MODULE 2

INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR AND PROCESSES

Session Topic:

1. Individual Differences
2. Personality
3. Values

Learning Objectives:
The following specific learning objectives are expected to be realized at the end of the session:

1. Identify the key factors that contribute to individual differences

2. Explain how individual differences influence the behavior of people in the organizations
3. Identify the variables under demographic, mental ability, personality and value system influence
job performance

Key Points:
Individual differences Mental ability Terminal values
Personality Multiple intelligences Instrumental values
Values Mental aptitude Rokeach Value System
Value system Demographic diversity Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

Core Content:

Introduction

The module focuses on individual differences – demographic diversity, mental ability, personality and
values and explain how individual differences influence the behavior of people in organizations. It will
describe the key factors that contribute to demographic diversity, how mental ability relates to job
performance, the major personality and value system variables that influence job performance.
Sources of value systems and its importance will also be presented. Rokeach Value Survey will be
examined in detail in determining how members in the organization differ in their value systems.

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In-text Activities

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

– variations in how people respond to the same situation based on personal characteristics

Importance of Understanding Individual Differences on Managing People

1. People differ in productivity

2. Quality of work varies because people vary in their propensity for achieving high-quality results

3. Empowerment is effective with some workers, but not with all

4. A given leadership style does not work with all people

5. People differ in their need for contact with other people

6. Company management will find that commitment to the firm varies considerably

7. Workers vary in their level of self-esteem, which in turn, influences their productivity and capacity
to take on additional responsibilities

Causes of Individual Differences

1. Demographic diversity

Refers to the differences in background factors relating to the workforce that help shape workers’
attitudes and behavior

Key Sources of Demographic Diversity

a. Gender

Gender differences refer to differences in the perception of male and female roles

Major Differences Between Sexes:

- Women are better able to understand nonverbal communication

- Women are more expressive of emotion
- The average woman is more trusting and more nurturing than the average man
- Men more typically communicate to convey information or establish status
- Men also tend to emphasize immediate goals and communicate to exchange facts and ideas
- Women are more likely to communicate to establish rapport and solve problems
- Men are generally more aggressive than women and therefore less sensitive to the feelings
of others

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 - Women tend to be more courteous and polite
- Men are more likely to value equity, whereas women value equality.

Equity – refers to people being treated fairly

Equality – refers to people sharing equally

There are few differences between men and women in factors such as ability and
motivation that will affect job performance.

b. Generational and age-based differences

- The generation to which a person belongs may have a strong influence on his or work
behavior and attitudes
- People may behave differently on the job based somewhat on the behaviors and attitudes
typical of many members of their generation
- Every generation is influenced by the major economic, political, and social events of its era,
such as the Great Depression, the women’s movement, and advances in information
technology

Generation Stereotypes

Traditionalists Baby Boomers Generation X Generation Y

(Veterans) (1946-1960) (1961-1980) (1981-present)
(1925-1945)

Practical Optimistic Skeptical Hopeful

Patient,loyal, and hardworking Teamwork and Self-reliant Meaningful work

cooperation

Respectful of authority Ambitious Risk-taking Value diversity and change

Rule followers Workaholics Balance work and Technology savvy

personal life

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 c. Ethnic, Racial, and Cultural Differences

Differences in job performance and behavior are sometimes attributed to ethnic group and racial
differences

2. Mental ability

- Or intelligence is the capacity to acquire and apply knowledge, including solving problems
- A major source of individual differences that affect job performance
- General mental ability is a good predictor of job performance and success in training for a wide
variety of occupations
- Intelligent workers can best solve abstract problems

Factors Contributing to Overall Mental Aptitude

a. Verbal comprehension – ability to understand the meanings of words and their relationship to
one another, and to comprehend written and spoken information

b. Word fluency – the ability to use words quickly and easily, without an emphasis on verbal
comprehension

c. Numerical – the ability to handle numbers, engage in mathematical analysis, and do arithmetic
calculations

d. Spatial – the ability to visualize forms in space and manipulate objects mentally, particularly in
three dimensions

e. Memory – having a good rate recall for symbols, words, and lists of numbers, along with
other associations

f. Perceptual speed – the ability to perceive visual details, pick out similarities and differences,
and to perform tasks requiring visual perception

g.Inductive reasoning – the ability to discover a rule or principle and apply it in solving a
problem, and to make judgments and decisions that are logically sound

Triarchic Theory of Intelligence (Emphasis on Practical Intelligence)

This theory holds that intelligence is composed of three different types:

Analytical subtype – traditional type of intelligence needed for solving difficult problems with
abstract reasoning

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 Creative subtype – type of intelligence required for imagination and combining things in novel
ways

Practical subtype – type of intelligence required for adapting to an environment to suit an

individual’s needs

The idea of practical intelligence helps explain why a person who has a difficult time getting
through school can still be a successful businessperson, politician, or visual artist.

For organizations, an important implication about practical intelligence centers on problem-solving

ability and age.

Analytical intelligence may decline from early to late adulthood. Ability of this type is referred to
as fluid intelligence and is needed for on-the-spot reasoning, abstraction, and problem solving.

Ability to solve problems of practical nature is maintained or increased thru late adulthood. Such
ability is referred to as crystallized intelligence and centers around accumulated knowledge
such as vocabulary, arithmetic, and general information. In job situations calling for wisdom, such
as resolving conflicts, age and experience maybe an advantage

Multiple intelligence

- Developed by Howard Gardner

- According to this theory, people know and understand the world in distinctly different ways, or
look at it through different lenses

- Individuals possess the eight intelligences (or faculties), in varying degrees: linguistic, logical-
mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, intrapersonal, interpersonal, naturalist:

1. Linguistic – enable people to communicate through language, including reading,

writing, and speaking
2. Logical-mathematical – enables individuals to see relationships between objects and
solve problems, such as in calculus and statistics
3. Musical – gives people the capacity to create and understand meanings made out of
sounds and to enjoy different types of music
4. Spatial – enables people to perceive and manipulate images in their brain and to re-
create them from memory, such as in making graphic designs
5. Bodily-kinesthetic – enables people to use their body and perceptual and motor
systems in skilled ways such as dancing, playing sports, and expressing emotion
through facial expressions
6. Intrapersonal – enables people to distinguish among their own feelings and acquire
accurate self-knowledge
7. Interpersonal – makes it possible for individuals to recognize and make distinctions
among the feelings, motives, and intentions of others, as in managing and parenting
8. Naturalist – enables individuals to differentiate among, classify, and use various
features of the physical external environment

- Profile of intelligence influences how one will best learn and for which types of jobs
one is best suited

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 3. Personality differences

Personality refers to the persistent and enduring behavior pattern of an individual that are
expressed in a wide variety of situations

The combination of attributes, traits, and characteristics that makes you unique

Your walk, talk, appearance, speech, and creativity all contribute to your personality

The Myers-Briggs Type indicator (MBTI)

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is the most widely used personality-assessment
instrument in the world. It’s a 100-question personality test that asks people how they usually feel
or act in a particular situation.

MBTI Personality Classifications:

- Extraverted vs Introverted. Extraverted individuals are outgoing, sociable and assertive.

Introverts are quiet and shy
- Sensing vs intuitive. Sensing types are practical and prefer routine and order. They focus on
details. Intuitives rely on unconscious processes and look at the big picture.
- Thinking vs. feeling. Thinking types use reason and logic to handle problems. Feeling types
rely on their personal values and emotions.
- Judging vs perceiving. Judging types wants control and prefer their world to be ordered and
structured. Perceiving types are flexible and spontaneous.

The Big Five Personality Model

1. Extraversion. The extraversion dimension capture one’s comfort level with relationships.
Extraverts tend to be gregarious, assertive, and sociable. Introverts tend to be reserved, timid
and quiet.

2. Agreeableness. The agreeableness dimension refers to an individual’s propensity to defer to

others. Highly agreeable people are cooperative, warm, and trusting. People who score low on
agreeableness are cold, disagreeable and antagonistic.

3. Conscientiousness. The conscientiousness dimension is a measure of reliability. A highly

conscientious person is responsible, organized, dependable and persistent. Those who score
low on this dimension are easily distracted, disorganized, and unreliable.

4. Emotional stability (neuroticism). The emotional stability dimension – often labeled by its
converse, neuroticism – taps 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.

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 5. Openness to experience. The openness to experience dimension addresses one’s 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.

How do personality predicts behavior at work?

 MBTI can be a valuable tool for increasing self-awareness and providing career guidance.
Evidence is mixed as to whether the MBTI is a valid measure of personality as results tend to be
unrelated to job performance. Nonetheless, MBTI can help employees to better understand
themselves and can help team members to better understand each other.

 Research on the Big Five has found relationships between these personality dimensions and job
performance. “The preponderance of evidence shows that individuals who are dependable,
reliable, careful, thorough, able to plan, organized, hardworking, persistent, and achievement-
oriented tend to have higher job performance in most if not all occupations. Employees who
score higher in conscientiousness develop higher levels of job knowledge. The higher levels of
job knowledge then contribute to higher levels of job performance.”

VALUES

 Represent basic convictions that a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is

personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-state of
existence
 They contain a judgmental element in that they carry an individual’s ideas as to what is right,
good, or desirable.
 Values have both content and intensity attributes

Content attributes - says that a mode of conduct or an end-state existence is important

Intensity attributes – specifies how important it is

Value System

 Ranking of individual’s values in terms of their intensity

 All individuals have a hierarchy of values that form their value system
 The system is identified by the relative importance assign to values such as freedom, pleasure,
self-respect, honesty, obedience, and equality
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Source of a Person’s Value System

 Established in a person’s early years – from parents, teachers, friends and others
 They tend to be relatively stable and enduring

Importance of Values

 They lay the foundation for our understanding of people’s attitudes and motivation
 Values generally influence attitudes and behavior

Classifications of Values

Rokeach Value Survey (RVS)

Created by Milton Rokeach consists of two sets of values, each containing 18 individual value
items:

a. Terminal values – refers to desirable end-states. These are the goals a person would like
to achieve during his or her lifetime
b. Instrumental values – refers to preferable modes of behavior, or means of achieving the
terminal values

Figure 1

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  RVS is use to compare individual commitment to a set of values

 Several studies confirm that RVS values vary among groups. People in the same
occupations or categories tend to hold similar values. Below is an example on how RVS
is used to determine the differences between managers and non-managers across age
groups. The findings can help managers design motivation systems, reward and
compensations programs, and leadership approaches.

Summary

Individual differences are variations in how people respond to the same situation based on personal
characteristics. Understanding individual differences on managing people is important for so many
reasons. People differ in productivity, quality of work varies because people vary their propensity for
achieving high quality results, empowerment is effective with some workers but not with all, a given
leadership style does not work with all people, people differ in their need for contact with other people,
commitment to the firm varies among employees and workers vary in their level of self-esteem which in
turn influences their productivity and capacity to take on additional responsibilities.

The causes of individual differences are demographics, mental ability and personality and values.
Demographic diversity refers to the differences in background factors relating to the workforce that help
shape workers’ attitudes and behaviors such as gender, generational and age-based differences; ethnic,
racial and cultural differences. Mental ability or intelligence is the capacity to acquire and apply
knowledge. It is a major source of individual differences that affect job performance as general mental
ability is a good predictor of job performance and success in training for a wide variety of occupations.

Personality refers to the persistent and enduring behavior pattern of an individual that expressed in a wide
variety of situations. It is the combination of attributes, traits and characteristics that makes one unique.
The Big Five Personality Model presents the five dimensions of personality that varies among individuals
consist of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability and openness to
experience. Research on the Big Five has found relationships between these personality dimensions

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and job performance. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is personality-assessment that can be
used to help employees better understand themselves and can help team members to better understand
each other.

Individuals also differ in their values. Values represent basic convictions that a specific mode of conduct
or end-state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct
or end-state of existence. They contain a judgmental element in that they carry an individual’s ideas as to
what is right, good, or desirable. Values have both content and intensity attributes. Content attributes
says that a mode of conduct or an end-state existence is important while intensity attributes specifies how
important it is. All individuals have a hierarchy of values that form their value system. Rokeach Value
Survey (RVS) created by Milton Rokeach classified two sets of values. Terminal values which are the
goals a person would like to achieve during his or her lifetime and instrumental values that refers to
preferable modes of behavior, or means of achieving the terminal values. RVS is use to compare
individual commitment to a set of values. Several studies confirm that RVS values vary among groups.
People in the same occupations or categories tend to hold similar values.

Assessment/Evaluation

1. Case study
2. End of lesson quiz

References

The contents of this module are sourced from:

Robins, Stephen P. and Timothy A Judge (2015). Organizational Behavior. Pearson Education.
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