There will be 2 assesments.

• Reflection paper – 10^th jan
• MC exam – 17^th jan

Are Individual Differences Relevant?

To test this, lets tap into our implicit theories

• Focus on one of these occupations:

• Accountant, (serious man, nicely dressed, does not talk enthusiastic, on the computer all day working with numbers, organized)

• Event Coordinator, and (enthusiastic talking, busy with phone calls)

• Heavy Equipment Operator (not proper dressed, dirty hands

• Close you eyes, and imagine the typical ________. What are they like? Quickly, brainstorm a list of personality characteristics, abilities or other personal characteristics.

What do Individual Differences Tell Us?

• Personality

• Captures what people are like as individuals

• Ability

• Capture what people can do as individuals

Personality

• The structures and propensities inside a person that explain his or her characteristic patterns of thoughts, emotion, and behavior

• For our purposes today:

• Traits are defined as recurring regularities or trends in people’s responses to their environment

• While we could come up with thousands of traits adjectives, most of them would cluster around five general dimensions

• We call these dimensions the “Big Five”

[note: enkele afbeeldingen uit het college zijn door de WorldSupporter redactie verwijderd wegens vermoedelijke inbreuk op het auteursrecht] 

How Important is Personality?

• C and ES (reflected N) are positively correlated with job performances in virtually all jobs

• O,C, and A predicted discretionary pro-social and proorganizational behaviors across jobs Question: How might this knowledge be applied at work? people choose jobs that match their personalities. Some kind of jobs require some kind of personalities, so we have to filter on that.

Abilities

• The relatively stable capabilities people have to perform a particular range of different but related activities

• In contrast to skills, which are more trainable and improvable

• As with personality, about half of the variation in ability levels is due to genetics

Types of Human Abilities

• Cognitive Abilities

• Capabilities related to the acquisition and application of knowledge in problem solving

• Examples: Verbal, Quantitative, Reasoning, Spatial, Perceptual

• Emotional Intelligence

• Capabilities related to the management and the use of emotions when interacting with others

• Physical Abilities

• Capabilities related to the performance of physical work

• Examples: Strength; Stamina; Flexibility and Coordination; Psychomotor; Sensory

How Important Is Ability?

• Cognitive ability predicts job performance in vitually all jobs

• Emotional intelligence predicts performance only when jobs involve a high degree of emotional labour (e.g., flight attendant; emergency-room nurse; salesperson)

• Physical abilities predicts performance only when jobs require a high level of these capbilities (e.g., professional athletes)

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES AND ASSESSMENT

“Individual Differences” model:

• Adults have a variety of attributes (e.g., intelligence, personality, interests) that are relatively stable over a period of time

• People differ with respect to those attributes

• These differences remain even after training

• Different jobs require different attributes

• These attributes can be measured

Research suggests that approximately 50% of the variation we observe in people’s personalities (e.g., neuroticism) can be attributed to genetic factors (“nature”).

“Am I doomed by my genes… Or can I change?”

If you are shy, there is not much that can be done to really change that.

Agree: Entity theorist

Disagree: Incremental theorist

People also differ in their “self-theory”

Individual differences are important for our understanding of human behavior, cognition, and affect.

People with a high need for control will suffer more from Insomnia (sleeping problems).

Research Question:

Does perceived “Job Demands” predict perceived “Job Strain”?

1. Is this a direct relationship? OR—remembering our Contingency Approach,

2. Does it also depend on (“is it moderated by”) individual differences?

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN PERCEPTIONS

Job demands:

1. Do you have to work fast?

2. Do you have too much work to do?

3. Do you have to work extra hard to finish a task?

4. Do you work under time pressure?

5. Do you have to rush?

6. Can you do your work in comfort (reversed item)?

7. Do you have to deal with a backlog at work?

8. Do you have too little work (reversed item)?

9. Do you have problems with the pace of work?

10. Do you have problems with the workload?

11. Do you wish you could work at an easier pace?

Job strain:

1. I find it difficult to relax at the end of a working day.

2. At the end of a working day, I feel really fatigued.

3. Due to my job, I feel rather exhausted at the end of a working day.

4. I mostly feel rather fit after dinner (reversed item).

5. I usually do not calm down until my second day off.

6. After work, it takes effort to concentrate in my spare time.

7. When I just come home, I have little interest in other people.

8. In general, it takes me more than an hour to recover completely after work.

9. When I come home, they must leave me alone for a while.

10. After a working day, I frequently feel too fatigued to engage in any other activity.

11. During the last stage of a working day, I often feel too fatigued to perform well.

Job control:

1. Can you choose the methods to use in carrying out your work?

2. Do you plan your own work?

3. Do you set your own pace?

4. Can you vary how you do your work?

5. On your job, do you have the freedom to take a break whenever you wish to?

6. Do you decide on the order in which you do things?

7. Do you decide when to finish a piece of work?

8. Do you have full authority in determining how much time you spend on particular tasks?

9. Can you decide how to go about getting your job done? 10. Does your job allow you to organize your work by yourself?

11. Do you have full authority in determining the content of your work?

Why study I-O psychology?

High job demands are associated with high job strain among employees who are low in job control.

High job control buffers the negative effect of high job demands on job strain.

That is, job control moderates the link between job demands and job strain.

A practitioner can change the design of employees’ jobs or the rules or the procedures for doing the jobs to enhance job control. For example, by allowing employees to plan their own work schedules or to decide how the work should be performed, see job enrichment. Enhancing job control rather than reducing job demands and sacrificing productivity may reduce job strain.

What kind of information actually predicts the individual’s future job performance?

Valid employee selection techniques

1. Biographical inventory: covers an applicant’s past behavior, attitudes, preferences, and values. (past behavior good predictor for future behavior) Companies google you

2. Structured interviews: preferably with more than one interviewer, that use a predetermined list of questions that are asked of every person applying for a particular job. Valid employee selection techniques. Brings fairness and objectivity to the process.  

3. Assessment center and Work Sample Tests: A method of selection and training that involves a simulated job situation in which candidates deal with actual job problems.

4. Psychological tests

Assessment center techniques

§ In-basket technique: present a number of problems, candidate must solve these problems

§ Leaderless group discussion: interviewer would bring question and then observe what the candidates would discuss about

§ Fact finding: test how one can retribe information (dedectives_ 

§ Oral presentation

§ Dialogue

Principles of psychological testing

§ Standardization: questions and how to ask them should be identical

§ Objectivity (i.e., unbiased, no cultural content)

§ Norming (i.e., comparing to other scores so that the test has meaning)

§ Reliability and Validity

Types of psychological tests

Cognitive abilities

Intelligence as “g”: involves ability to reason, plan, solve problems, comprehend complex ideas, and learn from experience

Is “g” important at work? = Yes ↑ job complexity = ↑ predictive value of general intelligence tests

Speed vs. power tests !

Speed tests have rigid & demanding time limits

• Focus: Is the person both fast and accurate

• Benefit: Lots of variation across different test-takers

• Requirement: Questions must be relevant to job

• Risk: May increase the risk of legal challenges !

Power tests have no rigid time limits

• ”Fix this broken machine… take all the time you need.”

Do people differ in thinking styles?

Yes: Type 1: Intuitive and Type 2: Analytic

The relevance of cognitive science to I-O Psychology is increasing: In 2015… the World Bank called for decision makers to use more Type 2 thinking to avoid financial errors, and the Institute of Medicine urged health care providers to use Type 2 thinking to avoid deadly mistakes

A cognitive ability for psychologists: Learn how to distinguish Theory from Speculation – but use both to solve problems

Interest tests

• The rationale is that if a person exhibits the same pattern of interests and preferences as people who are successful in a given occupation, then the chances are high that the person taking the test will find satisfaction in that occupation.

Motor skills tests

• These tests measure abilities involving muscular strength, cardiovascular endurance, and movement quality

Personality tests

• High scores on particular personality traits (e.g., empathy and nurturance) are correlated with job success in a particular occupation (e.g., counselors, nurses, social workers).
• Screen-out tests → Identify psychopathology - Generally used for positions of public trust - May only be administered after offer of employment

Integrity tests

• Integrity tests predict theft and counterproductive behaviors such as absenteeism, drug abuse, theft, and malingering.

Additional Proposed Individual Differences

! Skills

• Practiced acts
• Technical & non-technical

! Knowledge

•  Collection of discrete but related facts & information about a particular domain
• • Tacit knowledge → “street smarts”
• • Procedural knowledge → knowing “how”
• • Declarative: memory

! Competencies

• Sets of behaviors instrumental in accomplishing various activities
• Combination of individual difference characteristics

! Emotional intelligence

• Awareness of our own & others’ emotions