3

Personality,
Perception, and
Attribution
LEARNING OUTCOMES

1. Describe individual differences and explain why

they are important in understanding
organizational behavior
2. Articulate key personality traits and explain how
they influence behavior in organizations
3. Discuss how personality theories may be applied
in organizations
LEARNING OUTCOMES (continued)

4. Define social perception and explain the factors

that affect it
5. Identify five common barriers to social perception
and explain the difficulties they cause
6. Explain the attribution process and how
attributions affect managerial behavior
LO - 3.1

Describe individual differences and explain why

they are important in understanding
organizational behavior
 LO 1

Individual Differences

• Represent the essence of the challenge of

management
• The more managers understand individual
differences, the better they can work with others
• Interactional psychology
• Psychological approach to understanding
human behavior by knowing something about
the person and the situation
• Helps in understanding individual differences

.
 LO 1

Figure 3.1 Variables Influencing Individual

Behavior
LO - 3.2

Articulate key personality traits and explain how

they influence behavior in organizations
 LO 2

Personality

• Relatively stable set of characteristics that

influences an individual’s behavior and
lends it consistency
• Determinants include heredity and the
environment

.
 LO 2

Personality (continued)

• Theories that have influenced the study of

personality in organizations
• Trait theory: Advocates breaking down behavior
patterns into a series of observable traits in
order to understand human behavior
• Integrative approach: Describes personality as a
composite of an individual’s psychological
processes
➖Focuses on personal dispositions and
situational variables as combined predictors of
behavior
.
 LO 2

Table 3.1 The Big Five Personality Traits

Trait Characteristics

Extraversion The person is gregarious, assertive, and sociable (as

opposed to reserved, timid, and quiet)

Agreeableness The person is cooperative, warm, and agreeable (rather

than cold, disagreeable, and antagonistic)
Conscientiousness The person is hardworking, organized, and dependable
(as opposed to lazy, disorganized, and unreliable)
Emotional The person is calm, self-confident, and cool (as
stability opposed to insecure, anxious, and depressed)
Openness to The person is creative, curious, and cultured (rather
experience than practical with narrow interests)
SOURCES: P. T. Costa and R. R. McCrae, The NEO-PI Personality Inventory (Odessa, Fla.: Psychological Assessment Resources, 1992); J. F.
Salgado, “The Five Factor Model of Personality and Job Performance in the European Community,” Journal of Applied Psychology 82
(1997): 30–43.
 LO 2

Personality Characteristics in Organizations

• Situations vary in strength

• Strong situations: Overwhelm the effects of
individual personalities by providing strong cues
for appropriate behavior
• Weak situations are open to interpretations
• Locus of control
• Individual’s generalized belief about internal
control versus external control

.
 LO 2

Personality Characteristics in Organizations

(continued 1)

• General self-efficacy
• Individual’s general belief that one is capable of
meeting job demands in a wide variety of
situations
• Self-esteem
• Individual’s general feeling of self-worth
• Self-monitoring
• Extent to which an individual bases his or her
behavior on cues from other people and
situations
.
Questions

1. How can a manager encourage self-

efficacy?
2. What contribution can high self-monitors
make in an organization?

.
 LO 2

Personality Characteristics in Organizations

(continued 2)

• Positive or negative affect

• Individuals can have the tendency to emphasize
either positive or negative aspects of oneself,
other people, and the world in general
• Proactive personalities
• Identify opportunities and act on them
• Proactivity has been positively related to job
performance, career success, and job search
success

.
LO - 3.3

Discuss how personality theories may be

applied in organizations
 LO 3

Common Personality Measurement Tools

• Projective test
• Elicits an individual’s response to abstract
stimuli
• Behavioral measures
• Involve observing an individual’s behavior in a
controlled situation
• Self-report questionnaire
• Involves an individual’s responses to a series of
questions

.
 LO 3

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI)

Instrument

• Measures Carl Jung’s theory of individual

differences, also known as type theory
• Four scale dichotomies in type theory
• Extraversion/introversion
• Sensing/intuition
• Thinking/feeling
• Judging/perceiving

.
Table 3.2 Type Theory Preferences and Descriptions

Extraversion (E) Introversion (I)

Outgoing Quiet
Publicly expressive Reserved
Interacting Concentrating
Speaks, then thinks Thinks, then speaks
Gregarious Reflective

Sensing (S) Intuition (N)

Practical General
Specific Abstract
Feet on the ground Head in the clouds
Details Possibilities
Concrete Theoretical
SOURCE: Adapted from Introduction to Type®, Sixth Edition by Isabel Briggs Myers. Copyright 1998, 2011 by CPP, Inc. All rights reserved.
How do you motivate employee – Watch Video

• https://hbr.org/video/5487440968001/the-
explainer-one-more-time-how-do-you-
motivate-employees

.
Table 3.2 Type Theory Preferences and Descriptions
(continued)

Thinking (T) Feeling (F)

Analytical Subjective
Clarity Harmony
Head Heart
Justice Mercy
Rules Circumstance

Judging (J) Perceiving (P)

Structured Flexible
Time oriented Open ended
Decisive Exploring
Makes lists or uses them Makes lists or loses them
Organized Spontaneous
SOURCE: Adapted from Introduction to Type®, Sixth Edition by Isabel Briggs Myers. Copyright 1998, 2011 by CPP, Inc. All rights reserved.
 LO 3

Uses of MBTI

• Used in management development

programs to help employees understand
the different viewpoints of others in the
organization
• Used for team building
• Used to demonstrate how differences and
diversity lead to successful performance

.
Question

• Which has the stronger impact on personality: heredity or

environment?

.
LO - 3.4

Define social perception and explain factors that

affect it
 LO 4

Social Perception

• Process of interpreting information about

another person
• Affects how people perceive each other
when going through a life change
• Culturally determined

.
 LO 4

Figure 3.2 A Model for Social Perception

 LO 4

Impression Management

• Process by which individuals try to control

the impressions others have of them
• Techniques can either be self-enhancing
and other-enhancing
• Benefits organizations as long as the
impressions conveyed are accurate

.
LO - 3.5

Identify five common barriers to social

perception and explain the difficulties they
cause
 LO 5

Barriers to Social Perception

Selective First-impression
Stereotype
perception error

Self-fulfilling
Projection
prophecy

.
LO - 3.6

Explain the attribution process and how

attributions affect managerial behavior
 LO 6

Attribution Theory

• Explains how individuals pinpoint the

causes of their own and others’ behavior
• Events can be attributed to an internal
source of responsibility or an external
source
• Attribution patterns differ among
individuals

.
 LO 6

Attributional Biases

• Fundamental attribution error

• Tendency to make attributions to internal causes
when focusing on someone else's behavior
• Self-serving bias
• Tendency to attribute one’s successes to internal
causes and one’s failures to external causes

.
SUMMARY

• Individual differences is the way in which

certain factors differ from one individual to
another
• The Big Five personality traits are
extraversion, agreeableness,
conscientiousness, emotional stability, and
openness to experience
• Personality theories are applied in
organizations using several kinds of
measurement tests
Copyright ©2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly acce ssible website, in whole or in part. HIST4 | CH6 32
SUMMARY (continued)

• Social perception is the process of

interpreting information about others
• Barriers to social perception prevent
individuals from perceiving others
accurately
• Attribution theory explains how one
identifies the reasons behind their own
and others’ behavior

Copyright ©2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly acce ssible website, in whole or in part. HIST4 | CH6 33