- What is personality?
- What constrains the power of personality traits
to precisely predict behavior?
- What behavioral predictions might you make if
you knew that an employee had (a) an external
locus of control? (b) a low Mach score? (c) low
self-esteem? (d) a Type A personality?
- What is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator?
- What were the six personality types identified by
- Do people from the same country have a common
personality type? Explain.
- Why might managers today pay more attention to
the person-organization fit than the person-job fit?
- What's emotional labor and why is it important to
- How does national culture influence expressed
- What's emotional intelligence and why is it impor-
Questions for Critical Thinking
- "Heredity determines personality." (a) Build an ar-
gument to support this statement. (b) Build an ar-
gument against this statement.
- "The type of job an employee does moderates the
relationship between personality and job produc-
tivity." Do you agree or disagree with this state-
- One day your boss comes in and he's nervous,
edgy, and argumentative. The next day he is calm
and relaxed. Does this behavior suggest that per-
sonality traits aren't consistent from day to day?
- What, if anything, can managers do to manage
- Give some examples of situations in which the
overt expression of emotions might enhance job
"What Is a Team Personality?"
It's the unusual organization today that isn't using
work teams. But not everybody is a good team player.
This prompts the questions: What individual personal-
ity characteristics enhance a team's performance? And
what characteristics might hinder team performance?
Break into groups of five or six. Based on the re-
search presented in this chapter, each group should (a)
identify personality characteristics that are associated
with high-performance teams and justify these
choices, (b) identify personality characteristics that
hinder high-performance teams and justify these
choices, and (c) resolve whether it is better to have
teams composed of individuals with similar or dissimi-
Each group should select an individual who will
present his or her group's findings to the class.
- Search for the most popular personality tests used
in business firms for selection, placement, and
promotion decisions. How were you able to con-
clude that these were the most popular?
- Find five recent articles (published within the past
12 months) on emotional intelligence. Summarize
these articles. What, if any, criticism of the con-
cept surfaces in your search?
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