COMM 151 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Occupational Stress, Job Satisfaction, Reinforcement

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Commerce
• Course: COMM 151
• Professor: Christopher Miners

Document Summary

Personality: the relatively stable set of psychological characteristics that influences the way an individual interacts with his or her environment. Characteristics on which people differ and how they deal with the world. Characteristics that are relatively stable across situations and over time. Personality tests ( which were proved useless) popular in the 1950"s and 1960"s. Known as dispositional approach since it focuses on individual dispositions & personality. This approach stated that individuals are predisposed to behave in certain ways. Now the situational approach is used to find factors in a work environment to explain organizational behavior. Factors (rewards, punishments, people"s feelings) affect attitudes and behaviours. Job satisfaction is determined by situational factors such as characteristics of work tasks. Interactionalist approach states that ob is a combination of the two. To predict behaviour, you must know the person"s personality and their job setting. Personality has the most impact in a weak situation since there are few rules, weak rewarding .