Individuals are unique in terms of their skills, abilities, personalities, perceptions, attitudes, emotions, and ethics.
Individual differences represent the essence of the challenge of management, because no two people are completely alike.
There are four basic propositions of interactional psychology: 1. Behavior is a function of a continuous, multidirectional interaction between the person and the situation. 2. The person is active in this process and both changes, and is changes by, situation. 3. People vary in many characteristics, including cognitive, affective, motivational, and ability factors. 4. Two interpretations of situations are important: the objective situation and the person’s subjective view of situation.
Skills and Abilities
There are many skills and abilities that relate to work outcomes. Genera Mental Ability (GMA) was introduce by Spearman (1940) more than 100 years ago. It was defined as an individual’s innate cognitive intelligence. It was the single best predictor of work performance across many occupations studied both, here in the United States and across different culture.
Personality
Personality is an individual difference that lends consistency to a person’s behavior. Personality is defined as a relatively stable set of characteristics that influence an individual behavior.
Determinants of Individual Behavior * Heredity * Environment where a person is exposed to. * Family * Culture * Education * And other environmental forces that shape personality.
Personality is therefore is shaped by both heredity and environment.
Personality Theories
Two major theories of personality are the traits and integrative approach.
Trait Theory
Some early personality researchers believed that to understand individuals, we must break down behavior patterns into series of observable traits. According to trait theory, combining these traits into a