Personality-Individual Differences

Question 1

What are the relevant theories for the Person-Situation Debate?

Answer 1

• Social Information Processing, SIP (Salancik & Pfeffer, 1978)
• Social learning theory, SLT (Bandura, 1977)
• Attraction-Selection-Attrition (Schneider, 1987)
• Job Enrichment (Hackman & Oldham, 1976; 1980) *Sense making (Weick, 1995).

Question 2

Davis-Blake & Pfeffer (1989)

Answer 2

• Argues that situational effects are more salient than dispositional effects.
• Dispositional research cannot rely on stable attitudes to suggest personality traits stability w/o accounting for other experiences: individual status, job complexity, network variables etc.

There are robust, stable individuals traits/attributes (e.g. values, needs, attitudes or personalities), generally unobservable (different than race, gender) that have determinative influence on human attitudes or behaviors.

Insist there is not value in continuing to explore dispositional theory to explain behavior in organizations.

Question 3

Tett & Guterman (2000)

Answer 3

Supporting the interactional view, they found situational behavior is dependent on a variety of traits relevant to the cues of the situation.

Question 4

Dispositional Theory

Answer 4

known as trait theory, deals with how the stable psychological characteristics determine how people behave. Focuses on an individual’s personality

• Dispositional theory requires explanation of WHY individuals may show stability in job satisfaction over time and across situations.
• Individuals are stable and non-adaptive.

“The essence of the dispositional approach is that individuals possess stable traits that significantly influence their affective and behavioral reactions to organizational settings.” (Davis-Blake & Pfeffer, 1989)

Question 5

Ozer & Martinez (2006)

Answer 5

Personality dispositions are association with happiness, physical and psychological health, spirituality, and identity at an individual level;

associated with the quality of relationships with peers, family, and romantic others at an interpersonal level; and associated with occupational choice, satisfaction, and performance, as well as community involvement, criminal activity, and political ideology at social institutional level.

Question 6

Inter-temporal consistency

Answer 6

individual dispositions that are stable over time. (Staw et al., 1986)

Question 7

Inter-situational consistency

Answer 7

Individual dispositions or traits that have significant effect on attitudes and behaviors across all organizational settings (Staw et al., 1986).

Question 8

Schneider (1987)

Answer 8

Provides an interactional view - people & the situation are inseparable.

The attraction, selection and attrition cycle determines the restricted range of types of people in organizations.

Question 9

Job Enrichment Theory

Answer 9

Based on need theory. To increase job satisfaction and employee motivation, work tasks should be designed to meet the needs of the individual.
(e.g. Herzberg 1966· Hackman and Oldham, 1980; Lawler, 1982)-

Question 10

Social Information Processing Theory

Answer 10

Individuals’ attitudes are not a function of deep­-seated needs, but a product of how people socially construct (interpreted) the world around them. (Salancik and Pfeffer 1977 1978)

Question 11

Person-organization fit

Answer 11

the congruence between the norms and values of organizations and the values of persons (Chatman, 1989)

Question 12

Tett & Burnett (2003)

Answer 12

Trait Activation
Argues in favor of situational specificity—whether a trait predicts performance depends on the context, or, alternatively, whether a particular contextual feature is relevant depends on the trait. Thus, the relevance of a trait and the relevance of the situation must correspond, such that the individual must possess the trait that would enable them to respond appropriately according to the cues of the situation. As stated by Tett and Burnett (2003: 502), “[t]rait activation is the process bywhich individuals express their traits when presented with trait-relevant situational cues.”

Question 13

Situational Strength

Answer 13

Cues provided by environmental forces regarding the desirability of potential behaviors.Situational strengthis said to result in psychological pressure on the individual to engage in and/or refrain from particular behaviors. (Dala & Herminda 2010)

Question 14

Similarity-Attraction

Answer 14

posits that people like and areattractedto others who are similar, rather than dissimilar, to themselves; “birds of a feather,” the adage goes, “flock together.”
(Berscheid & Walster, 1969)

Question 15

Neo-socioanalytic

Answer 15

Identifies four kinds of individual differences:
- traits,
- motives/values,
- abilities, and
- narratives,
each of which is organized hierarchically
(Bogg, 2008)

Question 16

Five-Factor Model

Answer 16

Extraversion (positive affect); Aggreeableness (affilitativeness); Conscientiousness (effortful control); Neuroticisim (negative affect); Intellect/Openness (orienting sensitivity)
(McCrae & Costa, 1996)

Question 17

House, Shane, & Herold (1996)

Answer 17

Rebuttal to Davis-Blake & Pfeffer (1989)
Conclude dispositional research has predictive value and contributes to behavioral theories in orgs.

Dispositional are psychological most stable personality , need states, attitudes, perferences, motives, situations are not always “strong”, so Mischel (1968) observation is not a case against dispositional research, situations may effect dispositions, but it is still a disposition.

House et al. (1991), Hough et al. (1990) effect dispositions are significant

Question 18

Hurtz & Donovan (2000)

Answer 18

Meta analysis on Big 5 (extroversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientious, & emotional stability)

Found support for Barrick & Mount (1991) findings of validity for conscientiousness

Question 19

Barrick, Mount, & Judge (2001)

Answer 19

Meta analysis of dispositional view and call for a moratorium. Urges researchers to explore deeper constructs related to personality and performance

Question 20

Judges & Ilies (2002)

Answer 20

Five Factor Model of personality and 3 central theories of motivation

1) goal-setting
2) expectancy
3) self-efficacy

Big five traits are an important source of performance motivation
Neuroticism consistent

Question 21

Hogan & Holland (2003)

Answer 21

Examined specific job performance characteristics relationship with Big 5

Neuroticism –> Adjustment
Extroversion –> Ambition & Sociability
Agreeableness –> Likeability
Conscientiousness –> Prudence
Intellect/Openness –> Intellect & School Success

Question 22

Barrick, Parks, & Mount (2005)

Answer 22

Examines if self-monitoring moderates the relationship between Big Five personality traits and interpersonal performance. The findings from a sample of 102 employed Executive MBAstudents reveal that when self-monitoring was high the relationships between 3 of the Big Five personality traits (Extraversion, Emotional Stability, and Openness to Experience) and supervisory ratings of interpersonal performance were attenuated.

• self-monitoring did not moderate the relationships between personality traits and supervisory or peer ratings of task performance.

Question 23

Judge, Jackson, Shaw, Scott, & Rich (2007)

Answer 23

• self-efficacy predicts performance in low-complexity tasks
• when controlling for individual differences self-efficacy does not predict much of the variance.

estimated the unique contribution of self-efficacy to work-related performance controlling for personality (the Big 5 traits), intelligence or general mental ability, and job or task experience. Results, based on a meta-analysis of the relevant literatures, revealed that overall, across all studies and moderator conditions, the contribution of self-efficacy relative to purportedly more distal variables is relatively small.