Chapter 1: Personality Flashcards
What is personality?
personality: A set of traits, characteristics, or preferences that pre-dispose us to think, feel, and behave in a certain way.
Why is understanding personality important?
- Self awareness (SIP)
- Knowing your personality helps identifying your strengths and weaknesses of your preferred interpersonal style - Improve Collaboration
- give insights to fit for job
- Understand and predict potential sources of conflict - Predicts Performance
- Predictor of interpresonal and individual behaviour
- Predict leadership emergence and success
What’s good about being similar vs. diverse?
Pros of being similar? (SLUT) Team dynamics ► Speed and efficiency ► Less conflict ► Understanding ► Trust
►Homogeneity improves team
performance on repetitive tasks
Pros of being different? (LEDF) Team dynamics ► Less “groupthink” ► Errors less correlated ► Diverse knowledge ► Fewer decision biases
►Heterogeneity improves team performance on creativity tasks
What type of personality similarity is
mostly bad for a team?
Ans: Too many Dominant Personalities
Found in NBA, over talent effect
- When plotting team performance against Team percentage of top talent, found that it is a concave shape. Ie. too much talent does not equate to team success
- This could also be due to the fact that NBA may have had a higher interdependence when compared to other sports like baseball which has a low interdependence
What was the conclusion found for wall street analyses as well?
Dominant personalities more likely to clash when they
have the same expertise
How does similarity attract?
- Across cultures
► Similarity increases romantic
attraction in all cultures studied - At work
► Personality similarity to coworkers and (especially
supervisors) predicts getting
promoted
What are the Big 5 personality traits?
- Openness to experience
- Conscientiousness
- Extraversion
- Agreeableness
- Neutoicism
What is openness to experience
► The inclination to be interested in new and/or unusual things
What is conscientiousness
► Interest in leading a structured life around task- and goaldirected behavior
What is extraversion
► The predisposition to get energy from being around others
What is agreeableness
► The tendency to place high value on getting along with others
What is neuroticism
The ability to regulate stress and emotion
Differences between Big 5 and MBTI
Similarities:
► Conscientiousness Judging-Perceiving
► Agreeableness Feeling-Thinking
► Openness Intuition-Sensing
► Extraversion Extraversion-Introversion
Differences:
Why Big 5 may be better:
► Emotional Reactions / Neuroticism not
covered by MBTI
► Big 5 has better psychometric properties
(factor structure, test-retest-reliability)
What are the characteristics of those with low scores for openness to experience?
► Down to earth, narrow range
of interests, practical/technical
Positives:
Have a good grasp of what is
happening on day-to-day
basis, good project managers
Negatives:
May not see the big picture, fixed
ideas about the world, too much
focused on here and now
What are the characteristics of those with high scores for openness to experience?
►Imaginative, artistic,
experimental, curious
Positives:
Creative, enjoy change,
tolerant new ideas
Negatives:
Changes opinion often, doesn’t
care about procedures, can
appear inconsistent
How to manage yourself and others with low scores of openness to experience
For yourself:
► Involve others to challenge
you and help you brainstorm
For others:
► Provide them data
How to manage yourself and others with high scores of openness to experience
For yourself:
► Work on plans and
practicalities
For others:
► Be creative; ready to brainstorm
► Give big picture first
What are the characteristics of those with low scores for conscientiousness?
► Spontaneous, flexible,
disorganised, careless
Positives:
Responsive to changing
needs, easy going, relaxed
outlook
Negatives:
Easily distracted, chaotic and
messy (some say less
reliable)
What are the characteristics of those with high scores for conscientiousness?
► Efficient, organized, strong
sense of duty, self-disciplined
Positives:
Reliable, hard worker with
high drive, very structured,
perfectionists
Negatives:
Workaholic, can be hard on
others, obsessive about control
How to manage yourself and others with low scores of conscientiousness
Manage yourself:
► Impose structure on yourself
(e.g., ask others for help)
Manage others:
► Provide structure; realize
things might take longer
How to manage yourself and others with high scores of conscientiousness
Manage yourself:
► Increase social awareness,
step back, learn to delegate
Manage others:
► Be organized and on time, cover
all the points, don’t waste time
What are the characteristics of those with low scores for extraversion?
► Reserved, serious, prefers
privacy, perceived as loners
Positives:
Think carefully, they are non-disruptive effective listeners
Negatives:
Smaller networks, difficulties
motivating others, often
misunderstood, perceived as
unfriendly
What are the characteristics of those with high scores for extraversion?
► Outgoing, sociable, talkative,
assertive, dominant
Positives:
They are (initially) liked, good
networkers, inclusive
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Negatives:
Act before they think, they don’t
listen, have no time, can
bulldoze others, dislike solitary
confinement
How to manage yourself and others with low scores of extraversion
Manage yourself
► Work on high-level social
behavior (“Hi!” goes a long way)
Manage others
► Give more written feedback,
spend more time listening
► Allow them to work alone
