Psychology Chapter on Personality and Motivation

Neuroticism and Well-being

• Neuroticism, characterized by nervousness, insecurity under stress and depression, has the strongest relationship to well-being.

Openness

• Openness is characterized by curiosity, imagination, artistic sensitivity, and being receptive to new experiences.

Emotional Intelligence

• Emotional intelligence is the ability to process and use emotional information in reasoning and other cognitive activities.
• It encompasses self-awareness, self-regulation, social skills, and empathy.
• Higher emotional intelligence increases performance in negotiation, colleague and customer service, and motivation.

Motivational Needs

• There are three psychological needs that motivate people:
  • Need for relatedness: to feel connected and belonging
  • Need for competence: to feel capable and effective
  • Need for autonomy: to feel in control and independent

Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation

• Intrinsic motivation arises from internal factors, such as enjoyment or interest in the task.
• Extrinsic motivation is driven by external factors, such as rewards, salary, or recognition.

Conservation of Resource Theory (COR)

• COR holds that individuals strive to acquire, maintain, and protect resources that are valuable to them.
• Psychological resources include motivation, emotions, and attention.

Building Psychological Resources

• Resources are built through:
  • Acceptance: feeling loved and accepted, treated with respect and compassion, and having deep and meaningful relationships.
  • Competence: successfully achieving goals, feeling capable and in control, and receiving positive feedback.
  • Optimal Predictability: understanding how to achieve success, understanding why others approve or disapprove, and understanding why things happen the way they do.

Depleted Psychological Resources

• Resources are depleted by:
  • Acceptance: feeling disliked and rejected, treated with disrespect or misunderstanding, and having superficial or meaningless relationships.
  • Competence: failing to achieve goals, feeling helpless, receiving negative feedback or criticism.
  • Optimal Predictability: not being able to predict success, not understanding others' approval or disapproval, not understanding why things happen the way they do.

Self-Determination Theory (SDT)

• SDT is a framework that explains how factors affect intrinsic motivation and self-determination.
• It suggests that humans have basic needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness.
• When these needs are met, people are intrinsically motivated and don't need external incentives.

Projects

• Projects are temporary activities with defined goals, a beginning and an end, limited resources, and a temporary organization.
• Projects enable organizations to focus resources and competencies towards specific goals.
• Projects can be used for new, unique, complex tasks, collaboration, development, change, and when specialized expertise or flexibility is needed.

Project Fundamentals

• Projects can be classified by purpose (client orders, product development, change, events, research) and field (healthcare, IT, infrastructure, construction).

General Project Model

• The general project model follows a sequence of stages: Idea > Pre-study > Planning > Execution > Closure > Impact.

Psychology and Organisational Behaviour (OB)

• OB examines the impact of individuals, groups, and structures on behavior within organizations to improve human and organizational behavior.
• It incorporates aspects of personal and social psychology (cognition, emotion, and behavior).

Why Psychology and OB Matter in Projects

• Although technical skills are crucial, they are insufficient for project success.
• Psychology and OB are essential in understanding, influencing, and controlling human factors:
  • Develop personal and people skills.
  • Anticipate team members' perspectives and internal motivations.
  • Address psychological needs (acceptance, competence, optimal predictability).

Leadership Effectiveness

• Leaders are effective to the extent that they can influence others' minds, including motivation, emotions, attention, opinions, worldviews, and behaviors.

Sprint Methodology

• A sprint is a short iteration lasting 1–4 weeks, utilizing pre-determined time and quality levels, with the ability to adapt content for new insights.
• Sprints prioritize focused execution, preventing changes that jeopardize goals, but allowing renegotiations and clarifications with stakeholders.
• Sprint reviews evaluate completed work, while retrospective sessions identify improvement areas for future sprints.

Social Psychology vs. Personality Psychology

• Personality psychology focuses on the individual and how their traits influence their feelings, thoughts, and behaviors.
• Social psychology focuses on the influence of the social context and group interactions on feelings, thoughts, and behaviors.

Reasons for Group Formation

• Humans have a long history of group membership (over 150,000 generations).
• Forming groups has evolutionary benefits:
  • Increased survival rates
  • Enhanced reproductive success

The Need for Belonging

• This strong evolutionary need is driven by internal mechanisms that encourage individuals to join groups and form lasting relationships.
• Social comparisons can have positive effects (admiration, inspiration, compassion) and negative effects (envy, anxiety, contempt).

Equity Theory

• We compare ourselves to others and seek fair treatment.
• We compare performance/effort ratios with relevant others.
• When ratios are equal, equity exists – no tension arises.
• When conditions are unequal, tension arises due to perceived injustice.
• Over-rewarding or being under-rewarded motivates action to restore perceived fairness.

Social Identity Theory

• For every group we belong to, there is an opposite group.
• When groups form, we automatically favor our in-group and devalue the out-group.
• This occurs through three stages:
  • Categorization: dividing people into groups
  • Identification: associating with a particular group
  • Bias: favoring in-group, devaluing out-group

Sociometer Theory

• Self-esteem acts as a “sociometer” measuring our level of acceptance or rejection by others.
• High self-esteem reflects feeling valued and accepted, while low self-esteem signals perceived devaluation or rejection.

Negative Behavior in “Good” People

• People may be afraid to do the right thing due to:
  • Fear: potential consequences for standing up for values.
  • Contextual pressures:
    • Authority bias: assuming authority figures are right.
    • Conformity bias: assuming majority behavior is acceptable.