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Learning Goals What is personality, and how can it be distinguished from ability? What are cultural values? Is personality driven by nature or by nurture? How can we tell? What are the “Big Five?” Are there other taxonomies that can used to describe personality other than the Big Five? What are Hofstede’s dimensions of cultural values? How does personality affect job performance and organizational commitment? Are personality tests a useful tool for organizational hiring?

Personality and Cultural Values Personality captures what people are like. Traits Cultural values

Discussion Question How would you describe your first college roommate to one of your classmates?

Personality Determinants How does personality develop? Nature Study of identical twins Genes Nurture Surrounding Experiences

Changes in Big Five Dimensions Over the Life Span Figure 9-2

The Big Five Personality Traits Conscientiousness Conscientiousness has the biggest influence on job performance. Conscientious employees prioritize accomplishment striving. OB on Screen The Break-Up

The Big Five Personality Traits, Cont’d Agreeableness Prioritize communion striving Beneficial in some positions but detrimental in others. Agreeable people focus on “getting along,” not necessarily “getting ahead.”

The Big Five Personality Traits, Cont’d Extraversion Easiest to judge in zero acquaintance situations. Prioritize status striving. Tend to be high in what’s called positive affectivity.

Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Typical Moods Figure 9-3

The Big Five Personality Traits, Cont’d Neuroticism Synonymous with negative affectivity. Associated with a differential exposure to stressors. Associated with a differential reactivity to stressors. Neuroticism is also strongly related to locus of control. Tend to hold an external locus of control. Less neurotic people tend to hold an internal locus of control.

External and Internal Locus of Control Table 9-2

The Big Five Personality Traits, Cont’d Openness to experience Openness to experience is also more likely to be valuable in jobs that require high levels of creativity. Highly open individuals are more likely to migrate into artistic and scientific fields.

Openness to Experience and Creativity Figure 9-4

Trait Adjectives Associated with the Big Five Figure 9-1

Other Taxonomies of Personality Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (or MBTI) evaluates individuals on the basis of four types of preferences: Extraversion versus Introversion Sensing versus Intuition Thinking versus Feeling Judging versus Perceiving

Other Taxonomies of Personality, Cont’d Holland’s RIASEC model suggests that interests can be summarized by six different personality types: Realistic Investigative Artistic Social Enterprising Conventional

Holland’s RIASEC Model Figure 9-6

Cultural Values Employees working in different countries tended to prioritize different values, and those values clustered into several distinct dimensions. Ethnocentrism

Hofstede’s Dimensions of Cultural Values Table 9-3

Hofstede’s Dimensions of Cultural Values, Cont’d Table 9-3

How Can We Describe What Employees Are Like? Figure 9-7

Importance of Personality and Cultural Values Conscientiousness affects job performance. It is a key driver of what’s referred to as typical performance. More likely to engage in citizenship behaviors. Tend to be more committed to their organization. An employee’s ability is a key driver of maximum performance.

Importance of Personality and Cultural Values, Cont’d The principle of situational strength suggests that “strong situations” have clear behavioral expectations, incentives, or instructions that make differences between individuals less important, whereas “weak situations” lack those cues. Trait activation

Effects of Personality on Performance and Commitment Figure 9-8

A Sampling of Well-Validated Measures of the Big Five Table 9-4

Personality Tests Integrity tests Clear purpose tests Integrity test scores are more strongly related to job performance than conscientiousness scores. Clear purpose tests Veiled purpose tests

Sample Integrity Test Items Table 9-5

Personality Tests, Cont’d About one-third of Fortune 1000 organizations rely on, or plan to implement, some form of personality testing. Research suggests that almost everyone engages in some form of faking. Because everyone fakes to some degree, correlations with outcomes like theft or other counterproductive behaviors are relatively unaffected.

The Effects of Faking on Correlations with Integrity Tests Figure 9-9

Takeaways Personality refers to the structures and propensities inside a person that explain his or her characteristic patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior. It also refers to a person’s social reputation. In this way, personality captures what people are like (unlike ability, which reflects what people can do ). Cultural values are shared beliefs about desirable end states or modes of conduct in a given culture that influence the expression of traits. Although both nature and nurture are important, personality is affected significantly by genetic factors. Personality can be changed, but such changes are only apparent over the course of several years.

Takeaways, Cont’d The “Big Five” includes conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness to experience, and extraversion. Although the Big Five is the dominant taxonomy of personality, other taxonomies include the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory and Holland’s RIASEC model. Hofstede’s dimensions of cultural values include individualism–collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity–femininity, and short-term vs. long-term orientation.

Takeaways, Cont’d Conscientiousness has a moderate positive relationship with job performance and a moderate positive relationship with organizational commitment. It has stronger effects on these outcomes than the rest of the Big Five. Personality tests are useful tools for organizational hiring. Research suggests that applicants do “fake” to some degree on the tests, but faking does not lower the correlation between test scores and the relevant outcomes.