10, 16, 9, 12 most stressed
WGU C715 ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
~WESTERN GOVERNORS UNIVERSITY | 2026
PERSONALITY AND BEHAVIOR THEORIES
CHAPTERS 5-7 9 12 16 SUMMARY
Chapter 5
Personality: the sum of ways in which an individual reacts to and interacts with others.
Myers-Briggs (MBTI) – classifies people into 1 of 16 personality types.
Big 5 Model (OCEAN)
o Openness to experience – characterizes someone in terms of
imagination, sensitivity, and curiosity.
o Conscientiousness – measure of personal consistency and reliability.
Best predictor of job performance.
o Extraversion – personality dimension describing someone who is sociable.
This one is best indicator for management.
o Agreeableness – individual’s propensity to defer to others (cooperative,
warm, and trusting).
o Neuroticism/Emotional stability – ability to withstand stress.
Dark triad – psychopathy, Machiavellianism, narcissism.
Self-monitoring: where an individual's has ability to adjust his or her behavior to
external, situational factors.
o High self-monitor able to adapt to external circumstances.
Core self-evaluation – base line expectation you have for
yourself.
Internal locus of control – high core self-evaluation (high self-control)
External locus of control – external forces have greater influence.
Values – basic convictions about what is good.
Value system – ranks values in terms of intensity.
Terminal – desirable end-states of existence
Instrumental – (behavior) preferred modes of behavior to achieve terminal values.
Chapter 6
Behavior – distinctiveness, consistency, and consensus determine someone’s
behavior.
Factors that determine perception (behavior is based on perception not what
happened)
o The factors - situation, perceiver, target.
Attribution theory – when we observe an individual’s behavior, we attempt to
determine whether it was internally or externally caused.
o Fundamental attribution error – when we think about other people, we
overestimate internal factors and underestimate external factors.
o Self-serving bias – we take credit for success and blame others for failure.
, 10, 16, 9, 12 most stressed
o availability bias is a cognitive shortcut that relies on what immediately
comes to mind to make quick decisions and judgments.
Rational decision making – very thorough decision making.
Bounded Rationality – A process of making decisions by constructing simplified
models that extract the essential features from problems without capturing all
their complexity.
Common decision biases:
o Overconfidence – tend to be overconfident about our availability.
o Anchoring – fixating on initial information.
o Confirmation – you seek information to confirm you own biases.
o Availability – tendency for people to base their judgements on information
that is readily available to them.
WGU C715 ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
~WESTERN GOVERNORS UNIVERSITY | 2026
PERSONALITY AND BEHAVIOR THEORIES
CHAPTERS 5-7 9 12 16 SUMMARY
Chapter 5
Personality: the sum of ways in which an individual reacts to and interacts with others.
Myers-Briggs (MBTI) – classifies people into 1 of 16 personality types.
Big 5 Model (OCEAN)
o Openness to experience – characterizes someone in terms of
imagination, sensitivity, and curiosity.
o Conscientiousness – measure of personal consistency and reliability.
Best predictor of job performance.
o Extraversion – personality dimension describing someone who is sociable.
This one is best indicator for management.
o Agreeableness – individual’s propensity to defer to others (cooperative,
warm, and trusting).
o Neuroticism/Emotional stability – ability to withstand stress.
Dark triad – psychopathy, Machiavellianism, narcissism.
Self-monitoring: where an individual's has ability to adjust his or her behavior to
external, situational factors.
o High self-monitor able to adapt to external circumstances.
Core self-evaluation – base line expectation you have for
yourself.
Internal locus of control – high core self-evaluation (high self-control)
External locus of control – external forces have greater influence.
Values – basic convictions about what is good.
Value system – ranks values in terms of intensity.
Terminal – desirable end-states of existence
Instrumental – (behavior) preferred modes of behavior to achieve terminal values.
Chapter 6
Behavior – distinctiveness, consistency, and consensus determine someone’s
behavior.
Factors that determine perception (behavior is based on perception not what
happened)
o The factors - situation, perceiver, target.
Attribution theory – when we observe an individual’s behavior, we attempt to
determine whether it was internally or externally caused.
o Fundamental attribution error – when we think about other people, we
overestimate internal factors and underestimate external factors.
o Self-serving bias – we take credit for success and blame others for failure.
, 10, 16, 9, 12 most stressed
o availability bias is a cognitive shortcut that relies on what immediately
comes to mind to make quick decisions and judgments.
Rational decision making – very thorough decision making.
Bounded Rationality – A process of making decisions by constructing simplified
models that extract the essential features from problems without capturing all
their complexity.
Common decision biases:
o Overconfidence – tend to be overconfident about our availability.
o Anchoring – fixating on initial information.
o Confirmation – you seek information to confirm you own biases.
o Availability – tendency for people to base their judgements on information
that is readily available to them.
