11.1:

Personality - Consists of the stable and psychological traits and behavioral attributes that give a person his or her identity.

Big Five Personality Dimensions:
Extroversion. How outgoing, talkative, sociable, and assertive a person is.
Agreeableness. How trusting, good-natured, cooperative, and soft-hearted one is.
Conscientiousness. How dependable, responsible, achievement-oriented, and persistent one is.
Emotional Stability. How relaxed, secure, and unworried one is.
Openness to Experience. How intellectual, imaginative, curious, and broad-minded one is.

Extroversion has more of an impact on job performance than agreeableness. Successful managers and salespeople tend to score highly in extroversion.

Conscientiousness also has a high impact on job performance, particular in training.

Personality Test Cautions:
Hire a professional.
Don’t hire on the basis of tests alone.
Be alert for gender, racial, and ethnic bias.
Graphology (penmanship) tests don’t work, but integrity tests do.

Proactive Personality - Someone who is more apt to take initiative and persevere to influence the environment.



Core Self-Evaluations

Core Self-Evaluation - A broad personality trait comprising four individual traits: (1) self-efficacy, (2) self-esteem, (3) locus of control, (4) emotional stability.

1. Self-Efficacy - “I Can/Can’t Do This Task”

Self-Efficacy - The belief in one’s personal ability to do a task.

Low Self-Efficacy is associated with Learned Helplessness.

Learned Helplessness - The lack of faith in one’s ability to control one’s environment.
Assign Jobs Accordingly: Complex, challenging jobs increase employee’s self-efficacy. Boring, tedious jobs do the opposite.

Develop Self-Efficacy: Employees with low self-efficacy need constructive feedback, attainable goals, and reward systems.

2. Self-Esteem - “I Like/Dislike Myself”

Self-Esteem - The extent to which people like or dislike themselves, their overall self-evaluation.

Ways to Boost Self-Esteem:
Reinforce employees’ positive attributes and skills.
Provide positive feedback whenever possible.
Break larger projects into smaller tasks.
Express confidence in employees’ abilities to complete their tasks.
Provide coaching whenever employees are struggling.

3. Locus of Control - “I Am/Am Not the Captain of My Fate”

Locus of Control - Indicates how much people believe they control their fate through their own efforts.

Internal tend to experience higher success and resist close managerial supervision.

4. Emotional Stability - “I’m Secure/Insecure When Working Under Pressure”

Low levels view world negatively, high levels show better job performance.

Emotional Intelligence - The ability to monitor yours and others’ feelings and to use this information to guide your thinking and actions.

Emotional Intelligence is Comprised of:
Self-Awareness. Ability to read your own emotions so you know how you’re affecting others.
Self-Management. Ability to control your emotions and act with honesty and integrity in reliable ways.
Social Awareness. Includes empathy, allowing you to show others that you care, and organizational intuition, so you understand how your emotions and actions affect others.
Relationship Management. The ability to communicate clearly and convincingly, disarm conflicts, and build strong personal bonds.


Develop awareness of EI level: Take a self-assessment.

Learn about areas needing improvement: Empathy in communications is enhanced by trying to (1) understand how others feel about what they are communicating and (2) gaining appreciation of what people want from an exchange.



11.2:


Organizational Behavior - Dedicated to better understanding and management of people at work.

Tries to help managers explain and predict workplace behavior.



Values - Abstract ideals that guide one’s thinking and behavior across all situations.

Attitude - Learned predisposition toward a specific given object.

Three Components of Attitudes:
The Affective Component - “I feel.” - Consists of feelings or emotions one has about a situation.
The Cognitive Component - “I believe.” - Consists of beliefs or knowledge one has about a situation.
The Behavioral Component - “I intend.” - Refers to how one intends or expects to behave toward a situation.

Cognitive Dissonance (Festinger) - Psychological discomfort a person experiences between his or her cognitive attitude and incompatible behavior.

Ways to Reduce Cognitive Dissonance:
Change attitude/behavior
Belittle importance of the inconsistent behavior
Find consonant elements that outweigh dissonant ones



Behavior - Actions and judgements.



11.3:

Perception - The process of interpreting and understanding one’s environment.

Four Steps in Perception Process:
Selective Attention
Interpretation & Evaluation
Storing in Memory
Retrieving from Memory to Make Judgements & Decisions



Four Distortions in Perception

1. Stereotyping: “Those sorts of people are pretty much the same.”

Stereotyping - The tendency to attribute to an individual the characteristics that one believes are typical of the group to which that individual belongs.

Principal stereotyping: (1) sex-role stereotypes, (2) age stereotypes, (3) race/ethnicity stereotypes.


2. The Halo Effect: “One Trait Tells Me All I Need to Know”

Halo Effect - Forming a positive impression of an individual based on a single trait.

3. The Recency Effect: “The Most Recent Impressions Are the Ones That Count”

Recency Effect - The tendency of people to remember recent information better than earlier information.

4. Causal Attributions

Causal Attribution - The activity of inferring causes for observed behavior.

Fundamental Attribution Bias - To attribute another person's behavior to his or her personal characteristics rather than to situational factors.

Self-Serving Bias - The tendency to take more personal responsibility for success than for failure.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy - Also known as the Pygmalion effect; the phenomenon in which people's expectations of themselves or others leads them to behave in ways that make those expectations come true.



11.4:

Three attitudes managers are interested in: (1) employee engagement, (2) job satisfaction, (3) organizational commitment.

1. Employee Engagement: How connected are you to your work?

Employee Engagement - An individual's involvement, satisfaction, and enthusiasm for work.

2. Job Satisfaction: How much do you like or dislike your job?

Job Satisfaction - The extent to which one feels positive or negative about various aspects of one's work.
Key satisfaction components: (1) work, (2) pay, (3) promotions, (4) coworkers, and (5) supervision.

Job performance and job satisfaction affect one another.

3. Organizational Commitment

Organizational Commitment - Behavior that reflects the extent to which an employee identifies with an organization and is committed to its goals.



Important Workplace Behaviors

1. Evaluating Behavior When Employees Are Working: Performance & Productivity

Method of evaluation must match the job being done.

2. Evaluating Behavior When Employees Are Not Working: Absenteeism & Turnover

Onboarding - Programs that help employees to integrate and transition to new jobs by making them familiar with corporate policies, procedures, culture, and politics by clarifying work-role expectations and responsibilities.

3. Evaluating Behavior That Exceeds Work Roles: Organizational Citizenship Behaviors

Organizational Citizenship Behaviors - Employee behaviors that are not directly part of employees' job descriptions—that exceed their work-role requirements—such as constructive statements about the department.

4. Evaluating Behavior That Harms the Organization: Counterproductive Work Behaviors

Counterproductive Work Behaviors - Types of behavior that harm employees and the organization as a whole.








11.5:



Ch 11.6:

Strong Stressors - Extreme physical discomfort, such as severe chronic back pain.

Eustress - Good type of stress




Six Sources of Stress:

1. Demands Created by Individual Differences: The stress created by genetic or personality characteristics.

Type A Behavior Pattern - Behavior describing people involved in a chronic, determined struggle to accomplish more in less time.

2. Individual Task Demands: The stress created by the job itself.

Low wage jobs tend to be more stressful, because individuals have less control.

3. Individual Role Demands: The stress created by others’ expectations of you.

Roles - Sets of behaviors that people expect of occupants of a position.

Role Overload - Role overload occurs when others' expectations exceed one's ability.

Role Conflict - Occurs when one feels torn by the different expectations of important people in one's life.

Role Ambiguity - Occurs when others' expectations are unknown.

4. Group Demands: The stress created by coworkers and managers.

5. Organizational Demands: The stress created by the environment and culture.

6. Nonwork Demands: The stresses created by forces outside the organization.



Reducing Stressors in the Organization

Buffers - Administrative changes that managers can make to reduce the stressors that lead to employee burnout.