Personality in Industrial Psychology

Lecture Material Review

• Define what is meant by Industrial and Organizational psychology
• Know the roles of the founding members in the field: Wilhelm Wundt, Kraeplin Scott, Munsterberg, Cattell
• How did World War I advance I/O psychology? What is Army alpha/beta testing and what did Canada call this test? What research did Ed Webster conduct in Canada in regards to the war effort?
• Describe the Hawthorne study and the implication of the results to I/O
• What made Lillian Gilbreth unique and what was her contribution to I/O
• How did World War II advance I//O?
• Assessment centers, critical incident technique, stouffer and PTSD
• 1960s civil rights act changed societies and businesses by requiring what?
• What did the baby boomer generation change the focus of I/O to?
• What were the four major changes in the 80s and 90s that altered and improved I/O psychology to what it is today?

Important Information from the Class and Textbook

• Define: organization and organizational behaviour
• Understand the different ways to manage an organization

• Classical view & bureaucracy

• Human relations
• Contingency approach
• Contemporary management concerns
• Workplace spirituality
• Positive organizational development
• Talent management (recruitment and retention)
• Corporate social responsibility

Charles Schwab

• Brokerage firm Charles Schwab
• 600 million in losses
• Morale was low
• Company antagonized clients with higher fees and impersonalized products
• 1.2 million (2006)

Over 20 Years of Focus on Selection Has Changed

• From a geocentric model to studying…
• Psychical abilities, personality, interests, knowledge, emotion

Personality

• Definition:

• A relatively stable set of psychological characteristics that influence the way an individual interacts with his/her environment and how they feel, think and behave. It is relatively consistent across time and situations

• Dimensions and traits are determined by genetic predisposition and one’s long term learning history

Personality Defined

• Dispositional approach
• Situational approach
• Interactionist approach

Dispositional Approach

• Individuals possess stable traits or characteristics that influence attitudes and behaviours
• Individuals are predisposed to behave in certain ways

Situational Approach

• Characteristics of the organizational setting (such as rewards and punishment) influence people’s feelings, attitudes and behaviour

• E.g., characteristics of work tasks predict job satisfaction

Interactionist Approach

• Emphasizing function of disposition and situation

• Weak VS. strong situations

• Weak situations when roles are loosely defined, few rules and weak reinforcement/punishment contingencies
• Personality has the strongest effect in weak situations

Five Factor Model (Big 5)

• Each of the big 5 is related to job performance
• Conscientiousness is the strongest predictor of overall job performance
• Big Five:

• Extraversion
• Emotional stability
• Conscientiousness
• Agreeableness
• Openness to experience

• Big five works across different types of occupations (professionals, salespeople, skilled laborers)
• Measured in many ways: self-report, other report, performance during training, personnel reports

Broad or Narrow Traits?

• Performance is broad and multi-faceted; therefore, equally broad traits are necessary to maximize criterion-related validity
• Proof is that measures broader than the big 5 (e.g., integrity tests) yield higher validity coefficients than do the Big 5

What Should an Employer Use?

• Predicting overall job performance

• FFM (r = + 0.23)
• Integrity test (r = + 0.41)

• Predicting counter productive work behaviours (e.g., theft, violence)

• FFM (r = + 0.51)
• Integrity test (r = + 0.32)

Broad or Narrow Traits?

• Extraversion strongest correlation with managerial performance

• Across different criteria
• Vocational settings

• Conscientiousness
• Neuroticism and openness
• Agreeableness

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For Example

• Textbook:

• Conscientiousness linked to attendance, theft, absenteeism and disciplinary problems
• Extraverts tend to be absent more than introverts

• Responsibility and risk-taking process greater validity than Big 5 with respect to negative workplace behaviour such as unpunctuality and theft

Trait Aggregation

• Integrity

• High agreeableness
• High emotional stability
• High integrity

• Accidents

• Low agreeableness
• High extraversion
• Low conscientiousness

Personality of an Investor

• Extraverted and preference for innovation
• Masculine sex roles

Personality of a Compulsive Buyer

• Those that display higher levels of neuroticism and extroversion

Locus of Control

• Internals

• More satisfied, committed with jobs
• Earn more money, higher positions
• Less stressed, less burnout, more careful career plans
• Less absent from work and more satisfied with their lives

Self- Monitoring

• Gravitate toward jobs requiring self-presentation skills
• More likely to emerge as leaders
• More role stress and less commitment to organization
• Feel discomfort in ambiguous social settings

Self-Esteem

• Low self-esteem

• React badly to negative feedback

• High self-esteem

• Make more fulfilling career decisions
• More resilient to daily workplace stresses
• Higher job satisfaction and performance

General Self-Efficacy

• Higher GSE

• Better able to adapt to novel, uncertain and adverse situations
• Higher job satisfaction and performance

Core Self-Evaluations