses shortcuts, they ignore the specific character of the individual, and this can lead to misunderstandings. You could tie this discussion into employment discrimination as well.

ETHICAL DILEMMA EXERCISE: MANAGING EMOTIONS AT WORK

Our understanding of emotions at work has increased rapidly in the past decade. We are now at the point at which we are capable of, or close to being capable of, managing the emotions of employees. For instance, companies that want to create open and friendly work places are using the selection process to “select out” job applicants who are not outgoing and enthusiastic and are providing training to teach employees how to smile and appear cheerful. Some organizations are going further in attempting to create “emotionally humanistic” work environments by not only shaping the emotions that workers evoke in their daily contacts with customers but also by selecting employee applicants with high emotional intelligence, controlling the emotional atmosphere of teams and work groups, and similar emotion-management practices. Groucho Marx once joked that “the secret of success in show business is honesty and sincerity. Once you learn how to fake that, you have got it made.” In many service organizations today, Groucho’s remark is being applied. For instance, telephone-sales staff in a number of insurance companies are trained to invoke positive feelings from customers—to make it easy for them to say “yes.” Employees are taught to avoid words with negative connotations and replace them with upbeat and confidence-building words such as “certainly,” “rest assured,” “immediate,” and “great.” Moreover, employees are taught to convey these “scripts” in a way that seems natural and spontaneous. To ensure that these “authentic” positive feelings are consistently evoked, the phone calls of these sales people are often monitored. Organizations like McDonalds, Disney, and Starbucks select and program employees to be upbeat and friendly. They allow employees no choices. Moreover, these organizations export their emotional expectations to everywhere in the world in which they locate. When the hamburgers or lattes come to town, the typical grimace of the Moscovite or shyness of the Finnish employee are subject to a similar genre of smile-training. Is asking people to feign specific job-related emotions unethical if it conflicts with their basic personality? Is exporting standardized emotional “rule books” to alien cultures unethical? What do you think?

___________ This dilemma is based on S. Fineman, “Managing Emotions at Work: Some Political Reflections;” paper presented at a symposium at the Academy of Management Conference; Washington, DC, August 2001. Teaching Notes The following questions can be used as a group Q & A in class or to assign the questions as a journal entry or short homework assignment.




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Questions:

1. What is emotional labour? Is it fair for companies to ask employees to display emotions they may not be feeling? Or, feelings that may by interpreted as “culturally out of place?”

2. Would your answer be the same if companies were asking employees to be rude or abrupt rather than smiling? (For example, a trendy restaurant.) Or sad? (For example, a funeral home.)

3. Should individuals not be chosen for jobs when they do not display the desired behaviours? Should they not be chosen when training would be an option?

4. How should employees be counseled on their display of emotions if it does not meet company expectations?

Students’ responses to these questions will vary.

CASE INCIDENT: FRANK STRONACH, RISK TAKER AND FAIR ENTERPRISE CREATOR

Summary

Frank Stronach, Chair of Toronto-based Magna International, has a strong personality that is evident in his beliefs about how businesses should be run. He believes that employees should have a strong sense of ownership and entrepreneurial energy. Questions

(Note to instructors: The answers here are starting points for discussion, not absolutes!) 1. To what extent would you say that Frank Stronach’s personality is reflected in his corporate policy?

His personality is very clearly demonstrated in his corporate policy. We learned in the opening vignette that he is a driven executive, and a risk taker. He expects his employees to take risks too, by pegging managers’ salaries “below industry standards” and then giving them a share in the profits of the company.

2. What might the study of perception reveal about how different people might view Stronach’s personality?

Different people will react to Stronach differently. Those who are not risk-takers at all may find him far too risk-taking, while a risk-taker would seem him as being similar. Some may find him more impulsive than others. They key point is that not everyone would judge him exactly alike.

3. What kind of people might be unhappy working for Frank Stronach?

People who are not risk takers would probably not enjoy working for Stronach, as part of their annual income is based on company profits.

4. What are the pros and cons of being a manager who works under such a strong personality?

Strong personalities often create organizations that are unusual, and may encourage a certain entrepreneurial environment. On the other hand, strong personalities may also make it difficult for others’ ideas to come forth.

CASE INCIDENT: THE RISE AND FALL OF DENNIS KOZLOWSKI

Summary

The Dennis Kozlowski story could be titled, “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.”




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The good: As CEO of Tyco International, Kozlowski oversaw the growth of a corporate giant. At its peak, Tyco was gobbling up 200 companies a year. Under his leadership, the value of Tyco increased seventy fold. In 2001, Kozlowski proclaimed his desire to be remembered as the world’s greatest business executive. The bad: Things turned sour when Kozlowski and his former chief financial officer were accused of running a criminal enterprise within Tyco. The two were charged with stealing $170 million directly from the company and pocketing an additional $430 million through manipulated sales of stock. The ugly: Kozlowski’s actions have almost destroyed the company where he worked for 27 years. In 2002 alone, the value of the company’s stock dropped $90 billion! To understand Kozlowski’s behaviour, we should look at the events that shaped his personality. He grew up in the 1950s and 1960s in Newark, New Jersey. He said he was the son of a Newark cop turned detective, but his father, in fact, was a wheeler-dealer who was a practiced deceiver and an effective persuader. He had a strong personality, but, for the most part, kept his misdeeds to little white-lies. Kozlowski learned to live big. He had a $17 million apartment in New York, a $30 million mansion in Florida, and a $15 million yacht. He spent $20 million on art for his luxury homes. He took extravagance to the extreme—for instance, spending $6,000 on a shower curtain! The more he made, the more he spent, and the more he allegedly stole. A former Harvard professor suggests Kozlowski was undone by a rampant sense of entitlement: “By entitlement I mean an aspect of a narcissistic personality who comes to believe that he and the institution are one,” and thus, “that he can take what he wants when he wants it.”

Questions

1. How did Kozlowski's past shape his personality?

Students should focus on environmental factors surrounding the early life of Kozlowski. The 1950’s and 1960’s provide the broad generational effects that contributed to personality formation. It also appears that there had been some exaggerations of the background of his father. His father was a “wheeler-dealer” and Kozlowski, himself, was elected by his high school class as the “class politician.”

2. Does this case contradict the view that personality is largely genetically derived? Explain.

Not necessarily. The case provides support for the three factors that the current literature suggests are powerful shapers of personality: heredity, environment, and situation. Kozlowski’s father’s behaviour when he was growing up may provide an argument for both heredity and environment. The situation also plays a role as we see Kozlowski climbing the corporate ladder within TYCO.

3. What does this case say about corporate ethics?

The case is rather straightforward regarding the importance of corporate ethics. In the TYCO case, we clearly see Kozlowski operating in a significantly inappropriate and unethical fashion. 4. In the movie, "Wall Street," the Michael Douglas character says, "greed is good." Is this true? How does this apply to Kozlowski? In order for students to answer this question fully, the instructor should have them view the film “Wall Street.” The character that Michael Douglas plays can provide parallels to Kozlowski. Whether the statement “greed is good” is good or not will depend largely on students’ views. This question will undoubtedly generate a significant level of discussion in class.




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5. "Kozlowski just did what anybody would do if they had the chance. The people at fault in this story are Tyco's Board of Directors for not controlling their CEO." Do you agree or disagree? Discuss. The Board of Directors shares some responsibility regarding their lack of oversight. However, the theories regarding personality demonstrate that individuals develop personalities largely due to three factors: heredity, environment, and situation. As such, it can be argued that not all individuals share the same experiences and, thus, are not predisposed to unethical behaviour.

FROM CONCEPTS TO SKIlLS

Practising Skills

The activity asks students to first bring themselves to an emotional state and then, through a role play, exhibit signs of that emotional state. Through the role-play, students can learn how emotions can interfere with the conduct of a “normal” experience, such as a job interview. Students can also examine their response to being confronted with emotional issues.

Reinforcing Skills

The purpose of this exercise is to encourage students to apply material from the chapter in various ways. The suggested activities encourage students to be aware of emotional cues when they are interacting with individuals. Students are also asked to consider whether being aware of emotional cues helps, or hinders communication. You might want to ask students to consider whether they should always take into account another person’s emotional state, or whether individuals should be responsible for their own emotional states and not inflict them on others.

KEY TERMS

Affective events theory - The theory that employees react emotionally to things that happen to them at work and that this emotional reaction influences their job performance and satisfaction. Agreeableness - A personality factor that describes the degree to which a person is good-natured, cooperative, and trusting. Attribution theory - The theory that when we observe what seems like atypical behaviour by an individual, we attempt to determine whether it is internally or externally caused. Conscientiousness - A personality factor that describes the degree to which a person is responsible, dependable, persistent, and achievement-oriented. Consensus - A behavioural rule that asks if everyone faced with a similar situation responds in the same way. Consistency - A behavioural rule that asks whether the individual has been acting in the same way over time. Contrast effects - The concept that our reaction to a person is often influenced by other people we have recently encountered. Emotional intelligence - An assortment of noncognitive skills, capabilities, and competencies that influence a person’s ability to succeed in coping with environmental demands and pressures. Emotional labour - When an employee expresses organizationally desired emotions during interpersonal




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interactions. Emotional stability - A personality factor that describes the degree to which a person is calm, self-confident, and secure. Emotions - Intense feelings that are directed at someone or something. Employee deviance - Voluntary actions that violate established norms and threaten the organization, its members, or both. Externals - Individuals who believe that their lives are controlled by outside forces, such as luck or chance. Extraversion - A personality factor that describes the degree to which a person is sociable, talkative, and assertive. Fundamental attribution error - The tendency to underestimate the influence of external factors and overestimate the influence of internal factors when making judgments about the behaviour of others. Halo effect - Drawing a general impression of an individual based on a single characteristic. Internals - Individuals who believe that they control their destinies. Locus of control - The degree to which people believe they are in control of their own fate. Machiavellianism - The degree to which an individual is pragmatic, maintains emotional distance, and believes that ends can justify means. Moods - Feelings that tend to be less intense than emotions and that lack a contextual stimulus. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) - A personality test that taps four characteristics and classifies people into 1 of 16 personality types. Openness to experience - A personality factor that describes the degree to which a person is imaginative, artistically sensitive, and intellectual. Perception - A process by which individuals organize and interpret their impressions in order to give meaning to their environment. Personality - The stable patterns of behaviour and consistent internal states that determine how an individual reacts to and interacts with others. Personality traits - Enduring characteristics that describe an individual’s behaviour. Prejudice - An unfounded dislike of a person or group based on their belonging to a particular stereotyped group. Proactive personality - A person who identifies opportunities, shows initiative, takes action, and perseveres until meaningful change occurs. Projection - Attributing one’s own characteristics to other people. Risk-taking - A person’s willingness to take chances or risks. Selective perception - People’s selective interpretation of what they see based on their interests, background, experience, and attitudes.




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Self-esteem - The degree to which individuals like or dislike themselves. Self-fulfilling prophecy - A concept that proposes a person will behave in ways consistent with how he or she is perceived by others. Self-monitoring - A personality trait that measures an individual’s ability to adjust behaviour to external, situational factors. Self-serving bias - The tendency for individuals to attribute their own successes to internal factors while putting the blame for failures on external factors. Stereotyping - Judging someone on the basis of one’s perception of the group to which that person belongs. Type A personality - A personality with aggressive involvement in a chronic, incessant struggle to achieve more and more in less and less time and, if necessary, against the opposing efforts of other things or other people.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

• Exploring Topics on the Web • Additional Exercise Following From Point/Counter Point • Additional Case and Handout Master for Case • Additional Working With Others Exercise: Perception

EXPLORING TOPICS ON THE WEB

1. Go to the American Psychological web site http://helping.apa.org/daily/anger.html to read about strategies for controlling anger. Write a two page paper about what you learned and how it might apply to your life. (For example, maybe you already use meditation as a stress reliever, but plan to incorporate more exercise into your day.)

2. Learn more about Attribution Theory at http://cognet.mit.edu/MITECS/Entry/morris . Does this

information explain how we as humans can explain anything? Obviously, there are accurate attributions and errors in attributions that we make everyday. Write a paragraph or two about what you learned from this page.

3. Learn more about yourself! Go to www.2h.com/personality-tests.html. There you will find a variety

of personality tests such as “Are you a Type A?,” the “Stress O Meter,” and other IQ and personality tests. Most are free and often fun to take. Take two or three of your choice. Print the results you get on yourself and bring them to class where we will discuss the validity of your findings.

4. Here’s another site for personality tests. Remember these tests are more for fun than anything

else. Go to www.davideck.com/cgi-bin/test.cgi?action=personality for a variety of tests. The “All Guide to Your Personality” is an indicator of the Big Five. There’s also the “Goofy Personality” tests, and Kingdom Personality test among others. Print your results and bring them to class and we will discuss the validity of your results.

5. How does your Big Five profile (completed in number 3 above) compare against the MBTI? Go to

www.personalitytype.com/quiz.html to get a brief assessment of your MBTI profile. Bring copies of both results to class for discussion.




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6. What’s your EQ? Dan Goldman has developed a short quiz to give you an idea of where you might fall on the Emotional Quotient scale. Visit www.unte.com/azEQ.tmpl to read a brief article published in the Utne Reader on EQ. Then select “Take the Test Now” to take the test. Be sure to score your results and print them off. Bring to class and we will discuss the validity of the test.

7. Read about EQ at http://trochim.human.cornell.edu/gallery/young/emotion.htm, which is now the

hottest topic in emotion theory. This site provides an overview of the theory and why it is important. It is a great place to begin research on the topic. Write five interesting facts about EQ and bring them to class. Be prepared to discuss how EQ can be utilized in the workplace.

8. How are personality tests and employment linked? Why would an employer or employee be

interested in the results of a personality test? Go to the following sites to learn more http://www.signonsandiego.com/marketplace/jobs/myjobsearch/ccsdt/advance/personal/personal2.shtml http://www.employmentreview.com/2002-06/features/CNfeat02.asp http://www.flinders.edu.au/careers/EmpTest.html http://www.careerjournal.com/jobhunting/interviewing/20010622-webb.html http://www.hr-guide.com/data/G312.htm Bring five new facts you learned from at least two of the above sites to class for a group discussion.

ADDITIONAL EXERCISE FOLLOWING FROM POINT/COUNTER POINT:

1. Ask the class to act as an organization’s management team. Their job is make a recommendation as to what types of testing they will use in their organization when selecting employees for hire or promotion using the issues assigned by the Point/Counter Point arguments. Which types of testing will be used and why? (You may want to give students time to do some research—either Internet or Library—on this topic. There are several exercises in the Exploring the Web section at the end of this chapter.)

2. Have students present their recommendations to the class and make a decision as to what is the best argument for testing, type of test, etc. What gains do they expect as a result of the testing?

3. Have them list the recommendations and benefits on the board for the class to evaluate during the discussion.

4. You may want them to research the cost of implementing these tests in an organization. Does testing cost of testing offset the benefits?

Instructor Note: This would make an excellent topic for a research paper. Many fine resources are available on the Internet and in scholarly publications for the student.

CASE INCIDENT: USING THE PREDICTIVE INDEX

Summary Laura McCann was CEO of a New York City-based private-label clothing manufacturer. She was concerned that a number of her staff members were unhappy with their jobs, including some of her highest-ranking managers. Moreover, she and her partner were constantly at each other's throats. After a number of employees took a personality test, the Predictive Index test, McCann found that the cause of all the trouble was that nearly half of those on the company's management team had personalities that didn't fit their job descriptions. What's more, McCann and her partner couldn't have been more poorly matched.




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As a result of these findings, McCann started a totally new business with new partners and a largely different staff.

Questions 1. Contrast the Predictive Index to the Big 5 framework. How is it similar? Different? The Predictive Index measures dominance, extroversion, patience, and precision. The Big 5 framework measures extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience. Thus both measure extroversion. Precision and conscientiousness may be related to each other. Otherwise the scales do not measure similar attributes. 2. "Anyone with half-a-brain can fake a personality test. I can be anything an employer wants me to be." Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Support your position. A good personality test is designed to ask questions in multiple ways, so it is not always obvious what is the “right” answer. Moreover, to “trick” the employer you would need to know the specific traits for which they were hiring, and these might not be so obvious. Nevertheless, if a test is measuring something like honesty, some of the questions may be “obvious” and you might be able to score differently that you true personality. The downside of trying to fake a personality test is that if it is measuring your fit for a job, and you score as if you fit the job, but really don’t, you may find yourself in an unhappy situation. 3. Could a test of Emotional Intelligence have been more effective in helping Laura McCann make her decision than the Predictive Index? Explain your position. The Predictive Index examined the personality-job fit, thus finding that many were not suited to the jobs they had. This is different from Emotional Intelligence, which is less linked to scores for specific jobs. 4. Do you think Laura McCann's actions were justified based on the results of a five-minute personality test? Explain. The results of the tests seemed to verify McCann’s observation that things weren’t working out very well. Thus, the tests pointed her in a direction she might not have taken on her own. Personality tests can be reliable, though their use should not be taken lightly.

___________

Source: Based on C. Caggiano, “Psycho Path,” INC., July 1998, pp. 77-85.

WORKING WITH OTHERS EXERCISE: PERCEPTION

In the new OB 292 project team, two members obviously have different perceptions on just about everything the team does. Kevin ‘sees’ the project one way; Kim ‘sees’ it differently. They have different perceptions about team goals, methods, values and the roles team members should play. Kevin gives the impression he wants “to be in charge” and he argues aggressively to get his way. Kim, who is more reserved, offers thoughtful ideas in rebuttal, and usually consults with the other group members for their views and support. Privately, Kevin bad-mouths Kim to anyone who will listen. He says that he has been on successful teams many times and ‘knows’ the best ways to operate the team. He says that Kim is a “control freak” and “the only one on the team holding up progress”. Kim, on the other hand, only conveys her feelings about Kevin when team members are present, but she has repeatedly said out loud, “There are more ways of getting this team started than just yours! Too bad you have a closed mind!” For the most part, the other team members perceive Kim and Kevin to have a “personality conflict”, and they are avoiding getting involved. The team is ineffective so far, and there’s pressure to get the team on track because of the impending class assignment deadline. Agree on answers to the following questions, then report back on your group’s conclusions. Time: 30 minutes.




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– What main factors may account for the different perceptions held by Kevin and Kim?

• In each perceiver?

• In the targets?

• In the current situation?

– What are some ‘short cuts’ each may be taking in judging the other? Are these judgments correct?

– To what extent might the current situation be affecting the different perceptions?

– To what extent might each person’s apparent personality be the cause for the current conflict? Define their respective personalities.

– If behaviour such as this happens often, how can perceptions be changed to that people in conflict like Kevin and Kim can reach consensus? List some ideas.

___________

Source: Larry Anderson, Faculty of Commerce, UBC

CASE INCIDENT: USING THE PREDICTIVE INDEX

Should a personality test be the impetus for overthrowing a company? Laura McCann thought so.

Laura McCann was CEO of a New York City-based private-label clothing manufacturer. She and her partner had owned the company for seven years. The firm made money, but it also was a source of aggravation for her as well as many of her managers. McCann had been concerned that a number of her staff members were unhappy with their jobs, including some of her highest-ranking managers. Moreover, she and her partner were constantly at each other's throats.

In late 1997, McCann stumbled upon a personality test, the Predictive Index, which changed the way she looked at her business and led to her decision to reinvent the company.

McCann had met a consultant in psychometric testing. He was a strong advocate of the Predictive Index--a simple checklist of 86 adjectives. The test takes about five minutes to complete. Respondents go through the 86 adjectives twice, once checking those terms that they feel describe "the way you are expected to act by others"; and again, this time checking those that "you yourself believe really describe you." Examples of adjectives? Fussy, selfish, fearful, conscientious, tolerant, loyal. Once scored, the Predictive Index identifies four scales that purport to characterize any personality: dominance, extroversion, patience, and precision.

McCann had her partner and all the managers in her company take the Predictive Index test. The results, according to the test consultant, indicated that the cause of all the trouble was that nearly half of those on the company's management team had personalities that didn't fit their job descriptions. What's more, McCann and her partner couldn't have been more poorly matched.

Within a month of seeing these results, McCann took action. "The test helped me realize that all this difficulty we were having wasn't a personal thing. It just wasn't meant to be." McCann bought out her partner; restructured her management team, keeping just a well-chosen few; and started a totally new business with new partners and a largely different staff.

Questions 1. Contrast the Predictive Index to the Big 5 framework. How is it similar? Different?




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2. "Anyone with half-a-brain can fake a personality test. I can be anything an employer wants me to be." Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Support your position.

3. Could a test of Emotional Intelligence have been more effective in helping Laura McCann make her decision than the Predictive Index? Explain your position.

4. Do you think Laura McCann's actions were justified based on the results of a five-minute personality test? Explain.

___________

Source: Based on C. Caggiano, “Psycho Path,” INC., July 1998, pp. 77-85.




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Overview of Chapter PowerPoint Presentation

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Chapter 2

Perception, Personality, and Emotions

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Chapter Outline

• What Is Perception, and Why Is It Important?

• Factors Influencing Perception• Perceptual Errors• Why Do Perception and Judgment Matter?• Personality• Emotions

This material is found at the beginning of the chapter.

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Perception, Personality, and Emotions

1. What is perception?2. What causes people to have different perceptions

of the same situation?3. Can people be mistaken in their perceptions?4. Does perception really affect outcomes?5. What is personality and how does it affect

behaviour?6. Can emotions help or get in the way when

dealing with others?

Material pertinent to this discussion is found at the beginning of the chapter.

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Perception

• What Is Perception?– The process by which individuals organize and

interpret their impressions in order to give meaning to their environment.

• Why Is It Important?– Because people’s behaviour is based on their

perception of what reality is, not on reality itself. – The world as it is perceived is the world that is

behaviourally important.

Material pertinent to this discussion is found on pages 33.

Perception is the process by which individuals organize and interpret their impressions in order to give meaning to their environment. What one perceives can be substantially different from objective reality. Understanding perception is important because people's behaviour is based on their perception of what reality is, not reality itself.




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Why We Study Perceptions• To better understand how people make

attributions about events.• We don’t see reality. We interpret what we

see and call it reality. • The attribution process guides our

behaviour, regardless of the truth of the attribution.

An extra slide to help motivate the lecture.

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Factors Influencing Perception

• The Perceiver• The Target• The Situation

Material pertinent to this discussion is found on pages 34-36.

A number of factors operate to shape and sometimes distort perception.

The Perceiver who is affected by personal characteristics such as attitudes, motives, interests, past experience, and expectations.

The Target who is affected by "what we see," attractive or unattractive individuals, motion, sounds, size, and other attributes of a target shape the way we see it

The Situation which is the context in which we see objects or events. The situation is important as elements in the surrounding environment influence our perceptions.

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Exhibit 2-1 Factors that Influence Perception

Perception

The Target

• Novelty• Motion• Sounds• Size• Background• P roximity

The Perceiver

• Attitudes• Motives• Interests• Experience• Expectations

The Situation

• Time• Work setting• Social setting

The material for this illustration is found on page 35.

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Exhibit 2-2 Figure-Ground Illustrations





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Perceptual Errors

• Attribution Theory• Selective Perception• Halo Effect• Contrast Effects• Projection• Stereotyping


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Attribution Theory

• When individuals observe behaviour, they attempt to determine whether it is internally or externally caused.– Distinctiveness

• Does the individual act the same way in other situations?

– Consensus • Does the individual act the same as others in same situation?

– Consistency • Does the individual act the same way over time?


Attribution Theory says we judge people differently depending on what meaning we attribute to a given behaviour.

We attempt to determine whether the behaviour was internally—or externally—caused.

Externally-caused refers to the environment, while internally-caused behaviour is attributed to those events that are believed to be under the personal control of the individual.

Our determination of internally or externally caused behaviour depends on three factors:

Distinctiveness: Does the individual display different behaviour in different situations?

Consensus: If everyone who is faced with a similar situation responds in the same way, we can say the behaviour shows consensus.

Consistency. Is the person’s actions consistent over time?

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Attribution Theory

• Fundamental Attribution Error– The tendency to underestimate external factors

and overestimate internal factors when making judgments about others’ behaviour.

• Self-Serving Bias– The tendency to attribute one’s successes to

internal factors while putting the blame for failures on external factors.


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Exhibit 2-3 Attribution Theory

Observation InterpretationAttribution

of cause

External

Hig h(Seldom )

Low(Frequently )Hig h(Frequently )

Low(Seldom )Hig h(Frequently )

Low(Seldom )

Internal

rna l

Individualbehaviou r

Distinctiveness s(How often does the

person do this inother situations?)

Consensus(How often do other

people do this insimilar situations?)

Consistency(How often did theperson do this in

the past?)

External

Internal

Internal

External





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Perceptual Errors

• Selective Perception– People selectively interpret what they see based on

their interests, background, experience, and attitudes.• Halo Effect

– Drawing a general impression about an individual based on a single characteristic.

• Contrast Effects– A person’s evaluation is affected by comparisons

with other individuals recently encountered.


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Perceptual Errors• Projection

– Attributing one’s own characteristics to other people.

• Stereotyping– Judging someone on the basis of your perception of the

group to which that person belongs.

• Prejudice– An unfounded dislike of a person or group based on

their belonging to a particular stereotyped group.


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Why Do Perceptions and Judgment Matter?

• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy– A concept that proposes a person will behave in

ways consistent with how he or she is perceived by others.

Material pertinent to this discussion is found on page 41-42.

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PersonalityThe sum total of ways in which an individual reactand interacts with others.

• Personality Determinants– Heredity– Environmental Factors– Situational Conditions

• Personality Traits– Enduring characteristics that describe an individual’s behaviour.

• The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)• The Big Five Model


Personality Determinants

(1) Heredity: An approach that argues that the ultimate explanation of an individual's personality is the molecular structure of the genes, located in the chromosomes. The most persuasive research on this comes from studying monozygotic twins who were separated at birth and raised in very different environments. Different research studies with these kinds of twins have determined that genetics accounts for about half of the personality differences in people.

(2) Environment: The culture in which we are raised, our early conditioning, the norms among our family, friends, and social groups, and other influences that we experience play a critical role in shaping our personalities.

(3) Situation: The situation influences the effects of heredity and environment on personality. Personality can be subdued in some situations. A person will be different in a job interview as compared to being at dinner with friends. We cannot look at personality patterns in isolation.




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vs.vs.vs.vs.vs.vs.vs.vs.vs.vs.vs.vs.vs.vs.vs.vs.

OutgoingMore intelligentEmotionally stableDominantHappy-go-luckyConscientiousVenturesomeSensitiveSuspiciousImaginativeShrewdApprehensiveExperimentingSelf-sufficientControlledTense

1. Reserved 2. Less intelligent 3. Affected by feelings4. Submissive5. Serious6. Expedient7. Timid8. Tough-minded9. Trusting10. Practical11. Forthright12. Self-assured13. Conservative14. Group-dependent15. Uncontrolled16. Relaxed

Exhibit 2-4 Sixteen Primary Personality Traits


This exhibit shows a list of sixteen traits that have been found to be generally steady and constant sources of behaviour, allowing prediction of an individual’s behaviour in specific situations by weighing the characteristics for their situational relevance.

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Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

• Personality test to determine how people usually act or feel in particular situations.

• Classifications:– Extroverted (E) or Introverted (I)– Sensing (S) or Intuitive (I)– Thinking (T) or Feeling (F)– Perceiving (P) or Judging (J)

• Combined to form types, for example:– ESTP– INTJ

This material is found in more detail on pages 45-46.

Some examples of types:

INTJs are visionaries.

Usually have original minds and great drive for their own ideas and purposes

Characterized as sceptical, critical, independent, determined, and stubborn

ESTJs are organizers.

Are realistic, logical, analytical, decisive, and have a natural head for business or mechanics

Like to organize and run activities

ENTP types are conceptualizers.

Innovative, individualistic, versatile, and attracted to entrepreneurial ideas

Resourceful in solving challenging problems but may neglect routine assignments

There is no hard evidence that the MBTI is a valid measure of personality.

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Exhibit 2-6 Big Five Personality Factors

The material for this exhibit is found on page 47.




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The Big Five Model

• Classifications– Extraversion– Agreeableness– Conscientiousness– Emotional Stability– Openness to Experience


Extraversion: One’s comfort level with relationships. Extroverts (high in extraversion) tend to be friendly and outgoing and to spend much of their time maintaining and enjoying a large number of relationships. Introverts tend to be reserved and to have fewer relationships, and they are more comfortable with solitude than most people are.

Agreeableness: An individual’s propensity to defer to others. High agreeable people value harmony more than they value having their say or their way. They are cooperative and trusting of others. People who score low on agreeableness focus more on their own needs than on the needs of others.

Conscientiousness: The number of goals on which a person focuses. A highly conscientious person pursues fewer goals, in a purposeful way, and tends to be responsible, persistent, dependable, and achievement-oriented. Those who score low tend to be more easily distracted, pursuing many goals, and more hedonistic.

Emotional stability: A person’s ability to withstand stress. People with positive emotional stability tend to be characterized as calm, enthusiastic, and secure. Those with high negative scores tend to be nervous, depressed, and insecure.

Openness to experience: The final dimension addresses one’s range of interests. Extremely open people are fascinated by novelty and innovation. They tend to be imaginative, artistically sensitive, and intellectual. Those at the other end of the openness category appear more conventional and find comfort in the familiar.

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Exhibit 2-7 Big Five Personality Factors and Performance

* Positively related to job performance for all occupational groups* May be better than ability in predicting job performance

Conscientiousness

* Most studies found no link between agreeableness and performance or productivity in teams* Some found a negative link between person’s likeability and team performance

* Positively related to job performance in service jobs

Agreeableness

* Positively related to team performance* Positively related to degree of participation within team

* Positively related to job performance in occupations requiring social interaction* Positively related to training proficiency for all occupations

Extraversion

Relationship to Team Performance

Relationship to Job Performance

Big Five Personality Factor


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Exhibit 2-7 Big Five Personality Factors and Performance

Openness to Experience

Emotional Stability

*Positively related to training proficiency

* A minimal threshold amount may be necessary for adequate performance; greater degrees not related to job performance* Positively related to performance in service jobs* May be better than ability in predicting job performance across all occupational groups

*Data unavailable

Big Five Personality Factor Relationship to Job Performance

Relationship to Team Performance





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Major Personality Attributes

Influencing OB• Locus of Control• Machiavellianism• Self-Esteem• Self-Monitoring• Risk Taking• Type A Personality• Type B Personality• Proactive Personality


There are self-awareness exercises in the chapter for each of these traits.

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Locus of Control

• The degree to which people believe they are in control of their own fate.– Internals

• Individuals who believe that they control what happens to them.

– Externals• Individuals who believe that what happens to them

is controlled by outside forces such as luck or chance.


If you believe you control your own destiny you are labelled internal; and if you see your life as being controlled by outside forces you are labelled external. Research shows internals are more satisfied with their jobs, have lower absenteeism, and perform better on certain types of jobs. A self-assessment for locus of control is found at the end of the chapter.

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Exhibit 2-8 The Effects of Locus of Control on PerformanceCondition Performance Information Processing The work requires complex information processing and complex learning

Internals perform better

The work is quite simple and easy to learn Internals perform better than externals

Initiative The work requires initiative and independent action


The work requires compliance and conformity Externals perform better

Motivation The work requires high motivation and provides valued rewards in return for greater effort; it offers incentive pay for greater productivity


The work does not require great effort and contingent rewards are lacking; hourly pay rates are determined by collective bargaining

Externals perform at least as well as internals

Material of this illustration is found on page 50.

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Machiavellianism

• Degree to which an individual is pragmatic, maintains emotional distance, and believes that ends can justify means.

Material pertinent to this discussion is found on page 49.

Machiavellianism (Mach) —The degree to which an individual is pragmatic, maintains emotional distance, and believes that ends can justify means. This personality attribute is named after Niccolò Machiavelli, the sixteenth century author of The Prince. A self-assessment for Machiavellianism is found at the end of the chapter.

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Self-Esteem

• Individuals’ degree of liking or disliking of themselves.


Self-esteem: An individual's degree of like or dislike for himself or herself. A self-assessment for self-esteem is found at the end of the chapter.




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Exhibit 2-9 Branden’s Six Pillars

of Self-Esteem1. Living consciously: Be aware of everything that affects your values and goals,

and act with awareness.

2. Self-acceptance: Accept who you are without criticism and judgment.

3. Personal responsibility: Take responsibility for the decisions you make and the things you do.

4. Self-assertiveness: Honour your wants, needs, and values, and don’t be afraid to speak up for things that are important to you.

5. Living purposefully: Develop short- and long-term goals, and make realistic plans to achieve your goals.

6. Personal integrity: Live up to your word and your values.

Material for this illustration is found on page 51.

Psychologist Nathaniel Branden suggests that people can increase their self-esteem by following his “Six Pillars of Self-Esteem,” which is shown in Exhibit 2-9. By following the actions described, individuals can act with more confidence and integrity, which will lead to greater self-esteem. Branden emphasizes that self-esteem comes from the choices we make, not from how others treat us.

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Self-Monitoring

• A personality trait that measures an individual’s ability to adjust behaviour to external situational factors.


Self-monitoring: A personality trait that measures an individual's ability to adjust his or her behaviour to external situational factors. A self-assessment for self-monitoring is found at the end of the chapter.

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Risk-Taking

• Refers to a person’s willingness to take chances or risks.


Risk-Taking: The individual's willingness to take chances. A study of two groups of managers showed that high risk-taking managers make more rapid decisions and use less information in making their choices than low risk-taking managers. Interestingly, the decision accuracy was the same for both groups. A self-assessment for risk-taking is found at the end of the chapter.

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Type A Personality

– Moves, walks, and eats rapidly– Impatient– Multitasks– Dislikes leisure time– Obsessed with numbers, measures success in

terms of how many or how much of everything is acquired


Type A Personality: This type of individual is "aggressively involved in a chronic, incessant struggle to achieve more and more in less and less time.” A self-assessment for Type A or B is found at the end of the chapter.

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Type B Personality

– Never suffers from a sense of time urgency– Doesn’t need to display or discuss achievements

or accomplishments– Plays for fun and relaxation, not to win– Can relax without guilt


Type B Personality: Just the opposite of Type A. They are rarely harried by desires to obtain a wildly increasing number of things or participate in an endlessly growing series of events in an ever decreasing amount of time. A self-assessment for Type A or B is found at the end of the chapter.




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Proactive Personality

• A person who identifies opportunities, shows initiative, takes action, and perseveres until meaningful change occurs.


Ask students if they’ve ever notice that some people actively take the initiative to improve their current circumstances or create new ones while others sit by passively reacting to situations. This can help them think about proactive personality and why some people are proactive and others are not.

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What Are Emotions?

• Two related terms:– Emotions

• Intense feelings that are directed at someone or something.

– Moods• Feelings that tend to be less intense than emotions

and that lack a contextual stimulus.


Employees bring an emotional component with them to work every day, and no study of OB could be comprehensive without considering the role of emotions in workplace behaviour.

Emotions are intense feelings that are directed at someone or something. Emotions are reactions to an object, not a trait. They're object-specific. Research has identified six universal emotions: anger, fear, sadness, happiness, disgust, and surprise.

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Choosing Emotions: Emotional Labour

• When an employee expresses organizationally desired emotions during interpersonal interactions.


One way of addressing emotional labour is to discuss the difference between felt and displayed emotions. Felt emotions are an individual's actual emotions. In contrast, displayed emotions are those that are organizationally required and considered appropriate in a given situation. For instance, most of us know that we’re expected to act sad at funerals, regardless of whether we consider the person's death to be a loss; and to pretend to be happy at weddings, even if we don't feel like celebrating. The key point here is that felt and displayed emotions are often different.

Examples of emotional labour:

Effective managers have learned to be serious when giving an employee a negative performance evaluation and to cover up their anger when they've been passed over for promotion.

The salesperson who hasn't learned to smile and appear friendly, but instead reveals his or her true feelings at the moment, isn't typically going to last long on most sales jobs.




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Gender and Emotions

• Differences:– Women

• Show greater emotional expression than men• Experience emotions more intensely• Display more frequent expressions of all emotions,

except anger


When the genders are contrasted, women show greater emotional expression than men; they experience emotions more intensely; and they display more frequent expressions of both positive and negative emotions, except anger. In contrast with men, women also report more comfort in expressing emotions. Finally, women are better at reading nonverbal and paralinguistic cues than are men.

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Gender and Emotions

• Explanations:– Men and women have been socialized

differently• Men: tough and brave • Women: nurturing

– Women may have more innate ability to read emotions.

– Women may have a greater need for social approval.


What explains these differences? Three possible answers have been suggested.

The different ways men and women have been socialized. Men are taught to be tough and brave; and showing emotion is inconsistent with this image. Women, on the other hand, are socialized to be nurturing.

Women may have more innate ability to read others and present their emotions than do men.

Women may have a greater need for social approval and, thus, a higher propensity to show positive emotions like happiness.

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Emotional Intelligence

• Noncognitive skills, capabilities, and competencies that influence a person's ability to interact with others.

• Five dimensions– Self-awareness– Self-management– Self-motivation– Empathy– Social skills


Self-awareness. Being aware of what you're feeling. It is exhibited by self-confident, realistic self-assessment, and a self-deprecating sense of humour.

Self-management. The ability to manage one's own emotions and impulses. It is exhibited by trustworthiness and integrity, comfort with ambiguity, and openness to change.

Self-motivation. The ability to persist in the face of setbacks and failures. It is exhibited by a strong drive to achieve, optimism, and high organizational commitment.

Empathy. The ability to sense how others are feeling. It is exhibited by expertise in building and retaining talent, cross-cultural sensitivity, and service to clients and customers.

Social skills. The ability to handle the emotions of others. It is exhibited by persuasiveness, and expertise in building and leading groups and teams.




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Negative Workplace Emotions

• Negative emotions can lead to negative workplace behaviours: – Production (leaving early, intentionally

working slowly)– Property (stealing, sabotage)– Political (gossiping, blaming co-workers)– Personal aggression (sexual harassment, verbal

abuse)


Negative emotions can lead to a number of deviant workplace behaviours. Anyone who has spent much time in an organization realizes that people often engage in voluntary actions that violate established norms and threaten the organization, its members, or both.

These actions are called employee deviance: voluntary actions that violate established norms and that threaten the organization, its members, or both.

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Exhibit 2-10Affective Events Theory

Work Environment • Characteristics of

the job • Job demands • Requirements for

emotional labour

Work Events • Daily hassles • Daily uplifts

Emotional Reactions• Positive • Negative

Job Satisfaction

Job Performance

Personal Dispositions • Personality • Mood

Material for this illustration is found on page 59.

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Affective Events Theory

• Employees react emotionally to things that happen to them at work; this emotional reaction influences their job performance and satisfaction.


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Summary and Implications

1. What is perception? – Perception is the process by which individuals

organize and interpret their impressions in order to give meaning to their environment.

2. What causes people to have different perceptions of the same situation?

– Perceptions are affected by factors in the perceiver, in the object or target being perceived, and in the context or situation.


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3. Can people be mistaken in their perceptions?– Shortcuts, such as attribution theory, selective

perception, halo effect, contrast effects, projection, and stereotyping are helpful and even necessary, but can and do get us in trouble.

4. Does perception really affect outcomes?– Perceptions often affect productivity more than the

situation does.





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5. What is personality and how does it affect behaviour?

– Personality helps us predict behaviour.– Personality can help match people to jobs, to some

extent at least.6. Can emotions help or get in the way when we’re

dealing with others?– They can hinder performance, especially when

emotions are negative.– They can also enhance performance.

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OB at Work

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For Review

1. Define perception.2. What is attribution theory? What are its implications for

explaining behaviour in organizations?3. What is stereotyping? Give an example of how

stereotyping can create perceptual distortion.4. Give some positive results of using shortcuts when judging

others.5. Describe the factors in the Big Five model. Which factor

shows the greatest value in predicting behaviour? Why does it?


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For Review6. What behavioural predictions might you make if you knew

that an employee had (a) an external locus of control? (b) a low Mach score? (c) low self-esteem? (d) a Type A personality?

7. To what extent do people’s personalities affect how they are perceived?

8. What is emotional labour and why is it important to understanding OB?

9. What is emotional intelligence and why is it important?10. Explain affective events theory. What are its implications

for managing emotions?


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For Critical Thinking1. How might the differences in experience of students and

instructors affect each of their perceptions of classroom behaviour (e.g., students’ written work and class comments)?

2. An employee does an unsatisfactory job on an assigned project. Explain the attribution process that this person’s manager will use to form judgments about this employee’s job performance.

3. One day your boss comes in and he’s nervous, edgy, and argumentative. The next day he is calm and relaxed. Does this behaviour suggest that personality traits aren’t consistent fromday to day?

4. What, if anything, can managers do to manage emotions? Are there ethical implications in any of these actions? If so, what?

5. Give some examples of situations where expressing emotions might enhance job performance.





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Breakout Group Exercises

Form small groups to discuss the following topics. 1. Think back to your perception of this course and your

instructor on the first day of class. What factors might have affected your perceptions of what the rest of the term would be like?

2. Describe a situation where your perception turned out to be wrong. What perceptual errors did you make that might have caused this to happen?

3. Compare your scores on the Learning About Yourself Exercises at the end of the chapter. What conclusions could you draw about your group based on these scores?

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Supplemental Material

Slides for activities I do in my own classroom

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Personality Inventory

• In groups:– Quickly determine the means for each of the

personality items.– Develop a summary statement of your group

based on the means for each of the items.– What are the implications for the workplace of

scoring either high or low on these dimensions? (Your group will be asked to examine one of the dimensions.)

I have the students complete the personality inventories before coming to class, and then ask them to aggregate and analyze the information in class.

Individuals who rate high in externality are less satisfied with their jobs, have higher absenteeism rates, are more alienated from the work setting, and are less involved on their jobs than are internals. Internals generally perform better on their jobs and do better with jobs that have less structure. Externals, however, are more compliant and willing to follow directions.

High Machs manipulate more, win more, are persuaded less, and persuade others more than do low Machs.

High SEs are more satisfied with their jobs than are low SEs. In managerial positions, low SEs will tend to be concerned with pleasing others and, therefore, are less likely to take unpopular stands than are high SEs.

High self-monitors may be more successful in managerial positions in which individuals are required to play multiple, and even contradicting, roles. The high self-monitor is capable of putting on different “faces” for different audiences.

Type A’s tend to trade off quality of effort for quantity.




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Perception Exercise

• In the new OB project team, two members obviously have differentperceptions on just about everything the team does. Kevin “sees” the project one way; Kim “sees” it differently. They have different perceptions about team goals, methods, values, and the roles team members should play. Kevin gives the impression he wants “to be in charge” and he argues aggressively to get his way. Kim, who is more reserved, offers thoughtful ideas in rebuttal, and usually consults with the other group members for their views and support. Privately, Kevin bad-mouths Kim to anyone who will listen. He says that he has been on successful teams many times and “knows” the best ways to operate the team. He says that Kim is a “control freak” and “the only one on the team holding up progress.”Kim, on the other hand, only conveys her feelings about Kevin when team members are present, but she has repeatedly said out loud, “There are more ways of getting this team started than just yours! Too bad you have a closed mind!” For the most part, the other team members perceive Kim and Kevin to have a “personality conflict,” and they are avoiding getting involved. The team is ineffective so far, and there’s pressure to get the team on track because of the impending class assignment deadline.

I have the students read this exercise, and then discuss the questions on the following slide. Many thanks to Larry Anderson, a former sessional lecturer at UBC, for suggesting this exercise.

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In Groups• Agree on answers to the following questions, and then report back on your

group’s conclusions. Time: 30 minutes.– What main factors may account for the different perceptions held by

Kevin and Kim?• In each perceiver?• In the targets?• In the current situation?

– What are some “short cuts” each may be taking in judging the other? Are these judgements correct?

– To what extent might the current situation be affecting the different perceptions?

– To what extent might each person’s apparent personality be the cause for the current conflict? Define their respective personalities.

– If behaviour such as this happens often, how can perceptions be changed to that people in conflict like Kevin and Kim can reach consensus? List some ideas.

• Source: Larry Anderson, Sauder School of Business, UBC

Perceiver: Personal characteristics, attitudes and motives, interests, and past experiences all shape the way we perceive an event, and expectations.

Target: Target’s characteristics can affect what is perceived; relationship of a target to its background influences perception, as does our tendency to group close things and similar things together.

Situation: The context in which we see objects or events is important.

Selective Perception: Interpret what they see on the basis of their interest, background, experience, and attitudes.

Halo Effect: Drawing a general impression from a single characteristic.

Contrast Effects: Comparing with others.

Projection: Attributing one’s own characteristics to other people.

Stereotyping: Judging someone on the basis of one’s perception of the group to which that person belongs.



CHAPTER 2 PERCEPTION, PERSONALITY, AND...

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