Organisational Behaviour Flashcards
(18 cards)
What are individual differences?
All the ways in which people differ from one another, especially psychological differences. Included are all differences in personality and intelligence (Oxford dictionary of psychology, 2006)
Different models of intelligence
Structural and systems models of intelligence.
First structural model of intelligence
Spearman’s ‘g’ 1904 - the idea that one GMA factor underlies specific cognitive abilities. Intelligence tests often assess specific aspects of intelligence (e.g., spatial, numerical, verbal, mechanical, etc) and people tend to get similar scores on each specific ability test (strong correlation)
GMA
General mental ability/general cognitive ability
“A very general mental capability that… involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience” (Gottfredson, 1997, p.13)
Meta-analytic support
Has shown a strong correlation between GMA and job performance. GMA also predicts training success and income.
Hunter and hunter, 1984 - unites states
Salgade and Anderson, 2002 - Europe
GMA and job complexity
jobs with a higher complexity have a better performance when GMA intelligence testing is used. High GMA means job knowledge learnt more quickly and more of it, so GMA predicts job performance.
Second structural model of intelligence
Primary MEntal Abilities (PMAs) (Thurstone’s, 1938) - intelligence is seen as a set of PMAs all independent of one another, including verbal comprehension, reasoning, perceptual speed, numerical ability, word fluency, associative memory and spatial visualization. This produces and intelligence profile rather than a single IQ score.
criticisms of PMA model
also impacted by motivation - tests how well you do under test and time conditions but not everyday life, so questions whether people would have the same motivations day-to-day.
This model considers specific abilities so the ability to predict performance is only achieved when matched to the demands of the job.
Potential bias against certain ethnic minorities
Other factors can explain differences in intelligence like family income, maternal education, learning materials in home, parenting factors, etc, (Cottrell et al., 2015, JAP)
First systems model of intelligence
Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligence’s - the idea that all intelligence’s are independent.
There is more than a single general factor of intelligence and he proposed 7 different types of intelligence (Arnold et al., 2016):
Linguistic, Spatial, Logical-mathematical, Musical, Bodily Kinaesthetic, Interpersonal and intrapersonal.
There is evidence from psychometric testing that some individuals may perform very poorly on IQ tests, yet demonstrate exceptional talent in other domains such as music (Arnold et al., 2016)
Criticisms for Gardner’s theory
It is subjective
No systematic research to test his theory and no measure developed.
Several of these intelligence’s have high inter correlations so are not independent.
Key mental abilities like memory are not covered by the theory.
Incompatible with the well-established ‘g’ concept
Second systematic model of intelligence
(Arnold et al., 2016) Sternberg’s theory of intelligence (Sternberg, 1985)
Consist of 3 sub theories (facets)
1. Analytical (componential) sub theory: academic problem solving and how an individual relates to their internal world.
2. Creative (experiential) sub theory: the ability to synthesis and react to novel situations and stimuli.
3. Practical (contextual) sub theory: ability to understand and deal with everyday tasks.
A final example of an intelligence model
Carroll’s three-stratum theory of cognitive ability - used factor analysis to identify consistent patterns across test takers performance to see if there were clusters of ‘g’ arranged in a hierarchy.
Emotional intelligence
“the ability to monitor one’s own and other people’s emotions, to discriminate between different emotions and label them appropriately, and use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior (Colman, 2006)
measures of emotional intelligence
measured through the multi factor intelligence scale (MEIS), a performance-based measure
Goleman - components of EI
compoents include self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, and relationship management, all of these having a positive impact on others.
Criticisms and things to consider about Golemans idea
Concept very broad with lack of coherent definition and measurement.
Potential for faking/impression management in self-reports by test takers, so problematic for selection.
Limited evidence of EI predicting job performance so far.
Emotional demands of jobs differ.
Repackages personality and intelligence literature, but doesn’t really add anything new.
measuring EI
(Arnold et al., 2016) (Reuven Bar-On, 1997) - produced the first commercially available measure of emotional intelligence based on a self-assessment instrument called the Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQI). 4 domains: intrapersonal intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, stress management and adaptability.
Model of emotional intelligence
(Dana Joseph and Daniel Newman, 2010) - generated a cascading model of emotional intelligence where a casual chain exists between 3 sub facets of emotional intelligence: emotion perception, emotion understanding, and job performance. Each one leads into another.
