Personality &

Emotions

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gemrose arcenal
Personality
nur-aima mortaba
 PERSONALITY
The sum total of ways in which an
individual reacts and interacts
with others.

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Personality Determinants
Heredity
Environment
Situation
 PERSONALITY TRAITS
Enduring characteristics that
describe an individual’s behavior.

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Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
(MBTI)
A personality test that taps four
characteristics and classifies
people into 1 of 16 personality
types.

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 Personality Types
 Extroverted vs. Introverted (E or I)
 Sensing vs. Intuitive (S or N)
 Thinking vs. Feeling (T or F)
 Judging vs. Perceiving (P or J)
Myers-
Briggs
Sixteen
Primary
Traits
 Extroversion

The Big Five

Sociable, gregarious,
and assertive

Model of Openness to Agreeableness

Personality Experience
Imaginativeness,
Good-natured,
cooperative, and

Dimensions
artistic, sensitivity, trusting.
and intellectualism.

Emotional Stability
Calm, self-confident, Conscientiousness
secure (positive) Responsible,
versus nervous, dependable,
depressed, and persistent, and
insecure (negative). organized.
 Locus of control

Machiavellianism

Self-esteem

Self-monitoring

Risk taking

Type A personality

Major Personality Attributes Influencing OB

 LOCUS OF CONTROL
The degree to which people
believe they are masters of their
own fate.
Internals Externals
Individuals who believe that
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Individuals who believe that
what happens to them is
they control what happens
controlled by outside forces
to them.
such as luck or chance.
 MACHIAVELLIANISM (Mach)
Degree to which an individual is
pragmatic, maintains emotional
distance, and believes that ends
can justify means.

Conditions Favoring High Machs

“  Direct interaction
 Minimal rules and regulations
 Emotions distract for others
 SELF-ESTEEM (SE)
Individuals’ degree of liking or
disliking themselves.

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 SELF MONITORING
A personality trait that measures
an individuals ability to adjust
his or her behavior to external,
situational factors.

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 RISK PROPENSITY
Aligning managers’ risk-taking
propensity to job requirements
should be beneficial to
organizations.

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RISK-TAKING

High Risk-taking Managers Low Risk-taking Managers

◉ Make quicker decisions ◉ Are slower to make
◉ Use less information to decisions
make decisions ◉ Require more information
◉ Operate in smaller and before making decisions
more entrepreneurial ◉ Exist in larger
organizations organizations with stable
environments
 PERSONALITY TYPES

Type A’s Type B’s

1. are always moving, walking, and eating 1. never suffer from a sense of time
rapidly; urgency with its accompanying
2. feel impatient with the rate at which impatience;
most events take place; 2. feel no need to display or discuss
3. strive to think or do two or more things either their achievements or
at once; accomplishments;
4. cannot cope with leisure time; 3. play for fun and relaxation, rather than
5. are obsessed with numbers, to exhibit their superiority at any cost;
measuring their success in terms of 4. can relax without guilt.
how many or how much of everything
they acquire.
PERSONALITY TYPES

Proactive Personality
◉ Identifies opportunities, shows initiative, takes action,
and perseveres until meaningful change occurs.
◉ Creates positive change in the environment,
regardless or even in spite of constraints or obstacles.
ACHIEVING PERSON-JOB FIT

Person-Job Fit Theory (Holland)

◉ Identifies six personality types and proposes that the fit
between personality type and occupational
environment determines satisfaction and turnover.
Personality Types
Realistic
Investigative
Social
Conventional
Enterprising
Artistic
 Holland’s
Typology of
Personality
and
Congruent
Occupations
Relationships among Occupational Personality Types
Emotions
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Emotions - Why Emotions
Were Ignored in OB

◉ The “myth of rationality”

○ Organizations are not emotion-free.

◉ Emotions of any kind are disruptive to organizations.

○ Original OB focus was solely on the effects of strong
negative emotions that interfered with individual and
organizational efficiency.
 EMOTIONS
Feelings that generally have both
physiological and cognitive
elements that influence behavior

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 EMOTIONS
Intense feelings that are directed
at someone or something

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 AFFECT
A broad range of feelings that
people experience

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 MOODS
Feelings that tend to be less
intense than emotions and lack a
contextual stimulus

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 EMOTIONAL LABOR
A situation in which an employee
expresses organizationally
desired emotions during
interpersonal transactions

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 EMOTIONAL DISSONANCE
A situation in which an employee
must project one emotion while
simultaneously feeling another

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What comprises an emotion?

◉ Cognitive Appraisal
○ A person’s assessment of the personal meaning of his
or her current circumstances

◉ Subjective Experiences
○ The affective state or feeling that colors private
experience

◉ Thought and Action Tendencies

○ Urges to think and act in particular ways
What comprises an emotion?

◉ Internal Bodily Changes

○ Physiological responses that typically involve the
autonomic nervous system such as changes in heart
rate or sweat gland activity
◉ Facial Expression
○ Muscle contractions that move facial landmarks
◉ Responses to Emotion
○ How people regulate to, react, or cope with their
emotions or the situations that triggered it
Functions of Emotion

◉ Preparation for Action

◉ Shapes future appropriate behavior
◉ Helps us interact more effectively with others
 FELT EMOTIONS
An individual’s actual emotions

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 DISPLAYED EMOTIONS
Emotions that are
organizationally required and
considered appropriate in a given
job

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Emotion Dimensions

◉ Variety of Emotions ◉ Six Universal Emotions

○ Positive ○ Anger
○ Negative ○ Fear
○ Cannot be neutral ○ Sadness
○ Happiness
○ Disgust
○ Surprise
Emotion Continuum
Emotion Dimensions

◉ Intensity of Emotions ◉ Frequency and Duration

○ Personality of Emotions
○ Job Requirements ○ How often emotions
are exhibited.
○ How long emotions
are displayed.
Can people be emotionless?

◉ Alexithymia
○ Some people have severe difficulty in expressing their
emotions and understanding the emotions of others
○ Lack of emotion (Greek)
 Gender and Emotions

Women Men
◉ Can show greater emotional ◉ Believe that displaying emotions
expression. is inconsistent with the male
◉ Experience emotions more image.
intensely.
◉ Innately less able to read and to
◉ Display emotions more frequently. identify with others’ emotions
◉ More comfortable in expressing ◉ Have less need to seek social
emotions
approval by showing positive
◉ Better at reading others’ emotions emotions
 External Constraints on
Emotions

Organizational Influences Cultural Influences

◉ There is no single emotional ◉ Norm doesn’t apply worldwide
“set” sought by all organizations ◉ Cultures differ in terms of
◉ Expressions of negative interpretation to emotions
emotions tend to be
unacceptable except under fairly
specific conditions
◉ Intense emotions are seen as
undermining routine task
performance
OB Applications of
Understanding Emotions

◉ Ability and Selection

○ Emotions affect employee effectiveness.
Ability and Selection

◉ Emotional Intelligence
○ An assortment of noncognitive skills, capabilities, and
competencies that influence a person’s ability to
succeed in coping with environmental demands and
pressures.
Emotional Intelligence (EI)
o Self-awareness
o Self-management
o Self-motivation
o Empathy
o Social skills

Research Findings
o High EI scores, not high
IQ scores, characterize
high performers.
OB Applications of
Understanding Emotions

◉ Decision Making
○ Emotions are an important part of the decision-making
process in organizations.
○ Rationality
◉ Motivation
○ Emotional commitment to work and high motivation are
strongly linked.
◉ Leadership
○ Emotions are important to acceptance of messages
from organizational leaders.
OB Applications of
Understanding Emotions

◉ Interpersonal Conflict
○ Conflict in the workplace and individual emotions are
strongly intertwined.

◉ Customer Services
○ Emotions affect service quality delivered to customers
which, in turn, affects customer relationships.
OB Applications of
Understanding Emotions

◉ Deviant Workplace Behaviors

○ Negative emotions lead to employee deviance
(voluntary actions that violate norms and threaten the
organization).
■ Productivity failures
■ Property theft and destruction
■ Political actions
■ Personal aggression
Affective Events Theory (AET)

◉ Emotions are negative or positive responses to a work

environment event.
○ Personality and mood determine the intensity of the
emotional response.
○ Emotions can influence a broad range of work
performance and job satisfaction variables.
Affective Events Theory (AET)

◉ Implications of the theory:

○ Individual response reflects emotions and mood cycles.
○ Current and past emotions affect job satisfaction.
○ Emotional fluctuations create variations in job
satisfaction.
○ Emotions have only short-term effects on job
performance.
○ Both negative and positive emotions can distract
workers and reduce job performance.
Conclusion

◉ Emotions are a natural part of an individual’s make-up.

◉ Emotions can also enhance performance:

o Can increase arousal levels, thus acting as motivators
to higher performance
o Emotional labor recognizes that feelings can be part of a
job’s required behaviour.