ch2: individual behavior

Question 1

personality

Answer 1

the relatively enduring pattern of thoughts, emotions, and behaviours that characterize a person, along with the psychological processes behind those characteristics
o The bundle of characteristics that make us similar to or different from other people

Question 2

personality trait

Answer 2

broad concepts that allow us to label and understand individual differences
o Something within the person, rather than the environment, that predicts this behavioural tendency
o Individual’s personality traits measured in childhood predict many behaviours and outcomes in adulthood – educational attainment, employment success, marital relationships, illegal activities, health-risk behaviour

Question 3

how is personality shaped

Answer 3

o By nature – genetic and hereditary origins – 50% of variations in behaviour and 30% of temperament preferences can be attributed to a person’s genes
o By nurture – socialization, life experiences, other forms of interaction with the environment

Question 4

how does personality change

Answer 4

from childhood to young adulthood – stabilizes at 30 (we form a clearer and more rigid self-concept + executive function)
o A few traits (openness to new experiences, social vitality) – increase through to young adulthood, decline in later years
o Agreeableness, conscientiousness tend to increase through to late life

Question 5

big five

Answer 5

the five broad dimensions representing most personality traits: conscientiousness, emotional stability, openness to experience, agreeableness and extraversion

Question 6

conscientiousness

Answer 6

people who’re organized, dependable, goal-focused, thorough, disciplined, methodical, industrious
o Those with low conscientiousness – carless, disorganized, less thorough

Question 7

agreeableness

Answer 7

trusting, helpful, good-natured, considerate, tolerant, selfless, generous, flexible
o Low – uncooperative, intolerant of others’ needs, suspicious and self-focused

Question 8

neuroticism

Answer 8

anxious, insecure, self-conscious, depressed, temperamental
o Low – poised, secure, calm

Question 9

openness to experience

Answer 9

imaginative, creative, unconventional, curious, nonconforming, autonomous, aesthetically perceptive
o Low – resistant to change, less open to new ideas, more conventional and fixed in their ways

Question 10

extraversion

Answer 10

outgoing, talkative, energetic, sociable, assertive + get energy from people and things around them
o Introversion – quiet, cautious, less interactive with others + energy from personal reflection on concepts and ideas, feel more comfortable being alone

Question 11

how does personality affect behavior

Answer 11

through motivation – influencing direction and intensity of effort

Question 12

conscientiousness in the workplace

Answer 12

best overall personality predictor of proficient task performance
o Industriousness (achievement, self-discipline, purposefulness) and dutifulness – best predictors of proficient task performance
o Conscientious employees set higher personal goals, more persistent + engage in more organizational citizenship and less counterproductive work behaviour
o Weak predictor of adaptive (responding to change) and proactive performance (taking initiative toward new work patterns)
o Orderliness and dependability – suppress adaptivity

Question 13

extraversion in the workplace

Answer 13

second best overall personality predictor of proficient task performance, much weaker than conscientiousness
o Assertiveness and positive emotionality – strongest predictors of proficient task performance
o Assertiveness – strong predictor of adaptive and proactive performance
 Take charge, approach situations
o Influencing others and being comfortable in social settings – effective leaders and sales-people

Question 14

agreeableness in the workplace

Answer 14

positively associated with most forms of organizational citizenship and negatively associated with counterproductive work behaviours
o Employees with high agreeableness – more cooperative, sensitive, flexible, supportive
o Doesn’t predict proficient or proactive tasks – lower motivation to set goals and achieve results
o Higher (but not too high) – improve team performance through better knowledge sharing and motivation to help others
o Positive effect on friendliness behaviour in customer service jobs

Question 15

openness to experience in the workplace

Answer 15

weak predictor of proficient task performance, but predictor of adaptive and proactive performance
o More curiosity, imagination, tolerance of change -> successful performance in creative work

Question 16

emotional stability in the workplace

Answer 16

best personality predictor of adaptive performance
o Cope better with the ambiguity and uncertainty of change
o Higher neuroticism – view change as a threat – avoid change and experience more stress when faced with workplace adjustments

Question 17

types of performance and predictors

Answer 17

o Proficient task performance – conscientiousness, extraversion
o Adaptive task performance – emotional stability, extraversion (assertiveness), openness to experience
o Proactive task performance – extraversion (assertiveness), openness to experience
o Organizational citizenship – conscientiousness, agreeableness
o CWB – low conscientiousness and low agreeableness

Question 18

issues with the big five

Answer 18

1. Higher isn’t always better
   - The labels and structure of the big five have a strong linear bias (high is good, low is bad)
   - Best employees don’t have the highest scores on some personality factor – nonlinear
   o Those with moderate extraversion perform better in sales jobs that those with high or low extraversion
   - Students with the best peer-related contributions to teamwork have relatively high extraversion, but moderately high conscientiousness, around the mid-point on agreeableness
2. Specific traits may be better predictors than the Big Five factors
3. Personality isn’t static
   - Labelling people reinforces the fallacy that personality is static
4. The five-factor model doesn’t cover all personality

Question 19

the dark triad

Answer 19

a cluster of three socially undesirable (dark) personality traits – Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy

Question 20

Machiavellians

Answer 20

a personality trait of people who demonstrate a strong motivation to achieve their own goals at the expense of others, who believe that deceit is a natural and acceptable way to achieve their goals, who take pleasure in outwitting and misleading others using crude influence tactics and who have a cynical disregard for morality
o Named after Niccolo Machivelli

Question 21

narcissism

Answer 21

a personality trait of people with a grandiose, obsessive belief in their superiority and entitlement, a propensity to aggressively engage in attention-seeking behaviours, an intense envy of others and tendency to exhibit arrogance, callousness, and exploitation of others for personal aggrandizement

Question 22

psychopathy

Answer 22

a personality trait of people who ruthlessly dominate and manipulate others without empathy or any feelings of remorse or anxiety, use superficial charm, yet are social predators who engage in antisocial, impulsive, and often fraudulent thrill-seeking behaviour

Question 23

what’s a core characteristic of the dark triad

Answer 23

dishonesty

Question 24

organizational politics

Answer 24

the use of influence tactics for personal gain at the perceived expense of others and the organization

Question 25

counterproductive work behaviors

Answer 25

voluntary behaviours that have the potential to directly or indirectly harm the organization
o Low agreeableness and conscientiousness

Question 26

what’s the dark triad associated with

Answer 26

serious white-collar crimes
o A dark triad measure from video analysis was highly effective at identifying chef executive officers who were implicated in unethical misconduct and fraud
o Also associated with bullying and other forms of workplace aggression + tend to make decisions that produce poorer absolute and risk-adjusted investment returns
 Those with high psychopathy take excessive risk due to their overconfidence and disregard for consequences
- manipulative political skill

Question 27

what’s the relationship between task performance and the dark triad

Answer 27

• Complex relationship with other forms of task performance and career success – dysfunctional team members in the long term (don’t trust coworkers and focus on their own goals at the expense of team goals)
  o But do help others in the short run when it serves their self-interest

Question 28

MBTI

Answer 28

an instrument designed to measure the elements of Jungian personality theory, particularly preferences regarding perceiving and judging information

Question 29

Jung about personality

Answer 29

personality is mainly represented by the individual’s preferences regarding perceiving and judging information

Question 30

criticism of MBTI

Answer 30

test stability is below par, poor predictive validity of job performance, not recommended for employment selection or promotion decisions
o Can potentially identify employees who prefer face-to-face versus virtual teamwork, but doesn’t predict how well a team develops
- Knowing the job requirement is vital + often are self-reported + biased (different groups may respond differently)

Question 31

value

Answer 31

relatively stable, evaluative beliefs that guide a person’s preferences for outcomes or courses of action in a variety of situations

Question 32

value systems

Answer 32

hierarchy of preferences of values – stable and long lasting

Question 33

shared values

Answer 33

values of a team, department, profession, or entire society
o Organizational values, cultural values

Question 34

difference between values and personality traits

Answer 34

o Values are evaluative – tell us what we ought to do, personality traits describe what we naturally tend to do
o Personality traits have minimal conflict with each other, but some values are opposed to other values
o Values are influenced more by socialization whereas heredity has a stronger influence on an individual’s personality traits

Question 35

Schwartz’s values circumflex

Answer 35

57 values into 10 broad categories that are organized into a circular model

Question 36

ten categories of values

Answer 36

universalism, benevolence, tradition, conformity, security, power, achievement, hedonism, stimulation, self-direction

Question 37

quadrants of values

Answer 37

o Openness to change - how much is a person motivated to pursue innovative ways – creativity, independent thought
Self-direction (creativity, independent thought), stimulation (excitement and challenge), hedonism (pursuit of pleasure, enjoyment, gratification of desires)
o Conservation – motivated to preserve the status quo
Conformity, security (safety and stability), tradition (moderation and preservation of the status quo)
o Self-enhancement – motivated by self-interest
Achievement, power, hedonism
o Self-transcendence – motivated to promote welfare of others and nature
Benevolence (concern for others in one’s life), universalism (concern for the welfare of all people and nature)

Question 38

how do personal values influence decisions

Answer 38

o Directly motivate our actions by shaping the relative attractiveness of the choices available
o Indirectly motivate behaviour by framing our perception of reality – influence whether we notice something and how we interpret it
o We’re motivated to act consistently with our self-concept and public self-presentation

Question 39

why isn’t the people’s connection with values as strong as they would like to believe

Answer 39

o Situation can interfere with someone’s values
o People are often not aware of their values (they’re abstract concepts, their relevance isn’t obvious in many situations)

Question 40

values experiment

Answer 40

students given a math test and received a payment for each correct answer
o One group submitted their results for scoring (couldn’t cheat), a second group graded the tests themselves (could cheat), third group similar to the second one but students were required to sign their name to the statement “I understand that this short survey falls under honour system”
o No one given the honour system form lied about the result
o People are more likely to apply their values when they’re explicitly reminded of those values and see their relevance

Question 41

values congruence

Answer 41

how similar a person’s values hierarchy is to the values hierarchy of another entity (employee’s team or company)
o Increases the employee’s job satisfaction, loyalty and organizational citizenship
o Employees are more likely to make decisions that are compatible with organizational expectations

Question 42

how do organizations benefit from incongruence

Answer 42

• no corporate cult
• diversity of perspectives can lead to better decision making

Question 43

integrity

Answer 43

the leader’s ethical standards

Question 44

ethics

Answer 44

the study of moral principles or values that determine whether actions are right or wrong + outcomes good or bad

Question 45

four ethical principles

Answer 45

utilitarianism, individual rights, distributive justice, ethic of care

Question 46

utilitarianism

Answer 46

greatest good for the greatest number
o Problem – it requires a cost-benefit analysis, yet many outcomes aren’t measurable + could justify actions that other principles would consider immortal because those means produce the greatest good overall

Question 47

individual rights

Answer 47

everyone has same natural rights (freedom of movement, physical security, freedom of speech, fair trial)
o Problem: some individual rights may conflict with others

Question 48

distributive justice

Answer 48

benefits and burdens should be the same or proportional
o Variation: inequalities are acceptable when they benefit the least well off in society
o Problem: it’s difficult to agree on who is similar and what factors are relevant

Question 49

ethics of care

Answer 49

moral obligation to help close others
o The ethic of care is a practice, not a set of principle – attending to others’ needs, taking care of others through responsibility, giving care to others through one’s skills and abilities and by being responsive to the person receiving care

Question 50

what goes into the ethical conduct

Answer 50

Moral intensity, moral sensitivity, situational factors

Question 51

moral intensity

Answer 51

the degree to which an issue demands the application of ethical principle

Question 52

when is moral intensity higher

Answer 52

the consequences of the decision could be very good or bad, there is high agreement by others that the decision outcomes are good or bad, there is a high probability that the good or bad outcomes will occur, many people will experience the consequences of the decision

Question 53

moral sensitivity

Answer 53

a person’s ability to recognize the presence of an ethical issue and determine its relative importance
o High moral sensitivity – can more quickly and accurately estimate the moral intensity of the issue (doesn’t necessarily translate into ethical behaviour)

Question 54

when’s moral sensitivity higher

Answer 54

expertise or knowledge of prescriptive norms and rules, previous experience with specific moral dilemmas, ability to empathize with those affected by the decision (women have higher moral sensitivity), a strong self-view of being a morally sensitive person (employees with a strong moral identity tend to have higher moral sensitivity because they put more energy into maintaining ethical conduct), a high degree of situational mindfulness (mindfulness – a person’s receptive and impartial attention to and awareness of the present situation as well as to one’s own thoughts and emotions in that moment)

Question 55

what does mindfulness involve

Answer 55

o Mindfulness involves actively monitoring the environment as well as being sensitive to our responses to that environment
o Unfortunately, people have a natural tendency to minimize effort, which leads to less

Question 56

how many employees felt pressure to compromise their organization’s ethical standard

Answer 56

8% of UK and 13% of Continental EU employees felt pressure to compromise their organization’s ethical standards
o 8% of US and 14% of UK services and banking staff felt such pressure
o 23% among high-income finance/banking executives

Question 57

code of ethical conduct

Answer 57

– a statement about desired activities, rules of conduct and philosophy about the organization’s relationship to its stakeholders and the environment
o Motivate and guide employee behaviour, signal the importance of ethical conduct and build the firm’s trustworthiness to stakeholders, but do little to reduce unethical conduct

Question 58

other strategies to improve ethical conduct

Answer 58

train and regularly evaluate employees on their knowledge of proper ethical conduct
o Annual quizzes to test employee awareness and practices
o In some firms – moral dilemmas
- Moral telephone hotline – operated by an independent organization, where employees can anonymously report suspicious behaviour
o Ombudspersons – receive information confidentially from employees and investigate possible wrongdoings
- Most powerful foundation – set of shared values that reinforces ethical conduct
o By acting with the highest-moral standards, leaders gain support and trust + are role-models

Question 59

five values that have a cross cultural significance

Answer 59

individualism, collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, achievement-nurturing orientation

Question 60

individualism

Answer 60

a cross-cultural value describing the degree to which people in culture emphasize independence and personal uniqueness
o Personal freedom, self-sufficiency, control over their lives, being appreciated for unique qualities

Question 61

individualism countries

Answer 61

• High individualism: US, Chile, Canada, South Africa
  o Low: Taiwan, Venezuela
  o Medium: Japan, Denmark

Question 62

collectivism

Answer 62

the degree to which people in a culture emphasize duty to groups to which they belong and to group harmony

Question 63

collectivism countries

Answer 63

• High collectivism: Israel, Taiwan
  o Medium: India, Denmark
  o Low: US, Japan, Germany

Question 64

Japan - collectivism and individualism

Answer 64

low collectivism which is contrary to people’s beliefs
o Explanations for misinterpretation: problems defining and measuring collectivism, erroneous reporting of early research

Question 65

power distance

Answer 65

the degree to which people in a culture accept unequal distribution of power in society
- High power distance: value obedience to authority, accept superiors’ commands, prefer formal rules and authority to resolve conflicts
- Low power distance: expect relatively equal power sharing, view relationship with boss as interdependence, not dependence

Question 66

power distance countries

Answer 66

• High: India, Malaysia
  o Low: Denmark, Israel
  o Medium: US, Japan

Question 67

uncertainty avoidance

Answer 67

the degree to which people in a culture tolerate ambiguity or feel threatened by ambiguity and uncertainty
- High – value structured situations in which rules of conduct and decision making are clearly documented, direct communication, feel threatened by ambiguity and uncertainty
- Low – tolerate ambiguity and uncertainty

Question 68

uncertainty avoidance countries

Answer 68

• High: Belgium, Greece, Japan
  o Low: Denmark, Singapore
  o Medium: US, Norway

Question 69

caveats about cross-cultural knowledge

Answer 69

• Too many studies relied on small, convenient samples (students of one university) to represent an entire culture – draw conclusions that might not generalize to the culture they intended to represent
• Often assume that every country has one culture
• Continues to rely on a major study conducted almost 4 decades ago of 116000 IBM employees – its findings are outdated as many cultures have shifted over the years

Question 70

cultural diversity in the us across ethnic groups

Answer 70

African Americans have much higher individualism than European and Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans have the lowest individualism among these groups

Question 71

differences between states

Answer 71

• Collectivism is the highest across the southern states (California and Hawaii) and lowest in the Mountain, Northwest, and Great Plains
  o New England, Middle Atlantic and Pacific regions – high openness to experience but people living in the Great Plains and midwestern and south-eastern states have the lowest scores
  o Neuroticism is the highest in the Northeast and Southeast and lowest in the Midwest and West