Diversity and the Impact on Individual Behavior

Diversity and the Impact on Individual Behavior The closest definition to individual behavior is personality which is "the totality of an individual's behavioral and emotional characteristics. Personality embraces a person's moods, attitudes, opinions, motivations, and style of thinking, perceiving, speaking and acting. It is part of what makes each individual distinct" (Answers, 2007). Diversity within organizations can positively or negatively impact individual behavior. Diversity includes all the ways in which individuals differ including race, gender, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation and child/elder care responsibilities (Census bureau, 2007). Organizations can create opportunities to draw upon people with different backgrounds, providing new perspectives for organizational and personal success (Census bureau, 2007). There are many diversity issues within the workplace however, ethnicity, gender, geographical differences, and religion highly impact individual behaviors within an organization.
Ethnicity
Ethnic groups are often associated with race and incorporate the view of skin color differences with language, culture, or nationality (Lewis, 2003, para. 9). Racial groups are usually formed from two or more ethnic groups such as Hispanic-Americans, Irish-Americans, Japanese-Americans, African-Americans, etc (Lewis, 2003, para. 9). People of color are projected to be the majority of the U.S. population by the year 2060 and 30% of the population will be Hispanic (Schermerhorn, 2005, p. 30). With the numbers of different ethnic groups on the rise, organizations that employ individuals from many different ethnic groups may benefit from the differences in views and backgrounds that these individuals bring. Organizations need to take additional time to research what is important to different ethnic groups. McDonald's took 13 months to figure out that Hindus in India do not eat beef and once they began making burgers out of lamb, sales