PERSONALITY

CONTENT

 What is personality?
 Approaches and theories of personality
 How personality contributes in individual behavior?
 How to measure personality?
 Important concept related to personality
 Indian context shaping individual personality
What is personality?

 In order to understand the behaviour of people in the organisational setting, we need to

know the basic nature of personality.
 It is a psycho-social phenomenon, which analyses the cognitive features and presentation
of individual in the society.
 The sum of way in which an individual reacts to and interact with others. ---- Robbins
 The relatively stable pattern of behaviours and consistent internal states that explain a
person’s behaviour tendencies. ---- RT Hogan
 Personality is the relatively stable set of psychological attributes that distinguish one
person from another. — Lawerence Ervin
Personality traits

 Early work in personality tried to label various characteristics which describe individual
behaviour like shy, aggressive, submissive, lazy, ambitious, loyal and timid.
 When someone frequently exhibit these characteristics and they are enduring over time
and across situations, we call them personality traits.
 Personality traits are enduring characteristics that describe an individual’s behavior.
 The more consistent the characteristics over time and the more frequently it occurs in
diverse situations, the more important the trait is in describing the individual.
 Caution: it is not to suggest that personality never changes.
Personality determinants

 (i) Heredity (ii) Environment

 Heredity : factors determined at conception; one’s biological, physiological and inherent
psychological makeup.
 Environmental factor like family background, socio-economic status, education of parent,
parenting style etc
 40% of personality is being attributable to heredity and 60% of personality attributable to
the environment. [From: Heritability of personality : A meta-analysis of behavior Genetic
studies, Psychological bulletin, 2015]
Measuring personality

 Many organizations are using personality test for hiring decisions.

 Most common method to measure personality is through self-report surveys.
 Problems with self- report surveys:
People tend to overrate/ under rate
Cultural influences
Less accurate
 Observer-rating survey
 Use of both self-report and observer ratings of personality is ideal for important
employment decision.
Personality frameworks

 The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

 The big five personality model
 The dark triad
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

 It is personality test with 100 questions that taps four characteristics and classifies people
into one of 16 personality types.
 Test asks people how they usually feel or act in situation. Than respondents are classified
as
 Extraverted (E) or Introverted (I)
 Sensing (S) or Intuitive (N)
 Thinking (T) or Feeling (F)
 Judging (J) or Perceiving (P)
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
E = Extraverted individual are outgoing, I =Introverted are quite and shy.
sociable and assertive.

S= Sensing types are practical and prefer N= Intuitive rely on unconscious

routine, order and focus on details. processes and look at the big picture.

T= Thinking types use reason and logic to F= Feeling types rely on their personal
handle problems. values and emotions.

J=Judging types want control and prefer P=Perceiving types are flexible and
structure and orders. spontaneous.

MBTI identifies personality types by identifying one trait from each of the four pairs.
Ex: INTJs , ENFJs
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator -limitations

 Research evidences for validity of MBTI are mixed. More evidences are against it.
 It forces person into one type or another, no in between.
 Reliability issues – when people retake test, they get different results.
 Difficulty in interpretation of different combinations.
 The results tend to be unrelated to job performance hence more meaningful to use for
self-awareness and providing career guidance.
The Big Five Personality Model

 A personality assessment model that describes five basic dimensions

of personality which underline all others and encompass most of the
significant variation in human personality.
 These traits do a very good job of predicting how people behave in a
variety of real- life situations and remain relatively stable for an
individual over time with less daily variations.
 1. Conscientiousness: it is measure of personal consistency and
reliability.
High: responsible, organized, dependable and persistent
Low: easily distracted, disorganized and unreliable
The Big Five Personality Model

 2. Emotional stability: this dimension taps into person’s ability to

withstand stress.
High: people are calm, self-confident, happy secure, positive,
optimistic and to experience fewer negative emotions.
Low: hyper vigilant, vulnerable to the effect of stress , nervous,
anxious, insecure and stressful
 3.Extraversion: this dimension captures our relational approach
toward the social world.
High: gregarious, assertive and social. Freely express these
feelings.
Low: thoughtful, reserved, timid and quite
The Big Five Personality Model

 4. Openness to experience : this dimension addresses the range of

interests and fascination with novelty.
High: Creative, curious and artistically sensitive
Low: conventional and find comfort in the familiar
 5. Agreeableness : it is individual’s propensity to defer to others.
High: cooperative, warm and trusting . Such people are more
happier in comparison to their counterpart.
Low: cold and antagonist
Dark Triad

 There are some socially undesirable traits which all of us have in

varying degrees are also relevant to organization behaviour.
 Dark Triad are constellation of negative personality traits consisting
of Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy.
 However, they do not always occur together.
 These traits might be expressed particularly strongly when an
individual is under stress and unable to moderate any
inappropriate behaviour.
 Sustained high level of dark personality traits can cause individuals
to derail their careers and personal lives.
Dark Triad

 Machiavellianism ( Mach) : the degree to which an individual is

pragmatic, maintain emotional distance and believes that ends can
be justify means.
 High Mach manipulates more, win more and are persuaded less by
others but… persuade others more than low Machs.
 They hardly cares about CSR or sustainability issues, hence have
ethical implications
 High Mech employees, by manipulating others to their advantage,
win in the short term but they lose those gains in the long run .
Dark Triad

 Narcissism : the tendency to be arrogant have a grandiose sense

of self-importance, require excessive admiration and possess a
sense of entitlement.
 Narcissist person is usually fell in love with his/her own image.
 Often has fantasies of grand success, sense of entitlement, lack
empathy, exploit situation and people.
 They can be hypersensitive and fragile.
 They may experience more anger.
Dark Triad

 Psychopathy: the tendency for a lack of concern for others and a

lack of guilt or remorse when actions causes harm.
 Measures of psychopathy attempt to assess the motivation to
comply with social norms, impulsivity, willingness to use deceit to
obtain desired ends and disregard for lack of empathetic concern
for others.
Other Traits

 Antisocial : people are indifferent and callous towards others.

 Borderline: people have low self-esteem and high uncertainty. They are
unpredictable in their interaction at work, inefficient and may have low
job satisfaction.
 Schizotypal: individual are eccentric and disorganized. They can be
highly creative although susceptible to work stress.
 Obsessive compulsive: people are perfectionist, stubborn, attain
details, carry work ethics.
 Avoidant: individual feel inadequate and hate criticism. They can
function only in environments requiring little interaction.
Other personality attributes

 Core self evaluation (CSE): bottom line conclusions individuals

have about their capabilities, competence and worth as a person.
 People who have positive CSE like themselves and see themselves
as effective and in control of their environment.
 Those with negative CSE tend to dislike themselves, questions their
capabilities and view themselves as powerless over their
environment.
 People who have high CSE provide better customer service and are
more popular coworkers and may have careers that begin on a
better footing and ascend more rapidly over time.
Other personality attributes

 Self-monitoring: A personality trait that measures an individual’s

ability to adjust his/her behavior to external, situational factors.
 High self-monitors show considerable adaptability in adjusting
their behavior to external situational factors. They are sensitive to
external cues and behave differently in varying situations.
 While low self-monitors can’t disguise themselves in the way. They
tend to display their true dispositions and attitudes in every
situation. That is why there is high behavioral consistency between
who they are and what they do.
Other personality attributes

 Proactive personality: people who identify opportunities, show

initiative, take action and persevere until meaningful change
occurs.
 Proactive individuals have many desirable behaviors , tend to
satisfied with their job, committed to organization, tend to engage
in more networking behaviours.
 Proactive individuals often achieve career success.
Personality and situations

 Situation strength theory : A theory indicating that the way personality

translates into behaviour depends on the strength of the situation.
 Situation strength means the degree to which norms, cues or standards
dictate appropriate behavior.
 Strong situation show us what is right behavior, pressures us to exhibit it
and discourage the wrong behavior.
 In weak situation, “anything goes” .
 Personality traits better predict behavior in weak situations than in
strong one.
Personality and situations

 Trait activation theory (TAT): it predicts that some situations,

events or interventions “activate” a trait more than others.
 Using TAT we can foresee which job suit certain personality
 Ex:
Dealing with an angry people ---- requires conscientiousness (+),
agreeableness(+),neuroticism(-) ----- more relevant to telemarketer ,
less relevant to composer