Chapter 3 - Individual differences and assessment Flashcards
(47 cards)
Individual differences
Human characteristics / personal attributes.
The more-or-less enduring psychological characterstics tht distinguish one person from another, and thus help to define each person’s individuality;
- Cognitive abilities.
- Knowledge
- Physical abilities
- Personality
- Interests
- Emotion
What are the assumptions regarding individual differences?
- Adults have attributes that are relatively stable over time.
- People differ in these attributes.
- People’s relative differences in these attributes remain, even after training, job experiences, and other interventions.
- Differ job required different attributes.
- These attributes can be measured.
The imporatance of personal attributes of organizations;
Job requirements + personal attributes = FIT, result to a good performance effective work behavior.
Mental test/ Intelligence test
An instrument designed to measure subjects ability to reason, plan and solve problems (intelligence test).
Psychometrician
Is a psychologist trained in measuring characteristics such as mental ability.
Cognitive ability
A general mental capability involving reasoning, problem solving, planning, abstract thinking, complex idea comprehension, and learning from experinece.
General mental ability
“g”is an abbreviation
Nonspecific capacity for resoning, learn and solve in any way.
g-ocentric model
Sternberg and Wagner (1993), called this model to understand and predict the behavior of workers simply by examining “g”.
Intelligence “g”
General mental ability (GMA)
General cognitive capability of people; e.g. reasoning, planning, problem solving, abstract thinking, understanding of complex ideas, fast learning, learning from experience.
Intelligence model of Caroll (1993)
Caroll proposed that there are three layers of intelligence. The highest layer is “g”, next layer has the seven braod abilities, and the third includes abilities that are tied to the seven broad abilties.
Is “g” important for work?
Yes, it contributes to work performance;
- It is shown in meta-analyses using European and US samples.
- For more complex jobs: higher predictive validity of “g”.
- But not perfect relation (average correlation r=0.50).
- Other attributes such as emotional reaction, personality traits, and interests also play an important role in successful job performance.
Stamina
Ability to supply muscles with oxygenated blood
Fluid intelligence
You are quick in understanding things
Crystalilized intelligence
Your database of knowledge.
Sensory abilities
The physical functions of vision, hearing, touch, taste, smell and kinesthetic feedback (feedback from your body about position etc.)
Americans with disabilities act
Says that an employer can’t test areas such as sensory or physical abilities that mya be considered disabilities.
Pscyhomotor abilities
A division of sensory abilities. This is reaction time, coordination, dexteritiy, arm-hand steadiness and wrist-finger speed.
Physical abilities
The most physically demanding jobs reuire all three (muscular strength, cardiovascular edurance, movement quality) physical capacities.
Personality
Predisposition (typical patterns of behavior, thinking, and emotion): “habitual way of responding”.
Taxonomy Five-factor model (FFM)/Big Five
OCEAN
- Openness to experience (curious, imaginative, independent).
- Conscientiousness (responsible, persistent, planful).
- Extraversion (Sociable, talkative, energetic).
- Agreeableness (cooperative, trusting).
- Neuroticism (secure, calm, relaxed)
Some conclusions about personality
Personality, ability, conscientiousness
- Personality debends on work behavior, independent of “g” and is based on motivation “will do”.
- Ability is the knowledge and skillss “can do”.
- Conscientiousness is important trait in work situations and has a bigger impact on work behavior as the autonomy of employees increases.
Some conclusions about personality
P-factors, functional personality at work, Ones (1993), Judge (2007)
- Personality factors have influence on different jobs: Emotional stability (security jobs, teamwork), Extraversion (sales performance, management), Openess to experience (expats, sucess in training), Agreeableness (custmer service, teamwork).
- Functional personality at work: combinations of personality traits predict success.
- High C, High A and Low N = high integrity (Ones 1993).
- High E & Low N = Happy/buoyant personality (Judge 2007).
Emotional intelligence meaning
A individual’s ability to perceive emotion in self and others, to understand emotion, and then to manage emotion in self and others.
What are the measurement “streams”of EI?
- Ability test.
- Self- and peer-report instruments.
- Mixed instruments.
Streams 1 and 3 measures show that EI has added value in predicting performance, in additon to cognitive ability tests and personality test (O’Boyle 2011).
