Understanding What People Are 1 - I ndividual Diffe nce in...

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Individual Differences in Organizations
Prof. John Kammeyer-Mueller
MGT 5246

Who are you?
•
Think about how you would introduce yourself to someone
–
What arethe things you would tell them so that they would know
thereal you?
–
What arethe things about you that makeyou unique?
•
Think also about peopleyou like
–
What arethe ways you would describeyour friends?
–
What characteristics do they havethat makethem who they are?
–
How areyou similar? How areyou different?

Person or Situation=
Trait or State?
•
What reactions might a person have?
•
How do personality traits play into this situation?

Person or Situation=
Trait or State?
•
Traits
–
Shown across a variety of
situations (global)
–
Shown across a variety of time
periods (stable)
–
Brought about by genetic
explanations or childhood
experiences
–
Explain why not all peopleact the
same way in the same situation
•
States
–
A specific event triggers them
(local)
–
Subside after the trigger is gone
(unstable)
–
Brought about by specific external
factors in the environment
–
Explain why people generally act
in similar ways to the same
situation

TheContinuum of Traits and States
Moods
Low stability High stability
Global
Local
States
•
Angry
•
Talkative
•
Motivated
•
Happy
Traits
•
Hostility
•
Extroversion
•
Achievement motivation
•
Optimism

Thinking About How You’ve Changed
and Stayed the Same
•
Think back to your childhood
–
Imaginea timewhen you weredoing something that is a lot like
what you would do now; something that really gets at your
enduring personality
–
Now imaginesomething that’s different about how you used to act
when you were a kid that’s very different than you’d act now
–
How areyou similar? How areyou different?

Longitudinal Stability of Personality as a
Factor of Time
From Scheurger, Zarrella, & Hotz, 1989; used 89 independent samples in this analysis

Stability of CoreAffect and Personality
Scores
•
Personality scores are
related to perceptions of life
events, so personality and
situation areco-
determinant
•
This is consistent with the
interactionist model of
personality
•
Vaidya, Gray, Haig, &

Test-Retest Meta Analysis of Self-Esteem
Trzesniewski, Donnellan, & Robins, 2003

Why Is Self-Esteem Consistent Over Time?
•
Think of reasons why peoplewho havehigh self-esteemtend
to keep high self-esteem, and peoplewho havelow self-esteem
tend to keep low self-esteem
–
Feedback from theenvironment is consistent (e.g., similar social
support network)
–
Behavior is consistent over time
–
Performance/skills/IQ
–
Dispositional affect