BS 102 Module I: Personality & Individual Differences 1

Moumita Mukherjee

BS 102 Module I: Personality & Individual Differences

Scientists refer to the ways in which people differ from one another as individual differences, and such
unique qualities can have major influences on our thinking and behavior as well as our lives and careers.
According to the popular interactionist perspective, how we behave is based on both who we are (i.e.,
individual influences) and the contexts in which we operate (i.e., situational influences).

The Grand Challenges of Personality & Individual Differences for Social, Behavioral & Economic Science
(Source: Association for Research in Personality)

People are not all the same. Individuals respond differently to social situations, economic circumstances,
and physical environments, with important consequences for life outcomes including physical and
mental health, occupational attainment and economic well‐being, community involvement, and
mortality itself. The increasing diversity of American society highlights the importance of appreciating
and understanding the wide range of ways in which people perceive, respond to, and cope with their
physical, social, and cultural environments. The study of personality and individual differences aims to
understand the nature, functioning, origins, and consequences of these differences.

This topic presents a grand challenge to social, behavioral and economic science because many
important, influential and useful theoretical models in these fields nonetheless follow a “one size fits all”
approach. Analyses of the effects of social and physical environments often implicitly assume that
everyone responds to them in the same way, and the design of interventions may insufficiently
appreciate how a program that is effective for one person may be ineffective for another. At the level of
basic science, much has been learned about the key dimensions of individual differences and their
consequences, but much more remains to be fully explained including the nature and causes of
individual differences, their underlying psychological mechanisms, their specific behavioral
manifestations, and their wider implications for diverse fields of knowledge ranging from economics,
social psychology and philosophy to biology and genetics.

The challenge questions are:

1. What are the primary dimensions on which people differ in personality and ability, and how can
they best be measured?

This question has garnered a large amount of sustained research attention over the past few decades
and important progress has been made towards identifying the key variables in personality and mental
ability. In personality, the “Big Five” traits of extraversion, emotional stability (or neuroticism, reversed),
conscientiousness, agreeableness and openness to experience account for substantial variance in life
outcomes such as psychological well‐being, happiness, family and peer relationships, job performance,
career satisfaction, and physical health (Ozer & Benet‐Martínez, 2006). But these five key traits tell less
than the whole story.
 BS 102 Module I: Personality & Individual Differences 2
Moumita Mukherjee

Much remains to be learned about the nature and predictive value of the specific facets of the big five,
and a large research literature documents the importance of individual differences that fall outside the
big five framework (e.g., differences in values and moral behavior). At the same time, dimensions of
“normal” personality are being extended to the study of personality disorders and severe
psychopathology, and a growing trend within clinical psychology (such as is guiding the DSM‐5) is
moving towards characterizing mental illness in terms of dimensional variation rather than discrete
categories. Meanwhile, the study of mental abilities is yielding increasingly detailed models to explain
the unique pattern of capacities that characterizes every individual and the learning and work
environments in which each person is most likely to thrive. The necessary basic research in support of
this progress includes the development of taxonomic systems including sophisticated psychometric
models that more fully account for the structure of individual differences and the invention of new
assessment tools including behavioral, reputational, and even biological methods.

2. What are the origins of individual differences?

The question of origin goes back at least as far as the ancient Greeks. Theophrastus asked more than
2000 years ago “why it is, that while all Greece lies under the same sky…, it has fallen to us to have
characters so variously constituted.” The modern version of this question occupies behavioral
geneticists and psychologists, who study personality development, and their work makes it increasingly
clear that while genetics and environment are both critically important, neither offers a complete
account by itself.

Exciting new work on genotype environment interactions suggests possible candidates for specific genes
that magnify or even protect against the long‐term effects of difficult childhood environments and
challenging social circumstances. Yet these findings remain difficult to obtain and even more difficult to
replicate, and it is clear that the complex ways in which environments, genotypes and phenotypes
interact to produce and maintain important individual differences are just beginning to be understood.
Therefore, this area of research presents a second domain in which the continued support of basic
research is essential.

3. What are the psychological processes that underlie individual differences in personality?

Traditionally, research on individual differences in personality has paid more attention to their
measurement than to exploring the processes of perception, cognition, judgment and emotional
response that underlie their effects. It is important for future research to focus more tightly on the
processes underlying personality traits both for enhanced theoretical understanding and for developing
means to disrupt causal chains that lead to negative outcomes and to enhance or facilitate changes that
lead to positive outcomes. One promising direction is the extension of the study of cognitive processes
and heuristics into personality psychology, examining the different strategies of interpretation and
planning that might partially explain individual differences in behavior. Pursuit of this topic will also
promote the integration of the study of cognitive ability with the study of personality.

A second promising direction is offered by the use of fMRI and other imaging technologies to show
individual differences in action and to identify specific brain regions associated with particular traits.
Neuroimaging is an expensive, challenging area of research fraught with methodological difficulties.
Basic research on personality can provide the important theoretical and methodological tools that will
be essential for further progress.
 BS 102 Module I: Personality & Individual Differences 3
Moumita Mukherjee

Appreciating Individual Differences

Sounds odd, but not all employers appreciate individual differences among their workers. What do we
mean by that? Well, too often employers want their workers to fit the mold, to do their jobs in a
particular manner, and, well, to be interchangeable. On many levels this makes sense, especially if you
want to deliver a product with consistency.

It is just that people at work are unique, quirky, and like to be thought of as special. It is the way people
are. Consequently it only makes sense to accept this fact, embrace it, and honor individuality. Luckily,
appreciating individual differences in your employees brings a host of rather positive consequences.

The People Side of Business, a popular book about understanding people in the workplace, proposes six
psychological principles. The sixth of which is that Individuals are Different from One Another.
Appreciating individual differences makes the implementation of all the other principles possible. One
cannot truly accept and nurture people, build family and support growth, unless you like people the way
as they were designed in their own unique way.

Nurturing employees depends on accepting individuality. You can’t just walk around saying you care for
everyone interchangeably. People feel cared about because you recognize something in or about them.
You have to see their uniqueness in some way. Then you can acknowledge “Betty”, the most special
assistant in accounting, or “Sally”, who tries harder than everyone. People hate feeling like worker #283,
who should produce reports that look the same as others.

People like to be recognized for something special about themselves. “Bob always has a spring in his
step. We need that around here.” Otherwise they experience their work world as a place where they are
not needed and where they don’t make a contribution.

When people feel appreciated for who they are, they are proud, more confident, and think more
creatively. It takes nerve to express oneself through problem‐solving on a team or through suggesting
organizational changes. You want people to feel safe so they can fully contribute. Appreciating them in
some special individual manner helps make that more possible.