Personality, Individual Differences and Selection

Introduction

Organizations consist of individuals with diverse characteristics, skills, and prerequisites. Knowledge of personality and individual differences is therefore crucial for understanding and improving a range of organizational processes and outcomes. Among other things, this can contribute to more thorough and accurate recruitment and selection processes, as well as facilitate the positive development of leaders and employees. Conversely, a lack of understanding of individual differences can lead to hiring mistakes and poor management of human resources, including negative consequences for leadership, health, well-being, cooperation, and performance.

In this course, you will learn about individual differences (differential psychology) and selection. Within the topic of individual differences, special emphasis is placed on personality psychology, including central theoretical perspectives on personality, the use of personality tests, and the significance of personality and individual dispositions in the workplace. The course also emphasizes the concepts of intelligence and emotional intelligence as expressions of individual differences and discusses these concepts with regard to testing methodology.

Furthermore, the course addresses how knowledge of personality and individual differences can be utilized in the selection of new employees, and discusses how various selection methods, such as interviews and psychological tests, can help the organization meet its competence needs. The goal is for students to possess broad, nuanced, and practical insight into the topics of personality, individual differences, and selection upon completion of the course.

Course content

• The trait-theory perspective on personality.

• Other perspectives on personality, including psychodynamic, social-cognitive, and humanistic-existential perspectives.

• Evolution, behavioral genetics, and personality.

• Personality, health, and well-being.

• Personality and constructive versus destructive behavior among employees and leaders.

• Intelligence and emotional intelligence.

• Job analysis and competency assessment.

• The interview as a selection tool.

• Tests and testing methodology in a selection context.

Disclaimer

This is an excerpt from the complete course description for the course. If you are an active student at BI, you can find the complete course descriptions with information on eg. learning goals, learning process, curriculum and exam at portal.bi.no. We reserve the right to make changes to this description.