Chapter 5

Personality

What is personality?
• The word personality in English is derived from the Latin word persona. Originally, it denoted the masks worn by
theatrical players in ancient Greek dramas. Thus, the initial conception of personality was that of a superficial social
image that an individual adopts in playing life roles — a public personality.

• Personality may be understood as the characteristic patterns of behaviour and modes of thinking that determine a
person’s adjustment to the environment. Personality can be described as how a person affects others, how he
understands and views himself and his pattern of inner and outer measurable traits.

• Personality is the sum total of ways in which an individual reacts to and interacts with others. We most often
describe it in terms of the measurable traits a person exhibits.
• According to R. B. Cattell, “Personality is that which permits a prediction of what a person will do in a
given situation.”

• According to Hogan, “Personality refers to the relatively stable pattern of behaviors and consistent internal
states that explain a person’s behavioral tendencies.”

• According to Eysenck, “Personality is more or less a stable and enduring organization of a person’s
character, temperament, intelligence and physique which determine his unique adjustment to the
environment.”

• Personality is a reflection of the overall behavior of a person. It is the sum of all the actions and reactions of
a person towards other persons. Every person has a unique personality and they act in different situations in
a different way according to their personality traits. Every manager should have understanding of
personality dimensions of employees in order to manage them. Managers have to use varied motivation
techniques to influence the behavior of their employees.

Determinants of personality
1. Heredity: Heredity refers to the factors which are determined at the
time of conception. The heredity approach argues that the ultimate
explanation of an individual’s personality is the molecular structure of
the genes, located in the chromosomes.
2. Culture and environment: It refers to the atmosphere in which we are
brought up. People who live in individualist cultures tend to believe that
independence, competition, and personal achievement are important. In
contrast, people who live in collectivist cultures tend to value social
harmony, respectfulness, and group needs over individual needs.
 MBTI- Myers-Briggs type indicator
• Myers and Brigs theory helps to analyse personality types. According to
this model, there are 16 types of personality. Knowing your true
personality can scientifically help you to analyse your true personality.

• The MBTI test works in 4 dimensions:

• Where you focus your attention – Extraversion (E) or Introversion (I)

This dimension specifies how a person spends their energy. Introverts

generally prefer to spend time alone or in small groups. They are reserved

• The way you take in information – Sensing (S) or Intuition (N)

This describes how the individual is going to process the information. Sensors focus on the five senses. They
are interested in the information that they can directly see, hear, feel, and so on. They are hands-on learners.
They are more practical. Intuitives are more focused on abstract thinking. They are more interested in theories,
patterns, and explanations. They are often more concerned with the future than the present and are often
described as creative people. Sensing types are practical and prefer routine and order. They focus on details.
Intuitives rely on unconscious processes and look at the “big picture.”

• How you make decisions – Thinking (T) or Feeling (F)

Thinkers make a reasonable choice by finding the logic behind every decision/choice they make. They use their
head to make decisions. Feelers on the other hand are more emotional and they make the decisions through
their heart. Thinking types use reason and logic to handle problems. Feeling types rely on their personal values
and emotions.

• How you deal with the world – Judging (J) or Perceiving (P)
Judgers are good planners. They like structured jobs which are in order and dislike last-minute changes.
Perceivers are spontaneous and flexible. Judging types want control and prefer their world to be ordered and
structured. Perceiving types are flexible and spontaneous.
• According to this approach, each of the four dimensions has been described as a dichotomy or an
either/or choice between the two styles of being.

• Myers and Briggs described this as a "preference" and stated that any individual should be able to
identify a preferred style on each of the four dimensions. The sum of a person's four preferred styles
becomes their personality type.

• Based on the derived personality types, predictions are made for the individual’s career choices and
options where their probability of success are maximum.

• The four dimension preferences create a common group of people who tend to have similar thoughts
and preferences in the way they approach their life, their hobbies or the jobs they like to do.

• These four dimensions can further form 16 different combinations and each of them represents different
personality traits.

• Refer this link for detailed explanation of each- https://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-

type/mbti-basics/
 The Big 5 Personality Model -OCEAN

1. Extraversion. The extraversion dimension captures our comfort level with relationships.
Extraverts tend to be gregarious, assertive, and sociable. Introverts tend to be reserved, timid, and
quiet. Extravert traits are useful in sales, politics and the arts. Introvert traits are useful for
production management and in the physical and natural sciences. Extroverts are effective analysts of
job performance for professions like administrations, social relation and sales. High extroverted
employees likely use their stable, cool-headed, optimistic and aggressive manner to react to
customers’ requests which results in work completion and customer satisfaction.

2. Agreeableness. The agreeableness dimension refers to an individual’s propensity to defer to

others. Highly agreeable people are cooperative, warm, and trusting. People who score low on
agreeableness are cold, disagreeable, and antagonistic. The agreeableness personality dimension
suggests a courteous, flexible, trusting and natured, cooperative, forgiving, soft-hearted, tolerant
person. Agreeable employees are cooperative and forgiving, tend to follow rules and act courteously
to get ahead.

3.Conscientiousness. The conscientiousness dimension is a measure of reliability. A highly conscientious

person is responsible, organized, dependable, and persistent. Those who score low on this dimension are
easily distracted, disorganized, and unreliable. employees who score higher in conscientiousness develop
higher levels of job knowledge, probably because highly conscientious people learn more. Higher levels of
job knowledge then contribute to higher levels of job performance. Conscientious individuals who are more
interested in learning than in just performing on the job are also exceptionally good at maintaining
performance in the face of negative feedback.

4. Emotional stability (Neuroticism) The emotional stability dimension—often labeled by its converse,
neuroticism—taps a person’s ability to withstand stress. People with positive emotional stability tend to be
calm, self-confident, and secure. Those with high negative scores tend to be nervous, anxious, depressed, and
insecure.

5. Openness to experience. The openness to experience dimension addresses range of interests and
fascination with novelty. Extremely open people are creative, curious, and artistically sensitive. Those at the
other end of the category are conventional and find comfort in the familiar. It includes the ability to be
imaginative, unconventional, curious, broadminded and cultured. High Openness to experience employee
may prompt job efficiency, because work enables these employees to satisfy their curiosity, explore new view
points, and develop real interests in their activities
 Analysis:

• Of the Big Five traits, emotional stability is most strongly related to life satisfaction, job satisfaction, and
low stress levels. This is probably true because high scorers are more likely to be positive and optimistic and
experience fewer negative emotions. They are happier than those who score low. People low on emotional
stability are hypervigilant (looking for problems or impending signs of danger) and are especially vulnerable
to the physical and psychological effects of stress.

• Extraverts tend to be happier in their jobs and in their lives as a whole. They experience more positive
emotions than do introverts, and they more freely express these feelings. They also tend to perform better in
jobs that require significant interpersonal interaction, perhaps because they have more social skills—they
usually have more friends and spend more time in social situations. One downside is that extraverts are more
impulsive than introverts; they are more likely to be absent from work and engage in risky behavior.

• Individuals who score high on openness to experience are more creative in science and art
than those who score low. Because creativity is important to leadership, open people are more
likely to be effective leaders, and more comfortable with ambiguity and change.

• Agreeable individuals are better liked than disagreeable people, which explains why they tend
to do better in interpersonally oriented jobs such as customer service. They also are more
compliant and rule abiding and less likely to get into accidents as a result. People who are
agreeable are more satisfied in their jobs and contribute to organizational performance by
engaging in citizenship behaviour.
 Other Personality traits
1.
The other traits are:
related
Core Self evaluation:
• It is concerned to the degree to which an individual likes or dislikes themselves. Positive self evaluation

• to OB
leads to higher job performance and negative self evaluation leads to lower job performance.
People who have positive core self-evaluations like themselves and see themselves as effective, capable,
and in control of their environment. Those with negative core self-evaluations tend to dislike themselves,
question their capabilities, and view themselves as powerless over their environment

2. Machiavellianism
• It is concerned with how to gain power and how to use it. It denotes cunningness.
• An individual high in Machiavellianism is pragmatic, manipulative, maintains emotional distance, and
believes ends can justify means. “If it works, use it” is consistent with a high-Mach perspective.
• They focus on money, power and competition and place little emphasis on community building, self-care,
and family commitment; they aim to win at any cost. High machs tend to be highly manipulative, they can
persuade someone easily but are not persuaded by others, are successful in reaching their goals and win
more.
3. Locus of control:
It refers to an individual's belief that events are either with one's control (internal locus of control) or are
determined by forces beyond one's control. Some people believe that they are the masters of their own fate.
They are labelled as internals. Other people see themselves as pawns of fate. This type is called externals. A
person's perception of the source of his or her fate is termed locus of control.

4. ‘Type A’ and ‘Type B’ Personality:

People who are impatient, aggressive and highly competitive are termed as ‘Type A’ personality. But those
who are easy going, laid back and non-competitive are termed as ‘Type B’ personality. Type ‘A’ people tend
to be very productive as they work very hard. Their negative side is that they are very impatient, more
irritable and have poor judgment. Type ‘B’ people do better on complex tasks involving judgment and
accuracy rather than speed and hard work.

5. Narcissism
The term is from the Greek myth of Narcissus, a man so vain and proud he fell in love with his own image.
In psychology, narcissism describes a person who has a grandiose sense of self-importance, requires
excessive admiration, has a sense of entitlement, and is arrogant. Evidence suggests that narcissists are more
charismatic and thus more likely to emerge as leaders, and they may even display better psychological health.
Despite having some advantages, most evidence suggests that narcissism is undesirable.

6. Self Monitoring:
Self-monitoring refers to an individual’s ability to adjust his or her behavior to external, situational
factors. Individuals high in self-monitoring show considerable adaptability in adjusting their behavior
to external situational factors. They are highly sensitive to external cues and can behave differently in
different situations, sometimes presenting striking contradictions between their public persona and
their private self. People having high levels of self-monitoring can respond easily to the signs of other
people and therefore they have a remarkable ability to adapt to other people’s expectations. On the
other hand, individuals with low levels of self monitoring are less concerned with the assessment of
the social climate.

7. Risk taking
People differ in their willingness to take chances, a quality that affects how much time and information
they need to make a decision. A high risk-taking propensity may lead to more effective performance
for a stock trader in a brokerage firm because that type of job demands rapid decision making. On the
other hand, a willingness to take risks might prove a major obstacle to an accountant who performs
auditing activities.
•
Value
Values represent basic convictions that “a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is

s
personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-state of
existence.” They contain a judgmental element in that they carry an individual’s ideas as to what is
right, good, or desirable.
• These are moral connotations about what is right and what is wrong.
• Significant values are established in the early years of our life.
• Values lay the foundation for our understanding of people’s attitudes and motivation and influence
our perceptions. We enter an organization with preconceived notions of what “ought” and “ought
not” to be.
• values cloud objectivity and rationality; they influence attitudes and behavior.
• Terminal values refers to desirable end-states. These are the goals a person would like to achieve
during his or her lifetime. The other set, called instrumental values, refers to preferable modes of
behavior, or means of achieving the terminal values.

Person job-fit
Managers today don’t just want to fit the personality with the specific jobs. They want the employees to

• theory
be flexible and committed towards the organisation. They want to match the personality and values.
John Holland’s Person-Job Fit theory states six personality types and proposes that satisfaction and the
propensity to leave a position depend on how well individuals match their personalities to a job.
• Examining a person's personality will give insight into their adaptability in an organization.
Basically, how well they will fit in and work. By matching the right personality with the right
company you can achieve a better synergy and avoid pitfalls such as high turnover and low job
satisfaction.