UNIT-8 PERSONALITY AND ATTITUDE

Mostly every day we judge the personality of different people. It is a part of our daily life. Personality includes a persons relatively stable feelings, thoughts, and behavior. Each of us has a unique traits and behavioral pattern that differentiates us from other people is known as personality. Personality word is derived from Latin word-persona which means characteristics. Personality is a complex mix of a constantly evolving and changing pattern of ones unique behaviour in certain circumstances.

As per Gordon Allport, "Personality is everything that makes you an individual. It is the integration and interaction of your genetic inheritance, your experience, and your ways of relating the two." According to Fred Luthans, personality will mean how people affect others and how they understand and view themselves, as well as their pattern of inner and outer measurable traits and the person-situation interaction. Some of the fundamental characteristics of personality include: Consistency - There is generally a recognizable order and regularity to behaviors. Essentially, people act in the same ways or similar ways in a variety of situations. Psychological and physiological - Personality is a psychological construct, but research suggests that it is also influenced by biological processes and needs. It impacts behaviors and actions - Personality does not just influence how we move and respond in our environment; it also causes us to act in certain ways. Multiple expressions - Personality is displayed in more than just behavior. It can also be seen in our thoughts, feelings, close relationships and other social interactions.

DETERMINANTS OF PERSONALITY:

Gordon Allport defined personality as the dynamic organization within an individual of those psycho-physical systems that determine his unique adjustments to his environment. Personality, in essence, refers to the sum total of ways in which an individual reacts and interacts with others. Personality is the result of numerous environmental factors(internal and external) as below:

i) Heredity: Heredity refers to those factors that were determined at conception. Factors such as physical appearance, temperament, energy level, and biological rhythms are the characteristics, which are generally influenced by ones parents, i.e. ones biological, physiological, and inherent psychological make up. The Heredity Approach believes that personality of an individual is the molecular structure of the genes, located in the chromosomes. ii) Environment: Among the various factors, culture plays an important role in the formation of personality, i.e. the early conditioning, and the norms among the family, friends, and social groups. With the socialization process experienced in groups, personality does get altered over time. iii) Situation: Though an individuals personality is generally stable and consistent, it does change in different situations. Different demands in different situations bring forth different aspects of ones personality. Personality patterns should, therefore, be not looked at in isolation. iv) Cultural and Religious Factors:The culture in which one lives in, that may involve traditional practices, norms, customs, procedures, rules and regulations, precedents and values, all are important determinants of personality.

THEORIES OF PERSONALITY:

We have flowing theories of Personality: Traits Theory psychoanalytic theory Humanistic theory Social Learning Theory

Traits Theory: Trait is a sum of all durable characteristics that describe an individuals behaviour.-observable patterns of behaviour that last over time. The trait approach to personality is one of the major theoretical areas in the study of personality. The trait theory suggests that individual personalities are composed broad dispositions. Consider how you would describe the personality of a close friend. Chances are that you would list a number of traits, such as outgoing, kind and even-tempered. A trait can be thought of as a relatively stable characteristic that causes individuals to behave in certain ways.

Gordon Allport, saw traits as broad, general guides that lend consistency to behaviour. He categorized these traits into three levels:

Cardinal Traits: Traits that dominate an individuals whole life, often to the point that the person becomes known specifically for these traits. People with such personalities often become so known for these traits that their names are often synonymous with these qualities. Example: Reserved /outgoing, Serious/ happy-go-lucky. Central Traits: These are the general characteristics that form the basic foundations of personality. These central traits, while not as dominating as cardinal traits, are the major characteristics you might use to describe another person. Example: intelligent, honest, shy and anxious are considered central traits. Secondary Traits: These are the traits that are sometimes related to attitudes or preferences and often appear only in certain situations or under specific circumstances. Examples: anxiety

Psychoanalytic theory: The founder of psychoanalytic theory was Sigmund Freud. According to Freud, the mind can be divided into two main parts: 1. The conscious mind: Under this mind, it includes everything that we are aware of. A part of this includes our memory, which is not always part of awareness but can be recovered easily at any time and brought into our awareness. Freud called this ordinary memory the preconscious.

2. The unconscious mind: It is a lake of feelings, thoughts and memories that outside of our conscious awareness about which we are not aware. Most of the contents of the unconscious are unacceptable or disagreeable, such as feelings of pain, anxiety, or conflict. According to Freud, the unconscious continues to influence our behavior and experience, even though we are unaware of these underlying influences.

Humanistic Theories of Personality: Humanistic theories of personality emphasis on the basic goodness of human beings and the need to achieve one are full potential. Learn more about some of the major humanistic theories of personality. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: Abraham Maslows hierarchy of needs emphasizes the importance of self-actualization and is often pictured as a pyramid. Learn more about the five levels in Maslows hierarchy of needs. A Closer Look at the Needs Hierarchy: Maslows hierarchy of needs is one of the bestknown theories of motivation. The hierarchy is often displayed as a pyramid, with the

most basic needs at the bottom of the pyramid and more complex needs at the peak. Learn more about each individual level in Maslow's needs hierarchy. Social Learning Theory: The social learning theory emphasizes the importance of observing and modeling the behaviors, attitudes, and emotional reactions of others. Thus it focuses on learning by observation and modeling. The theory originally evolved from behaviorism but now includes many of the ideas. This theory of personality is an explanation that combines learning principles, cognition, and the effects of social relationships. According to Bandura, behavior can also influence both the environment and the person. Each of the three variables: environment, person, behavior

influence each other. Self efficacy: Self efficacy means learners self confidence towards learning. People are more likely to engage in certain behaviors when they believe they are capable of implementing those behaviors successfully, this means that they have high self-efficacy. Self regulation: Self-regulation is when the individual has his own ideas about what is appropriate or inappropriate behavior and chooses actions accordingly. There are several aspects of self regulation. Modeling: Modeling means doing what others do. There are different types of models.

live model: and actual person demonstrating the behavior. symbolic model: a person or character portrayed in a medium such as television, videotape, computer programs, or a book. Imitation: An individual uses another persons behavior as a discriminative stimulus for an imitative response. The observer is then reinforced in some way for display imitation.

Imitaion: An individual uses another persons behavior as a discriminative stimulus for an imitative response. The observer is then reinforced in some way for display imitation.

8.4 ATTITUDE: A predisposition or a tendency to respond positively or negatively towards a certain idea, object, person, or situation. Attitude influences an individual's choice of action, and responses to challenges, incentives, and rewards. Attitudes are evaluative statement favorable or unfavorable related to person, object or event. They reflect that how one feel about something. For example if someone says that I like my job. This statement expresses his attitude towards his job. Each and every person has different attitude at different conditions. Other person may dont like the same job which someone likes. The traditional approach to most organizational attitude-change programs is to change beliefs and/or values in order to change attitudes and behaviour. Cognitive dissonance theory suggests an alternative approach. An attitude is a fairly stable evaluative tendency to respond consistently to some specific object, situation, person, or category of people. Attitudes are tendencies to respond to the target of the attitude. Thus, attitudes often influence our behaviour toward some object, situation, person, or group. Attitudes are a function of what we think and what we feel. That is, attitudes are the product of a related belief and value. Belief + Value = Attitude Behaviour. An attitude is a hypothetical construct that represents an individual's degree of like or dislike for an item. Attitudes are generally positive or negative views of a person, place, thing, or event this is often referred to as the attitude object. Attitudes are judgments.

There are three components of attitude.

1. Cognitive component: It refers that's part of attitude which is related in general know how of a person, for example, he says smoking is injurious to health. Such type of idea of a person is called cognitive component of attitude.

2. Effective component: This part of attitude is related to the statement which affects another person. For example, in an organization a personal report is given to the general manager. In report he point out that the sale staff is not performing their due responsibilities. The general manager forwards a written notice to the marketing manager to negotiate with the sale staff.

3. Behavioral Component: The behavioral component refers to that part of attitude which reflects the intension of a person in short run or in long run. For example, before the production

and launching process the product. Report is prepared by the production department which consists of their intention in near future and long run and this report is handed over to top management for the decision.

Attitude and behavior are two quite different things. Attitude is a person's inner thoughts and feelings, while behavior is usually an outward expression of attitude, but the two are not always related.

8.4.1 NATURE OF ATTITUDE Attitude is a cognition or mean of thoughts that is formed through experience and influences our behavior. 1. Attitudes refer to feelings and beliefs of an individual or group of people. 2. Attitudes endure, unless something happens. Example: if x is transferred to day shift , his attitude may become positive. 3. Attitude is organized and is core to an individual.

4. All people, irrespective of their status or intelligence, hold attitudes. 5. Attitude is invisible as they constitute a psychological phenomenon which cannot be observed directly.

8.4.2 COMMON WORK ATTITUDE ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT: Organizational commitment is an employees desire to remain a member of the organization. Organizational commitment influences whether an employee stays in the organization or leaves to pursue another job. These are three dimensions of organizational committeemen: Affective commitment a desire to remain a member of an organization due to an emotional attachment to, and involvement with, that organization. Continuance commitment - a desire to remain a member of an organization because of awareness of leaving costs Normative commitment - a desire to remain a member of an organization due to a feeling of obligation.

JOB SATISFACTION: Job satisfaction is how satisfied an individual is with his or her job. Job satisfaction is an emotional response to a job situation. As such it cannot be seen, it can only be inferred.

Job satisfaction is often determined by how well outcome meet or exceed expectations. For instance, if organization participants feel that they are working much harder than others in the department but are receiving fewer rewards they will probably have a negative attitudes towards the work, the boss and or coworkers. On the other hand, if they feel they are being treated very well and are being paid equitably, they are likely to have positive attitudes towards the job. Job satisfaction represents several related attitudes which are most important characteristics of a job about which people have effective response. These to Luthans are: the work itself, pay, promotion opportunities, supervision and coworkers.

Factors that influence job satisfaction: 1.Environmental factors:

Communication overload and communication under load: One of the most important aspects of an individuals work in a modern organization concerns the management of communication demands that he or she encounters on the job. Senior -subordinate communication: Senior-subordinate communication is an important influence on job satisfaction in the workplace. The way in which subordinates perceive a supervisor's behavior can positively or negatively influence job satisfaction.

2.Individual factors Emotion: Mood and emotions form the affective element of job satisfaction. Moods tend to be longer lasting but often weaker states of uncertain origin, while emotions are often more intense, short-lived and have a clear object or cause. Personality: Some research suggests an association between personality and job satisfaction. Specifically, this research describes the role of negative affectivity and positive affectivity. Negative affectivity is related strongly to the personality trait of neuroticism

JOB INVOLVEMENT: job involvement is the level at which an employee is occupied in his or her daily work. The level of job involvement or engagement can be determined by a person's needs, values, work ethic and the organizational setting .Employees with low job involvement can feel separated by feeling their job doesn't have a purpose, that they are not important in the organization, or they cannot see the connection between their work and who they believe themselves to be in life. Therefore, individuals who hold a negative attitude towards their work may also experience lower job satisfaction.

8.4.3. THE FUNCTION OF ATTITUDES Attitudes can serve functions for the individual. Daniel Katz (1960) outlines four functional areas: Knowledge. Attitudes provide meaning (knowledge) for life. The knowledge function refers to our need for a world which is consistent and relatively stable. This allows us to predict what is likely to happen, and so gives us a sense of control. Attitudes can help us organize and structure our experience. Knowing a persons attitude helps us predict their behavior. For example, knowing that a person is religious we can predict they will go to Church.

 Self / Ego-expressive. The attitudes we express (1) help communicate who we are and (2) may make us feel good because we have asserted our identity. Self-expression of attitudes can be non-verbal too: think bumper sticker, cap, or T-shirt slogan. Therefore, our attitudes are part of our identify, and help us to be aware through expression of our feelings, beliefs and values. Adaptive. If a person holds and/or expresses socially acceptable attitudes, other people will reward them with approval and social acceptance. For example, when people flatter their bosses or instructors (and believe it) or keep silent if they think an attitude is unpopular. Again, expression can be nonverbal [think politician kissing baby]. Attitudes then, are to do with being apart of a social group and the adaptive functions helps us fit in with a social group. People seek out others who share their attitudes, and develop similar attitudes to those they like. Ego-defense - People often forms and maintains certain attitudes to protect their own self-images. Example-workers may feel threatened by the employment or advancement of minority or female workers in the organization. These threatened workers may develop prejudices against the new workers. They may develop an attitude that such newcomers are less qualified and they might mistreat these workers. Such an ego defensive attitude is formed and used to cope with a feeling of guilt or threat.

8.5 SOURCES OF ATTIUDE:

Sources of Attitude are: 1.Direct experience with object attitudes can develop from a personality rewarding or punishing experience with an object. Employees from attitudes about jobs on their previous experiences.

2. Classical conditioning One of the basic processes underlying attitude formation can be explained on the basis of learning principles. Repetition of anything help to learn attitude. The same classical conditioning processes that made Pavlovs dogs salivate at the sound of a bell can explain how attitudes are acquired. 3. Operant conditioning Attitude can be learned due to outcome, consequences, results. If result is positive than a person carry further his current attitude but if it is negative than he change his attitude. 4. Vicarious learning- This refers to formation of attitude by observing behaviour of others and consequences of that behaviour. It is through vicarious learning processes that children pick up the prejudices of their parents. 5. Family and peer groups A person may learn attitude through imitation of parents. If parents have a positive attitude towards an object and the child admires his parents, he is likely to adopt a similar attitude, even without having direct experience. Similarly attitude is acquired from peer groups in colleges and organizations. 6. Neighborhood- the neighborhood we live in has a certain structure in terms of its having cultural facilities, religious grouping and possibly ethnic differences .further it has people who are neighbours. 7. Economic status and occupations- our economic and occupational position also contributes to attitudes formation. They determine, in part, our attitudes towards unions and management and our belief that certain laws are good or bad . Our socio economic background influences our present and future attitudes. 8. Mass communication All varieties of mass communications-television, radio, newspapers, and magazines feed their audience large quantities of information. The presentation of news or information is constructed so as to cater to the attitude of the audience. In turn, the audience selects the specific form of mass communication that best reflects its attitude on various subjects. The material we select helps us either to substantiate our opinions or to establish new ones.

8.6. ATTITUDE CHANGE Employee attitude need to be changed, particularly when they are unfavorable . It is in the best interest of the organization to change attitude. But changing attitude is a difficult task because of insufficient information about peoples attitude. Attitude need to be changed at two fronts : 1. Changing ones own attitude 2. Changing employees attitude 1. Changing Attitude of self The following hints can help the individual change his or her attitude: 1. Be aware of ones attitude People who are optimistic have higher levels of job satisfaction. The individual needs to maintain positive attitude consciously. 2. Think for self The individuals should develop his or her own attitude based on others input. 3. Keep an open mind The individuals should listen to other peoples input and use it to develop positive attitudes. 4. Get into continuous education programme. 5. Build a positive self esteem. Stay away from negative influence, such as smoking, drugs, alcohol, movies and television programs that build negative attitude

2. Changing Attitude of employees - The following hints can help a manager change attitudes of his or her employees : 1. Give feedback Employees to be told about their negative attitudes, if any, and their harmful consequences. The manager need to offer alternative attitudes. 2. Accentuate positive conditions Employees tend to develop positive attitudes towards the work they do well. Manager should make sure that the working conditions are pleasant and also that the employees have all the resources and training to do a good job. 3. Positive role model If the manager has a positive attitude, employees may also have similar attitudes. 4. Providing new information New information will help change attitudes. Negative attitudes are mainly formed owing to lack of or insufficient information. Once they came to know how the management cares for the welfare of the workers, they change their attitude and might turn promanagement.

8.7 SUMMARY: We learn our attitudes from direct experience with attitude objects as well as from other people. Early in life parents are the source of our attitudes. As we grow up, the sources multiply. Personality has four theories: Traits Theory, psychoanalytic theory, humanistic theory and social Learning Theory. Attitude is very important element of personality. An attitude is a fairly stable evaluative tendency to respond consistently to some specific object, situation, person, or category of people. Attitudes are tendencies to respond to the target of the attitude. That is, attitudes are the product of a related belief and value. Belief + Value = Attitude a Behaviour.

8.8 SELF ASSESSMENT TEST: 1) 2) 3) 4) Explain Personality and attitude in 200 words. Discuss the theories of Personality. What are the elements contribute in personality of a person? What you understand by attitude change?

8.9 REFERENCES: Essentials of Management by Harold Koontz & Heinz Weihrich, Tata McGraw Hill Management Principles and Practices by Raghubir Dayal, Peter Zachariah, Kireet Rajpal, Mittal Publications Management by Stoner, Freeman, Gilbert Jr. , Prentice-Hall International