Unit 2: Personality, Emotions and Motivation

EMGN581 10 min read

I. Foundations of Individual Behaviour

Organisational behaviour examines how personal characteristics and psychological processes shape conduct at work. Personality supplies relatively stable tendencies, perception interprets events, emotions create immediate reactions, and motivation determines the direction, intensity, and persistence of effort.

Defining characteristics:
- Individual differences: Employees vary in traits, abilities, values, emotional responses, and motives.
- Person–situation interaction: Behaviour reflects both the individual and contextual forces such as leadership, job design, and organisational culture.
- Cognitive processes: Perception, attribution, expectations, and goals influence how employees interpret and respond to situations.
- Affective processes: Moods and emotions affect judgement, cooperation, creativity, satisfaction, and performance.
- Motivational processes: Needs, goals, rewards, fairness, and beliefs about capability regulate work effort.
- Practical purpose: Understanding these processes supports selection, development, leadership, conflict management, and job design.

II. Personality — Patterns of Individual Difference

A. Theories of personality and personality assessment

Personality is the relatively enduring pattern of thoughts, emotions, and behaviours through which an individual adapts to the environment.

Psychoanalytic theory: Sigmund Freud viewed personality as conflict among three structures.
- Id: Seeks immediate gratification according to the pleasure principle.
- Ego: Uses the reality principle to balance impulses with practical constraints.
- Superego: Represents internalised moral standards.
- Workplace relevance: Unconscious conflict and defence mechanisms may influence authority relations, anxiety, and interpersonal behaviour.
Trait theory: Traits are measurable dispositions that predict consistent behavioural tendencies.
- Big Five model (OCEAN): Openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism or emotional instability.
- Concrete link: Conscientiousness generally predicts dependable performance across many occupations, while extraversion is especially relevant in socially intensive work.
- Limits: Traits indicate tendencies rather than guaranteeing behaviour in every situation.
Type approaches: These classify people into broad categories rather than measuring continuous traits.
- Jungian preferences: Extraversion–introversion and thinking–feeling are among the preferences later used by the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator.
- Caution: Sharp “types” can oversimplify people whose characteristics lie between categories.
Social-cognitive theory: Albert Bandura explained personality through reciprocal interaction among personal factors, behaviour, and environment.
- Reciprocal determinism: Employees influence their environment while also being shaped by it.
- Self-efficacy: Belief in one’s capability affects persistence and choice of challenging tasks.
Humanistic theory: Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow emphasised growth, choice, self-concept, and fulfilment of potential.
- Congruence: Rogers associated psychological health with consistency between experience and self-concept.
Personality assessment: Assessment estimates traits or behavioural patterns for selection and development.
- Self-report inventories: Standardised questionnaires efficiently measure traits but are vulnerable to socially desirable answers.
- Observer ratings: Supervisors or peers describe visible behaviour, providing another perspective.
- Projective techniques: Ambiguous stimuli are used to elicit underlying themes, though scoring and predictive validity may be weak.
- Good practice: Instruments should demonstrate reliability, validity, job relevance, standardised administration, and fairness.

III. Transactional Analysis — Understanding Interpersonal Exchanges

A. Transactional analysis

Transactional analysis, developed by Eric Berne in the 1950s, explains communication by analysing the ego states from which people send and receive messages.

Ego states:
- Parent: Learned rules and judgements; it may be controlling or nurturing.
- Adult: Rational, evidence-based processing of present information.
- Child: Feelings and behaviours carried from childhood; it may be natural, adapted, or rebellious.
Transactions:
1. Complementary transaction: The response comes from the ego state addressed; an Adult request receiving an Adult reply allows communication to continue.
2. Crossed transaction: The reply comes from an unexpected state; an Adult question met by a critical Parent response can create conflict.
3. Ulterior transaction: The spoken message carries a second psychological meaning, permitting manipulation or ambiguity.
Life positions: Berne’s framework is commonly expressed through four positions: “I’m OK–You’re OK,” “I’m OK–You’re not OK,” “I’m not OK–You’re OK,” and “I’m not OK–You’re not OK.”
- Constructive position: “I’m OK–You’re OK” supports mutual respect, problem solving, and Adult-to-Adult communication.
Games and scripts: Games are repetitive exchanges with concealed motives, while scripts are early-formed life patterns that guide later behaviour.
Organisational application: Managers can diagnose crossed communication, reduce blame, give Adult-state feedback, and promote respectful conflict resolution.
Limitation: Ego-state labels are interpretive categories and should not replace evidence-based assessment of behaviour or context.

IV. Attribution — Explaining Perceived Behaviour

A. Attribution theory of perception

Attribution theory examines how observers infer whether behaviour arises mainly from internal characteristics or external circumstances.

Attribution types:
1. Internal attribution: Performance is explained by ability, personality, intention, or effort.
2. External attribution: Performance is explained by task difficulty, resources, luck, rules, or market conditions.
Kelley’s three cues:
- Consensus: Whether other people behave similarly in the same situation.
- Distinctiveness: Whether the person behaves differently in other situations.
- Consistency: Whether the behaviour recurs over time.
- Example: If one employee alone is repeatedly late across different meetings, low consensus, low distinctiveness, and high consistency encourage an internal attribution.
Fundamental attribution error: Observers tend to overestimate personal causes and underestimate situational pressures when judging others.
Self-serving bias: Individuals often attribute success internally but blame failure on external conditions.
Actor–observer difference: Actors notice situational constraints on themselves, whereas observers focus more readily on the actor’s disposition.
Managerial significance: Attribution affects appraisal, discipline, promotion, and trust; managers should examine workload, resources, role clarity, and comparable employees before judging intent.

V. Emotional Intelligence — Using Emotional Information

A. Emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence (EI) is the capacity to perceive, understand, use, and regulate emotions in oneself and others.

Ability model: Mayer and Salovey’s approach treats EI as related emotional abilities.
- Perceiving emotions: Accurately identifying feelings in expressions, tone, and oneself.
- Using emotions: Employing feelings to support attention, judgement, or creativity.
- Understanding emotions: Recognising causes, combinations, and transitions between emotions.
- Managing emotions: Regulating feelings without simply suppressing them.
Mixed competency model: Daniel Goleman popularised dimensions including self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.
Workplace value: EI can support empathy, negotiation, leadership, service recovery, teamwork, and emotionally demanding interactions.
Assessment:
- Ability tests: Ask respondents to solve emotion-related tasks.
- Self-report measures: Capture perceived emotional competence but may reflect self-image.
- Multi-rater measures: Compare ratings from the employee, peers, and supervisors.
Limitations: EI overlaps partly with personality and cognitive ability; claims that it guarantees leadership success are stronger than the evidence supports.
Development: Feedback, perspective-taking, emotion labelling, reflective pauses, and deliberate regulation strategies can improve emotional conduct.

VI. Workplace Emotion — Events and Affective Reactions

A. Affective events theory of emotion

Affective events theory (AET), proposed by Howard Weiss and Russell Cropanzano in 1996, explains how workplace events generate emotional reactions that influence attitudes and behaviour.

Core sequence:
- Work environment: Job demands, autonomy, leadership, and emotional-labour requirements create conditions for events.
- Affective event: Praise, conflict, unfair treatment, a deadline, or customer gratitude triggers an emotional response.
- Affective reaction: The employee experiences emotions such as pride, anger, anxiety, or gratitude.
- Outcome: Emotion influences helping, withdrawal, impulsive action, satisfaction, or performance.
Two paths to behaviour:
1. Affect-driven behaviour: An immediate reaction, such as angrily confronting a colleague after an insult.
2. Judgement-driven behaviour: A considered response mediated by attitudes, such as deciding to search for another job after repeated unfairness.
Dispositions: Positive and negative affectivity influence the intensity and frequency of emotional reactions.
Emotional labour: Employees may use surface acting—displaying unfelt emotion—or deep acting—trying to create the required feeling.
Managerial implication: Small recurring events can matter more than occasional major events; respectful interactions and timely recognition therefore shape morale.
Limitation: AET explains short-term emotional mechanisms, but organisational norms and individual regulation can modify the event–reaction link.

VII. Early Motivation Approaches — Needs and Managerial Assumptions

A. Early theories of motivation

Early theories identify needs or managerial beliefs that were thought to energise employee behaviour.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: Needs progress from physiological and safety needs through social belonging and esteem to self-actualisation.
- Managerial use: Pay supports basic needs, secure conditions support safety, teams support belonging, and challenging work may support esteem and growth.
- Limitation: People do not consistently satisfy needs in one fixed sequence.
McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y:
1. Theory X: Assumes employees dislike work, avoid responsibility, and require close control.
2. Theory Y: Assumes work can be natural and employees may exercise self-direction, seek responsibility, and use creativity.
  - Contrast: These are managerial assumptions, not rigid employee categories; each assumption can shape the controls and opportunities managers create.
Herzberg’s two-factor theory:
- Hygiene factors: Pay, policy, supervision, relationships, and conditions can prevent dissatisfaction but do not necessarily create lasting motivation.
- Motivators: Achievement, recognition, responsibility, advancement, and the work itself promote satisfaction.
McClelland’s acquired-needs theory: Experience develops needs for achievement, power, and affiliation.
- Concrete link: High achievement motivation favours moderately challenging tasks with personal responsibility and clear performance feedback.
Overall limitation: Need categories are useful diagnostic guides, but culture, job context, and individual priorities weaken universal predictions.

VIII. Contemporary Motivation Approaches — Cognition, Fairness, and Work Design

A. Contemporary theories of motivation

Contemporary theories explain motivation through goals, beliefs, consequences, perceived fairness, and the design of work.

Self-determination theory: Intrinsic motivation grows when work supports autonomy, competence, and relatedness.
- Crowding effect: Highly controlling rewards may reduce intrinsic motivation, whereas informative feedback can strengthen competence.
Goal-setting theory: Edwin Locke showed that specific, difficult goals can improve performance when commitment, ability, resources, and feedback are present.
- Boundary condition: Overly narrow targets may encourage neglected duties or unethical shortcuts.
Self-efficacy theory: Bandura identified mastery experience, modelling, verbal persuasion, and interpretations of physiological state as efficacy sources.
- Performance cycle: Greater efficacy encourages harder goals and persistence, while successful mastery further raises efficacy.
Reinforcement theory: Behaviour is influenced by its consequences.
- Positive reinforcement: Adds a valued consequence after desired behaviour.
- Negative reinforcement: Removes an unpleasant condition after desired behaviour; it is not punishment.
- Punishment and extinction: Punishment applies an adverse consequence, while extinction removes reinforcement maintaining behaviour.
Equity and organisational justice theories: Employees compare their input–outcome relationship with that of a referent.

TEXT

Perceived equity: Outcomesₚ / Inputsₚ = Outcomesᵣ / Inputsᵣ

Symbols: p denotes the focal person; r denotes the referent; outcomes include pay or recognition, while inputs include effort, skill, and time.
Justice dimensions: Distributive justice concerns outcomes, procedural justice concerns decision methods, and interactional justice concerns respectful explanations and treatment.
- Expectancy theory: Victor Vroom proposed that motivation depends on linked beliefs about effort, performance, and valued outcomes.