Personality

Learning Objectives
• Meaning of Personality
• Personality Determinants
• Personality Traits
– The Big Five Model
– Emotional Labour
• Ideographic and Nomothetic Approach
Personality
• Defining Personality
– Personality is a dynamic concept describing the
growth and development of a person’s whole
psychological system.

– The sum of ways in which an individual reacts to and

interacts with others.
Personality
• Measuring Personality

– Managers need to know how to measure personality.

 Personality tests are useful in hiring decisions and
help managers forecast who is best for a job.

– The most common means of measuring personality is

through self-report surveys.
Personality and its Determinants
– Is personality the result of heredity or environment?
– Heredity refers to those factors that were determined at
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.
– Early research tried to identify and label enduring
personality characteristics - shy, aggressive, submissive,
lazy, ambitious, loyal, and timid.
 These are personality traits.
MBTI Framework
• The most widely used personality framework is the Myers-
Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).

• Individuals are classified as:

– Extroverted or Introverted (E or I)
– Sensing or Intuitive (S or N)
– Thinking or Feeling (T or F)
– Perceiving or Judging (P or J)
Big Five Model

• The Big Five Model

– Extraversion
– Agreeableness
– Conscientiousness
– Emotional stability
– Openness to experience

OCEAN
Model of How Big Five Traits
Influence OB Criteria

Copyright © 2019, 2017, 2015, 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
The Dark Triad
• The Dark Triad
– Machiavellianism: the degree to which an individual is
pragmatic, maintains emotional distance, and believes
that ends can justify means.
– Narcissism: the tendency to be arrogant, have a
grandiose sense of self-importance, require excessive
admiration, and have a sense of entitlement.
– Psychopathy: the tendency for a lack of concern for
others and a lack of guilt or remorse when their actions
cause harm.
CSE, Self-Monitoring, and Proactive
Personality
• Other Personality Traits Relevant to OB
– Core Self-Evaluation: bottom line conclusions
individuals have about their capabilities, competence,
and worth as a person.

– Self-Monitoring: measures an individual’s ability to

adjust his or her behavior to external, situational factors.

– Proactive Personality: people who identify

opportunities, show initiative, take action, and persevere
until meaningful change occurs.
The Situation, Job Search, and
Unemployment
• What personality characteristics predict job search
behaviors among the unemployed?

– Conscientiousness and extraversion are the two

strongest predictors of job search behavior,
 Self-esteem and self-efficacy (parts of CSE) are
also important.
The Situation, Personality, and Behavior
• Situation strength theory: indicates that the way
personality translates into behavior depends on the strength
of the situation.
– The degree to which norms, cues, or standards dictate
appropriate behavior.
 Clarity
 Consistency
 Constraints
 Consequences
Person-Job Fit vs. Person-Organization Fit
Holland’s Typology of Personality and Congruent Occupations

Type Personality Characteristics Congruent Occupations

Realistic: Prefers physical activities that Shy, genuine, persistent, stable, Mechanic, drill press operator,
require skill, strength, and coordination conforming, practical assembly-line worker, farmer

Investigative: Prefers activities that Analytical, original, curious, independent Biologist, economist,
involve thinking, organizing, and mathematician, news reporter
understanding

Social: Prefers activities that involve Sociable, friendly, cooperative, Social worker, teacher, counselor,
helping and developing others understanding clinical psychologist

Conventional: Prefers rule-regulated, Conforming, efficient, practical, Accountant, corporate manager,

orderly, and unambiguous activities unimaginative, inflexible bank teller, file clerk

Enterprising: Prefers verbal activities in Self-confident, ambitious, energetic, Lawyer, real estate agent, public
which there are opportunities to domineering relations specialist, small business
influence others and attain power manager

Artistic: Prefers ambiguous and Imaginative, disorderly, idealistic, Painter, musician, writer, interior
unsystematic activities that allow emotional, impractical decorator
creative expression

Copyright © 2019, 2017, 2015, 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Person-Job Fit vs. Person-Organization Fit
• Person-Organization Fit
– People high on extraversion fit well with aggressive and
team-oriented cultures.

– People high on agreeableness match up better with a

supportive organizational climate than one focused on
aggressiveness.

– People high on openness to experience fit better in

organizations that emphasize innovation rather than
standardization.
Person-Job Fit vs. Person-Organization Fit
• Other Dimensions of Fit
– Although person-job fit and person-organization fit are
considered the most salient dimensions for workplace
outcomes, other avenues of fit are worth examining.
 Person-group fit
 Person-supervisor fit
Impact Emotional Labour on Employees
• Emotional Labour: an employee’s expression of
organizationally desired emotions during interpersonal
transactions at work.
• Types of Emotions
– Felt: the individual’s actual emotions.
– Displayed: required or appropriate emotions.
 Surface acting: hiding feelings and foregoing
emotional expressions in response to display rules.
 Deep acting: trying to modify true inner feelings
based on display rules.
Implications for Managers
• Consider screening job candidates for high
conscientiousness—and the other Big Five traits—
depending on the criteria your organization finds most
important. Other aspects, such as core self-evaluation or
narcissism, may be relevant in certain situations.
• Although the MBTI has faults, you can use it for training
and development; to help employees better understand
each other, open communication in work groups, and
possibly reduce conflicts.
Implications for Managers
• Evaluate jobs, work groups, and your organization to
determine the optimal personality fit.
• Consider situational factors when evaluating observable
personality traits, and lower the situation strength to better
ascertain personality characteristics more closely.
• The more you consider people’s different cultures, the
better you will be able to determine their work behavior
and create a positive organizational climate that performs
well.
IDIOGRAPHIC VS.
NOMOTHETIC
Idiographic (private or own)
• Psychologists who take an idiographic approach focus on the
individual and emphasise the unique personal experience of human
nature.
What do you think are the methods of investigation used?
• Case studies
• Unstructured interviews
• Thematic analysis
• These methods provide an in-depth insight into individual behaviour.
• The idiographic approach does not seek to formulate laws or
generalise results to others.
Evaluation: Idiographic
Many psychologists criticize the idiographic approach for
its essentially unscientific nature.
The emphasis is on in-depth data collection and is unable
to produce general laws or predictions about human
behaviour.
Nomothetic ‘law’
Psychologists who take a nomothetic approach
are concerned with establishing general laws,
based on the study of large groups of people, and
the use of statistical (quantitative) techniques to
analyse data.
What do you think are the methods of
investigation used?
Experiments, correlations, psychometric testing
and other quantitative methods are favoured
among nomothetic researchers.
Nomothetic: Evaluation
Unlike the idiographic approach, it is considered as
generally scientific.
The nomothetic approach uses experimental (quantitative)
methods, controlled measurement and has the ability to
predict behaviour.
Furthermore, controlled methods allow for replication to
examine the reliability of findings which has helped
psychology establish itself as a scientific discipline.
The development of theories and empirical testing are just
one of the key features of science that are employed by
the nomothetic approach.