Self Awareness

1
Sequence of Topics for Today
What?
Why? Validity
Self Awareness
How?
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What is self awareness

• Ability to assess ones personality, behaviors
  skills accurately
• Examples
• Self-subordinate agreement (Church, J of Appl
  Psy, 1997)
• Student-teacher agreement on judgments of
  performance on presentations (Radhakrishnan
  Yang, 2006, conf presentation)
• Own vs. peer presentations
• Practice vs. final presentation
• Accuracy of predicted judgments v. actual
  performance on exams (Radhakrishnan et al., 1996
  Human Performance 2000, conf presentation)

3
What is NOT self awareness

• Self monitoring
• Extent to which you monitor, regulate /or
  control behavior/appearance in social situations
• Low self monitors behave according to their own
  inner states whereas high monitors behave
  according to the social situation
• E.g., I may deceive people by being friendly when
  I really dislike them (see Section A Ch 10 in
  Aamodt Raynes students to complete measure
  for leadership lecture)

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Self monitoring vs. self awareness

• Knowing oneself accurately (self awareness) is
  different from being able to change, monitor, or
  regulate behaviors in the presence of others
  (self monitoring)
• Self awareness and self monitoring may be related
  to each other

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Whats next
What?
Validity of Self awareness measures
Why?
Self Awareness
How?
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One primary reason to become self awareMore to
come later

• To improve performance
• High performing managers were more self-aware
  (Church, 97, J. of Appl Psych cf. Goleman 1998
  HBR)

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2 ways to become self aware

• Feedback from peers
• e.g., C24 role plays practice oral presentations
  
• Feedback from yourself
• E.g., With video recording of practice oral
  presentation
• In different kinds of situations
• e.g., across multiple C24 role plays
• In new situations
• e.g., in unfamiliar roles as managers

Learning from Inventories, Marcic et al, 310
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2 more ways to become self aware

• Feedback from professors
• Usually on performance, not on behaviour/effort
  except in C24!
• Feedback from friends family
• e.g., Ask them to fill out a personality survey
  with you in mind

Learning from Inventories, Marcic et al, 310
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What to become self-aware about? Some valid ways
of thinking about yourself
Personality Specific Traits
Knowledge Abilities Skills
Learning Styles Preferences
Values Goals Motives
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Personality One feature of the self

• What is Personality?
• Tendency toward thinking, behaving and feeling in
  consistent ways across different types of
  situations across time
• E.g., Goldbergs IPIP (handout) others in Ch 1
  Aamodt Raynes
• Differentiates one person from another
• Describes universal behaviors, thoughts
  feelings
• E.g., The 5 dimensions of personality is one
  grouping of behaviors, thoughts feelings

p.189-190 Aamodt 1-26 Janasz et al
11
The Big Five Personality Dimensions
Based on an analysis of the relation between
trait words used to describe people Openness
artistic, creative, broad interests, cultured,
knowledgeable Conscientiousness careful, fussy,
tidy, hardworking, neat, punctualExtraversion
extraverted, frank, talkative, fun loving,
sociableAgreeableness acquiescent, mild,
gentle, softheartedEmotional Stability Angry,
anxious, worried, guilt- ridden, nervous
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Students give examples of the five dimensions of
personality on the first portion of
Self-Awareness questionnaire to be completed for
participation credit (available on class website)
13

• Relation between Big Five dimensions
• The Big Five are supposed to be uncorrelated with
  each other
• i.e., a score on one dimension does not predict
  scores on another dimension.
• In reality, some weak correlations exists.
• E.g., neuroticism is negatively correlated with
  extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness.

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What is NOT Personality?

• Behavior Actions/reactions
• Can be observed/measured all the time
• E.g., Talkativeness in social situations is
  extraversion vs. talkativeness in non social
  situations is not
• Is influenced by personality other factors
• E.g., Talking in class is determined by
  personality and reinforcement whereas talking
  across different social situations is determined
  by personality

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Why is Personality valid?

• Conscientiousness predicts
• Job performance
• Attendance, retention
• Counterproductive behaviors
• Job satisfaction
• Income, occupational status
• Extraversion predicts
• Performance on managerial and sales jobs
• Income, occupational status
• Agreeableness Low neuroticism predicts
• Income, occupational status

Johns Saks (B23 text) 1-26 Janasz et al
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Possible Exam Questions on Personality

• What are your scores on the Big Five?
• Absolute (compared to highest score you can get)
• Relative (compared to other c24 students scores)
• Describe a situation in which a personality
  dimension that describes you (e.g., extraversion)
  played a positive role and another situation in
  which the same dimension played a negative role
  in your life.
• see C24 website for detailed descriptions of 5
  personality dimensions
• What features of your personality profile are
  your strengths and weaknesses as a manager?
• Learn about the job requirements of a manager

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Why may personality not be valid Bandwidth- A
factor that can predict many different behaviors,
feelings, etc. Fidelity A factor that can
predict behaviors with high accuracy Bandwidth
and fidelity are in conflict. Each Big Five
Factor has high bandwidth, but low fidelity A
specific trait has higher fidelity, but lower
bandwidth than a Big Five Factor.
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Students give examples of specific vs. general
tendencies (i.e., Neuroticism items vs.
presentation anxiety items) on Self-Awareness
handout
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Example of Bandwidth Fidelity issue
Conscientiousness predicts neatness of dorm room
and grades with moderate accuracy. Messy predicts
neatness of dorm room but not grades. Achievement
motivation predicts grades but not neatness of
dorm room.
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Usefulness of Taxonomies
Neuroticism Anxiety Presentation Anxiety Anxiety
about upcoming Presentation
Animal Mammal Dog German Sheppard
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What we learned so far.

• Personality is a valid aspect of the self
• However, it has bandwith/fidelity problems like
  all other measures, so you need to know about
  yourselves on specific traits in order to
  understand your specific behaviors

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Specific Traits Another aspect of the self

• Examples of Specific Traits
• Self Esteem
• Locus of Control
• Self Monitoring

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What is Self Esteem?

• View of oneself positively approval of oneself,
  judging oneself as significant, capable, worthy,
  believe that one has desirable traits
• E.g., I am a good person I do most things well
  from Aamodt Raynes Ch 12 Proj A (p. 389-390)
• Students should have completed this measure as
  preparation for todays lecture

291-292 Aamodt
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What is not Self esteem

• Emotional Stability
• Self esteem is a better predictor of job
  performance (.26) than emotional stability (.19)
• Emotional stability comprises of things other
  than self esteem that do not influence job
  performance
• Self esteem emotional stability are related but
  not the same
• Self Efficacy
• Capability to successfully perform a specific
  task
• E.g., Efficacy items on Self Awareness
  questionnaire
• Is a part of, but not all of self esteem

291-292 Aamodt
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Why is Self Esteem valid?

• Predicts job performance
• Predicts motivation

291-292 Aamodt
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What is Locus of Control?

• General belief about control over reinforcement
  environment
• If you work hard you will be successful (Example
  Items from AR Ch 9 Proj B)
• Students should have completed this measure as
  preparation for todays lecture

Whetten Cameron p. 76-77
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What is not Locus of Control

• Self Esteem is not the same as locus of control
  although they are related
• E.g., Those who judge themselves as capable,
  significant worthy also see themselves as
  controlling their environments
• Meta-analytic r.52 (Judge et al, 02)

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Why is Locus of Control valid?

• Related to job satisfaction
• Predicts career advancement
• Related to effective leadership behaviors
• Leadership performance
• Effective Performance in stressful situations

Whetten Cameron p. 76-77
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What is Self Monitoring

• Self monitoring
• Extent to which you monitor, regulate /or
  control behavior/appearance in social situations

1-26 Janasz et al
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Why is Self Monitoring valid?

• Predicts preferences for role-playing type jobs
  like sales, law, public relations, politics etc.
• Predicts career success
• Leadership behaviors in highly verbal contexts

1-26 Janasz et al
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Other Tendencies you should know about yourself
to be a competent manager

• Type A personality
• in AR Ch 2 Proj A p.47-48
• Predicts anxiety, poor relationships, heart
  disease (Human et al, 1999, JME)
• Optimism
• in AR Ch 2 Proj B p.49-50
• Lifestyle Questionnaire
• in AR Ch 2 Proj C p.51-52
• All predict susceptibility coping with stress
• Students should have completed this measure as
  preparation for todays lecture

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Aspects of Oneself
Personality Specific Traits
Knowledge Abilities Skills
Learning Styles Preferences
Values Goals Motives
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Preferences

• Interest Inventories
• Compare similarity of interests to those in a
  particular field
• in AR Ch 4 Proj A p. 109
• Students should have completed this measure as
  preparation for todays lecture
• Validity
• Match between interests of employees and those
  of the job predicts higher satisfaction and
  performance

190 Aamodt
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Goals, Motives Values

• Goals
• Immediate causes of behavior
• Concrete, specific ideal states
• Motivations
• Abstract, global influences
• Strivings driving multiple behaviors
• Values
• Abstract guiding principles of behavior
• Ultimate motives

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Motives

• Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation
• Intrinsic
• Enjoy performing task itself, challenge of task
  performance
• Extrinsic
• Enjoy consequence of task performance (e.g.,
  obtain reward or avoid punishment)
• in AR Ch 12 Proj B p. 391-2
• Students should have completed this measure as
  preparation for todays lecture
• Validity
• Jury is out
• i.e., Not clear if rewards reduce intrinsic
  motivation or just increase extrinsic motivation
  (C24 student papers)

p. 293 Aamodt
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Why is self awareness valid?

• To improve performance
• High performing managers were more self-aware
  (Church, 97)
• To manage yourself
• Set appropriate goals, choose appropriate
  careers, manage stress
• To understand differences between you and others
  
• Understand why others react to you the way they
  do
• Adapt your communication to others needs
• Develop interpersonal skills
• To accept your tendencies of behaving, thinking
  feeling

Human et al 1999 J of Mgt Education article,
1-26 Janasz et al
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Potential Exam Question

• Why would your scores differ from your
  expectations of your score (i.e., why may the
  scores on an assessment be invalid for you)?

Learning from Inventories, Marcic et al, 310
38
Review Questions

• What is self awareness
• How to become self aware
• What are aspects/features/dimensions of self
  awareness
• Why become self aware

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Students should have completed scored
themselves on the Self-Awareness questionnaire
(available on class website) Submit only
completed questionnaire for participation credit
(note, you will not be graded on this, just
documented for your submission)Keep the scoring
sheet for exam!
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Additional citations used in this lecture

• Aamodt, M. (2004). Applied Industrial
  Organizational Psychology (4th Ed). Wadsworth
  Thomson Learning Belmont, CA ISBN 0534596932
• Whetten, D. Cameron, K. (2002). Developing
  Management Skills (5th Ed.) Prentice Hall Upper
  Saddle, NJ