Personality

Dhananjay Bansod
What Is Personality?
Personality
– The sum total of ways in which an
individual reacts and interacts with
others, measurable traits a person
exhibits

Personality Traits
– Enduring characteristics that describe
an individual’s behaviour

The Role of Heredity and the Brain

– External appearance: due to genetics Personality Determinants
– Internal characteristics: nature vs. • Heredity
nurture • Environment
– Twin Studies show that 40% are fixed… • Situation
60% developable
Immaturity – Maturity Continuum

Immaturity Characteristics Maturity Characteristics

Passivity Activity

Dependence Independence

Few ways of behaving Diverse behavior

Shallow interests Deep interests

Short time perspective Long time perspective

Subordinate position Super-ordinate position

Lack of self awareness Self awareness and control

Dhananjay Bansod
Adult Life Stages

Daniel Levinson’s work on adult life stages:

– Entering the adult world: 22 – 28 years
– Settling down: 33 – 40 years
– Entering middle adulthood: 45 – 50 years
– Culmination of middle adulthood: 55 – 60 years

Transitional Periods
– Age 30 transition: 28 – 30 years
– Mid life transition: 40 – 45 years
– Age 50 transition: 50 – 55 years
– Late adult transition: 60 – 65 years

Dhananjay Bansod
Career Stage Model

Douglas T Hall’s synthesis

th
w
ro
G
Maintenance ?
t
en
s hm
li
t ab
Es
Stagnation ? Decline
a il
Tr
Exploration

25 45 65

Dhananjay Bansod
Major Personality Attributes Influencing OB

• Core Self-Evaluation (Self-Esteem, Locus of Control)

• Machiavellianism
• Narcissism
• Self-Monitoring
• Risk Taking
• Type A vs. Type B Personality
• Proactive Personality
Core Self-Evaluation: Two Main Components

• Self-Esteem
– Individuals’ degree of liking or disliking themselves, degree of
thinking they are worthy or unworthy as a person

• Locus of Control
– The degree to which people believe they are masters of their
own fate
• Internals (Internal locus of control)
Individuals who believe that they control what happens to them
• Externals (External locus of control)
Individuals who believe that what happens to them is controlled by
outside forces such as luck or chance
Machiavellianism

Degree to which an individual is pragmatic, maintains

emotional distance, and believes that ends can justify
means

Conditions
ConditionsFavouring
Favouring‘High
‘HighMachs’
Machs’
Face-to-face
Face-to-faceinteraction
interactionwith
withothers
others
Minimal
Minimalrules
rulesand
andregulations
regulations
Whenever
Wheneverlower
lowerMachs
Machsare
aredistracted
distracted
Narcissism

• A Narcissistic Person
– Has grandiose sense of self-importance
– Requires excessive admiration
– Has a sense of entitlement
– Is arrogant
– Tends to be rated as less effective
Self-Monitoring

Self-Monitoring
A personality trait that measures an individual’s ability to adjust his
or her behavior to external, situational factors

High
HighSelf-Monitors
Self-Monitors
Receive
Receivebetter
betterperformance
performanceratings
ratings
Likely
Likelyto
toemerge
emergeas asleaders
leaders
Show
Showless
lesscommitment
commitmentto totheir
theirorganisations
organisations
Risk-Taking

High Risk-Taking Managers

• Make quicker decisions
• Use less information to make decisions
• Operate in smaller and more entrepreneurial organisations
Low Risk-Taking Managers
• Are slower to make decisions
• Require more information before making decisions
• Exist in larger organisations with stable environments
Risk Propensity
• Aligning managers’ risk-taking propensity to job requirements
should be beneficial to organisations
Personality Types: Type A and B
Type As
• Are always moving, walking,
and eating rapidly
• Feel impatient with the rate at
which most events take place
• Strive to think or do two or
more things at once
• Cannot cope with leisure time
• Are obsessed with numbers,
measuring their success in
terms of how many or how
much of everything they
acquire
Type Bs
• Do not suffer from a sense of
time urgency with its
accompanying impatience
• Feel no need to display or
discuss either their
achievements or
accomplishments
• Play for fun and relaxation,
rather than to exhibit their
superiority at any cost
• Can relax without guilt
Proactive Personality

Proactive Personality
• Identifies opportunities, shows initiative, takes action, and
perseveres until meaningful change occurs
• Creates positive change in the environment, regardless or even in
spite of constraints or obstacles
Development of Personality and Socialization

• Human being consists of physiological and psychological

interacting parts.
– Heredity, environment, maturation and learning all contribute to
the human personality

Dhananjay Bansod
Socialization Process

• Relevant persons, groups and organizations greatly

influence an individual’s personality.
– The continuous impact from the social environment is commonly
called the socialization effect
• Following are accepted characteristics of organizational
socialization process of employees
– Changes in attitudes, values and behaviors
– Continuity of socialization over time
– Adjustment to new jobs, work groups and organizational
practices
– Mutual influence between new recruits and their managers
– Criticality of early socialization period

Dhananjay Bansod
Excellent Socialization Practices are

• Provide a challenging first job

• Provide relevant training
• Provide timely and consistent feedback
• Select a good first supervisor to be in charge of
socialization
• Design a relaxed orientation program
• Place new recruits in work groups with high morale

Dhananjay Bansod
Who Is Most Likely to . . .

Low-self High-self
monitors monitors
Get promoted
Accomplish tasks, meet other’s expectations,
seek out central positions in social networks 
Change employers
Self-promote 
Make a job-related geographic
move 
Demonstrate higher levels of managerial self-
awareness; base behavior on other’s cues and
the situation

Dhananjay Bansod
How is Personality Measured?

• Projective Test
– elicits an individual’s response to abstract stimuli
• Behavioral Measures
– personality assessments that involve observing an individual’s
behavior in a controlled situation
• Self-Report Questionnaire
– assessment involving an individual’s responses to questions
• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
– instrument measuring Jung’s theory of individual differences.

Dhananjay Bansod
Personality Traits: The Big Five

• Extraversion
– Sociable, talkative and assertive
• Agreeableness
– Good natured, cooperative and trusting
• Conscientiousness
– Responsible, dependable, persistent, and achievement oriented
• Emotional Stability
– Not tense, insecure and nervous
• Openness to experience
– Imaginative, artistically sensitive, and intellectual

Dhananjay Bansod
Freud’s view of Human Mind

Dhananjay Bansod
Freud’s topographical model

According to Freud, there are three levels of consciousness:

• conscious (small): this is the part of the mind that holds what you’re
aware of. You can verablize about your conscious experience and
you can think about it in a logical fashion.
• preconscious (small-medium): this is ordinary memory. So although
things stored here aren’t in the conscious, they can be readily
brought into conscious.
• unconscious (enormous): Freud felt that this part of the mind was
not directly accessible to awareness. In part, he saw it as a dump
box for urges, feelings and ideas that are tied to anxiety, conflict
and pain. These feelings and thoughts have not disappeared and
according to Freud, they are there, exerting influence on our actions
and our conscious awareness. This is where most of the work of
the Id, Ego, and Superego take place.

Dhananjay Bansod
Carl G. Jung’s Theory

• Differences in behavior result from people’s inborn

tendencies to use their minds in different ways.
• As people act on these tendencies, they develop
patterns of behavior

• When people are active, they are involved in one of two

mental activities
– Taking in information: Perceiving
– Organizing that information and coming to conclusions: Judging

Dhananjay Bansod
The Basic Mental Processes

Perceiving Judging

Sensing Intuition Thinking Feeling

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Orientation of Energy

Extraversion Introversion

Directed outward Directed inward

Acting in the outer world Reflected in the inner world

Dhananjay Bansod
Jung’s Eight Mental Functions
Perceiving Judging

Extraverted Extraverted

Sensing Intuition Thinking Feeling

Introverted Introverted

Dhananjay Bansod
Where do you focus your attention ?

Introversion
Extraversion
• Drawn
Attunedtototheir
external
innerenvironment
world
• Prefer to communicate in bywriting
talking
• Work out ideas by reflecting
talking themon thru
them
• Learn best by thrureflection,
doing or discussing
mental “practice”
• Focus
Have broad
in depth
interests
on their interests
• Private
Sociableand
andcontained
expressive
• Take
Readily
initiative
takes when
initiative
theinsituation
work and or relationships
issue is very important to them

Dhananjay Bansod
How do you prefer to take in information ?

Intuition
Sensing
• Oriented to future
present possibilities
realities
• Imaginative
Factual and and
concrete
verbally creative
• Focus on patterns
what is real
andandmeanings
actual in data
• Remember
Observe and specifics
rememberwhenspecifics
they relate to a pattern
• Move
Build carefully
quickly toand
conclusions,
thoroughlyfollow
towardhunches
conclusions
• Want
Understand
to clarify
ideas
ideas
andand
theories
theories
through
beforepractical
putting them
applications
into practice
• Trust inspiration
experience

Dhananjay Bansod
How do you make decisions ?

Feeling
Thinking
• Empathetic
Analytical
• Guided
Use causeby personal
& effect reasoning
values
• Assess
Solve problems
impacts with
of decisions
logic on people
• Strive for harmony
an objective
andstandard
positive of
interactions
truth
• Compassionate
Reasonable
• May
Can beappear
“tough
“tenderhearted”
minded”
• Fair – want everyone treated as equally
an individual

Dhananjay Bansod
How do you deal with the outer world ?

Perceiving
Judging
• Spontaneous
Scheduled
• Flexible
Organize their lives
• Casual
Systematic
• Open-ended
Methodical
• Adapt,
Make short
change
& long
course
term plans
• Like things
to haveloose
things
open
decided
to change
• Feel
Try toenergized
avoid lastby
minute
last minute
stresses
pressures

Dhananjay Bansod
How can type be used

• in counseling - to help people cope better

• in team building - to put together productive teams; to
encourage more effective team work
• in education - different learning styles for different types!!
• in relationships - colleagues, friends and family
• in careers - “best fit” for job satisfaction
• in everything - get to know people BETTER!!

Dhananjay Bansod
Type and career choice

• Work as part of a group or team (E)

• Work alone or one-to-one (I)
• Work with concrete factual data (S)
• Develop new ideas and approaches (N)
• Use logical, objective analysis (T)
• Use subjective, person centred values (F)
• Work within a clear structure (J)
• Changing, unpredictable work setting (P)

Dhananjay Bansod
What type isn’t

• It is not a way to pigeon hole

• It is not a stereotype
• It is not a way to be “superior”
• It is not to be used in recruitment
• It is not an excuse to reject someone
• It is not just 4 letters
• YOU are not just 4 letters

Dhananjay Bansod