Appreciating Individual Differences - Essay Example

Running head: individual differences Appreciating individual differences Distinguish between self-esteem and self-efficacy and how is someone youknow with self-efficacy, relative to a specified task, "programming themselves for failure"? What could be done to help that individual develop high self-efficacy? Self-esteem refers to one’s perception about his/her worth. Self –efficacy refers to one’s perception about successfully performing a task or work. A typical example is that of a person who has met with an accident that resulted in bone fracture.

Prior to the accident, the person was active and always travelling to different places because of work. After the incident, this person believes that he has lost the ability to resume his activities because of the illness and is scared of further injury if he undertakes any form of physical movement; and these beliefs are withholding him from even trying to walk or perform routine activities. His negative self-efficacy is causing himself to program for failure. This person must be given confidence by speaking, allowing him to take small steps with support on a regular basis till he is able to walk.

This will improve his self-efficacy and help him resume his daily activities. 2. Explain the social learning model of self-management and compare and contrast high and low self-monitoring individuals and describe the resulting behaviors each may have. The social learning model focuses on brining about change in one’s behavior to suit the situation or external conditions that shape individual’s behavior. This model focuses on ability to control the external situations and human responsiveness to these situations in such a manner that desired goals are achieved by appropriating one’s behavior accordingly.

Self-monitoring helps individuals observe their behavior and adapt to the situation. For example high-self monitoring individuals are conscious about their behavior, especially in public, and are thus highly responsive to social and interpersonal cues derived from situations. Contrary to this, low-self monitoring individuals are highly engrossed in themselves and/or their own situations and are least affected by external situations or others’ perspectives. These individuals do not have the ability to understand external situations or are least interested in responding to others’ or external situations.

In extreme situations, high-self monitoring individuals act as chameleons that change their behavior and stance according to the situation, which could result in lack of trust in the individuals. On the other hand, low-self monitoring individuals are considered as insensitive to others and are thus not desired in leadership roles. 3. Explain the difference between an internal and external locus of control and what importance do you attach to self-talk in self management? Locus of control explains the extent to which individuals assume responsibility for their actions or resultant of their actions.

External locus of control refers to the dimension where individuals believe that the resultant of their actions and behavior is the cause of external situations that were out of their control. Contrary to this, internal locus of control refers to the dimension where individuals believe that the resultant of their actions is because of their own inability to control the factors or events. Self-talk that is positive and motivating is significant in self-management. Positive self-talk can reinforce one’s motivation and enthusiasm in spite of previously failed attempts at a specific task.

However, negative self-talk can cause more damage and failure besides lowering self-worth. Positive self-talk is necessary for better self-management. 4. Explain the concepts of emotional contagion and emotional labor and identify the four key components of emotional intelligence. Emotional contagion refers to the process of catching other’s good or bad emotions. Individuals displaying positive emotions such as happiness, enthusiasm, pride, love and affection tend to pass on to the people around them; similarly negative emotions such as anger, anxiety, guilt, sadness, jealousy, and disgust or frustration can easily be spread to others.

This emotional contagion has an important implication for managers because managers can mould their employees’ emotions by displaying the emotions they wish to see in their employees. However, if employees are forced to display only positive emotions as a part of their job, then it would affect their psychological physical wellbeing. This situation can cause significant stress, which is referred to as emotional labor. To combat this, emotional intelligence would be required. The four key components of emotional intelligence include self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. 5. Identify and describe the Big Five personality dimensions, specify which one is correlated most strongly with job performance, and describe the proactive personality.

The Big Five personality dimensions include extraversion characterized by outgoing, talkative and sociable nature; agreeableness characterized by trusting, good-natured, cooperative and soft-hearted nature; conscientiousness characterized by dependable, responsible, achievement-oriented; emotional stability identified by relaxed, secure, and unworried personality; and Openness to experience identified by intelligence, imagination, curiosity and broad-mindedness. Of these, conscientiousness strongly correlates with job performance because these people are highly performance oriented and responsible.

For managers, extraversion correlates the best with their job because they are required to be outgoing, talkative and sociable to create the desired impact on their employees. Proactive personality type refers to action-oriented personality that takes initiative and struggles to change things instead of reacting to the changing things or surroundings. References Kinicki, A and Kreitner, R. (2009). Organizational Behavior: key concepts, skills and best practices. New York: TataMcGraw Hill Inc.