Unit II

Personality
 Content of Personality
 Concept, Determinants of personality, Types
of personality, Influence of personality on OB
Personality
 Concept of Personality
• Personality is the sum total of ways in which an individual reacts
and interacts with others.
• Personality involves both physical and mental characteristics
that reflects how person looks, feels, decides, acts, and interacts.
• It involves both internal and external traits. Internal traits
involve a person’s values, attitude, learning, thoughts and other
genetic characteristics. External traits relate to one’s height,
weight, facial outlook, colour, cheerful, comfortable character
and other physical aspects.
• According to Robert E. Park and Earnest W. Burgess,
personality is “the sum and organisation of those traits which
determine the role of the individual in the group.
 Determinants of Personality
A. The Nature (inborn Factors)
1. Biological Factors
a. Heredity
b. Brain
c. Physical Features
B. Nurture (Environmental Factors)
2. Cultural Factors
3. Family and Social Factors
a. Identification Process
b. Socialization Process
4. Situational Factors
 Heredity
• Heredity refers to those factors that were determined at
conception. Physical stature, facial attractiveness, sex,
temperament, muscle composition, energy level, and
biological rhythm are characteristics that are considered
to be inherent from one’s parents.
• The heredity approach argues that the ultimate
explanation of an individual’s personality is the molecular
structure of the genes, located in the chromosomes.
Brain
 Physical Features
A vital ingredient of the personality, an individual’s external
appearance, is biologically determined. The fact that a person is
tall or short, fat or skinny, black or white will influence the
person’s effect on others and this in turn, will affect the self-
concept.
 Cultural Factors
• Among the factors that influence personality formation is
the culture in which we are raised, early conditioning,
norms prevailing within the family, friends and social
groups and other miscellaneous experiences that impact us.
• The culture largely determines attitudes
towards independence, aggression, competition,
cooperation and a host of other human responses.
• According to Paul H Mussen, “each culture expects, and
trains, its members to behave in ways that are acceptable to
the group. 
 Family Factors
• Whereas the culture generally prescribes and limits what
a person can be taught, it is the family, and later the social
group, which selects, interprets and dispenses the culture.
Thus, the family probably has the most significant impact
on early personality development.
• A substantial amount of empirical evidence indicates that
the overall home environment created by the parents,
in addition to their direct influence, is critical to
personality development.
• The parents play an especially important part in the
identification process, which is important to the person’s
early development.
 Social Factors
• Socialization involves the process by which a person acquires,
from the enormously wide range of behavioral
potentialities that are open to him or her, those that are
ultimately absorbed.
• Socialization starts with the initial contact between a mother and
her new infant. After infancy, other members of the immediate
family – father, brothers, sisters and close relatives or friends,
then the social group: peers, school friends and members of the
work group – play influential roles. socialization may be one
of the best explanations for why employees behave the way
they do in today’s organizations.
 Situational Factors
• An individual’s personality, while generally stable
and consistent, does change in different situations.
The varying demands of different situations call
forth different aspects of one’s personality.
• According to Milgram, “Situation exerts an
important pressure on the individual. It may
provide a push. In certain circumstances, it is not so
much the kind of person a man is, as the kind of
situation in which he is placed that determines his
actions”. 
 Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
Personality Framework
•Myers-Briggs Type Indicator consists of 100-questions
personality test to test how people usually feel or act in particular
situations. Respondents were classified as Extroverted or
Introverted (E or I), Sensing or Intuitive (S or N), Thinking or
Feeling (T or F), and Judging or Perceiving (J or P).
•A personality test that taps four characteristics and classifies
people into 1 of 16 personality types.

Personality
PersonalityTypes
Types
• •Extroverted
Extrovertedvs.
vs.Introverted
Introverted(E (EororI)I)
• •Sensing
Sensingvs.
vs.Intuitive
Intuitive(S
(SororN)
N)
• •Thinking
Thinkingvs.
vs.Feeling
Feeling(T
(TororF)
F)
• •Judging
Judgingvs.
vs.Perceiving
Perceiving(P(PororJ)J)
 Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

• Sensing (S) - Intuition (N)

This scale involves looking at how people gather information from the
world around them. People who prefer sensing tend to pay a great deal of
attention to reality, particularly to what they can learn from their own
senses. They tend to focus on facts and details and enjoy getting hands-on
experience. Those who prefer intuition enjoy thinking about possibilities,
imagining the future, and abstract theories.
• Extraversion (E) - Introversion (I)
This scale involves as a way to describe how people respond and interact
with the world around them. Extraverts (also often spelled extroverts) are
"outward-turning" and tend to be action-oriented, enjoy more frequent
social interaction, and feel energized after spending time with other
people. Introverts are "inward-turning" and tend to be thought-oriented,
enjoy deep and meaningful social interactions  and are quiet and shy
 Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

• Thinking (T) - Feeling (F)

This scale focuses on how people make decisions based on
the information that they gathered from their sensing or
intuition functions. People who prefer thinking place a
greater emphasis on facts and objective data. They tend to be
consistent, logical, and impersonal when weighing a
decision. Those to prefer feeling are more likely to consider
people and emotions when arriving at a conclusion.
• Judging (J) - Perceiving (P)
The final scale involves how people tend to deal with the
outside world. Those who lean toward judging prefer
structure and firm decisions. People who lean toward
perceiving are more open, flexible, and adaptable. 
The Big Five Dimensions of Personality

Only 5 fundamental trait/dimensions are identified out of

1000s of traits.
These five fundamental dimensions of trait are most
relevant to organizational setting and cover all people
with certain specific definition.
•Extroversion
•Agreeableness
•Conscientiousness
•Emotional stability
•Openness to experience
Extroversion : This dimension deals with relationship.
i. Extrovert : tend to be talkative, sociable, self-
confident and prefer to work with interacting.
ii.Introvert : tend to be reserved, quiet and nervous,
sensitive to feelings, prefer to work independently.

Agreeableness : This dimension deals with propensity

to differ to others.
i. Agreeable : good natured, cooperative, trusting,
polite, caring, and empathic (understanding others
feeling).
Conscientiousness : deals with measure of reliability
(the quality of being trustworthy).
• Conscientious : responsible, dependable, determined
and organized, careful and self-disciplined.
• Non-conscientious : irresponsible, unreliable,
disorganized and distracted.
Emotional stability : deals with ability to withstand
stress i.e. to what extent people are stable or unstable.
•Emotionally stable : calm, self-confident, secure and
relaxed.
•Emotionally unstable : nervous, depressed, insecure,
nervous and aggressive.
Openness to experience : deals with interests and
fascination with innovation.
Open person : Imaginative, creative, curious and
sensitive, flexible, intelligent, positive to change.
Close person : conservative, less open to new ideas,
resist change.
 Influence of personality on OB
The major personality attributes that influence
organizational behavior are
• Locus of control
• Machiavellianism
• Narcissism
• Self efficacy
• Self-evaluation
• Risk taking
• Locus of Control: It is a psychological concept
that refers to how strongly people believe they
have control over the situation. The degree to
which individuals perceive that outcomes
result from their own behaviors.
 Other Personality Traits Relevant to
OB
• Core Self-Evaluation: People who have positive core self-evaluation
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.
• Machiavellianism: Machiavellianism means getting hold of other people
by clever means and getting your objective achieved by others by
manipulating them. These types of person never shows humility,
arrogance is always effective while dealing with others, morality and
ethics are for weak people and powerful people feel free to lie, cheat and
mislead.
According to this theory, a successful leader is one who has nothing to
do with morality, ethics, friendship, humility and loyalty. A person may
resort to unethical means in order to achieve goals and there is no need
to feel guilty about it.
 Other Personality Traits Relevant to
OB
• Narcissism: Narcissistic personality disorder involves a
pattern of self-centered, arrogant thinking and behavior, a lack
of empathy and consideration for other people, and an
excessive need for respect. People with narcissistic personality
disorder are extremely resistant to changing their behavior,
even when it’s causing them problems. Their tendency is to
turn the blame on to others. What’s more, they are extremely
sensitive and react badly to even the slightest criticisms,
disagreements, or perceived slights, which they view as
personal attacks.   Evidence suggests that narcissists are more
charismatic and thus more likely to emerge as leaders, and
they even display better psychological health.
 Other Personality Traits Relevant to
OB
• Self Monitoring: A personality trait that
measures an individuals ability to adjust his or
her behavior to external, situational factors.
• Proactive Personality: Identify opportunities,
show initiative, take action, and persevere until
meaningful change occurs. Proactive create
positive change in their environment, regardless
of, or even in spite of, constraints or obstacles.
 Other Personality Traits Relevant to
OB
• Risk Taking
1. High Risk-taking Managers
– Make quicker decisions
– Use less information to make decisions
– Operate in smaller and more entrepreneurial organizations
2. Low Risk-taking Managers
– Are slower to make decisions
– Require more information before making decisions
– Exist in larger organizations with stable environments