Chapter 2

Personality:
Meaning and
Determinants of Personality
Comprehend the meaning and determinants of personality
Foundations of Individual behaviour
 Personality

The sum total of ways in which an individual reacts to and interacts with
others.

Most often described in terms of measurable traits that a person exhibits,

such as shy, aggressive, submissive, lazy, ambitious, loyal and timid
Personality determinants
 Heredity:
● Heredity:
● Heredity refers to those factors that were determined
at birth.
● Physical stature, facial attractiveness,gender
temperament, muscle composition and reflexes,
energy level, and biological rhythms 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.
 Cultural Factors
● The culture largely determines attributes toward independence,
aggression, competition, and cooperation.
● Each culture expects, and trains, its members to behave in the ways
that are acceptable to the group.
● To a marked degree, the child's cultural group defines the range of
experiences and situations he is likely to encounter and the values
and personality characteristics that will be reinforced and hence
learned".
● Culture requires both conformity and acceptance from its members.
There are several ways of ensuring that members comply with the
dictates of the culture.
● The personality of an individual to a marked extent is determined by
the culture in which he or she is brought up. It follows that a person
reared in a western culture has a different personality from a person
reared in our Indian culture.
 ●Family Factors
● 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.
● 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.
● From all three perspectives, the identification process is fundamental
to the understanding of personality development.
● The home environment also influences the personality of an
individual. Siblings (brothers and sisters) also contribute to
personality.
 ● Social Factors
● There is increasing recognition given to the role of other
relevant persons, groups and especially organizations, which
greatly influence an individual's personality. This is commonly
called the socialization process.
● Socialization involves the process by which a person acquires,
from the enormously wide range of behavioural potentialities
that are open to him or her.
● Socialization process is especially relevant to organizational
behaviour because the process is not confined to early
childhood, taking place rather throughout one's life.
● In particular, evidence is accumulating that socialization may be
one of the best explanations for why employees be have the
way they do in today's organizations.
 ● Situational Factors

Human personality is also influenced by situational factors. The

effect of environment is quite strong.
● Knowledge, skill and language are obviously acquired and
represent important modifications of behaviour. An individual's
personality, while generally stable and consistent, does change
in different situations.
● The different demands of different situations call forth different
aspects of one's personality
● Situation exerts an important press on the individual. It
exercises constraints and may provide 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".
● We should therefore not look at personality patterns in isolation.
 Personality Traits
● An individual’s behavior towards others,
attitude, characteristics, mindset make his
personality.
● Personality traits reflect people’s characteristic
patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
Personality traits imply consistency and
stability.
● Trait psychology rests on the idea that people
differ from one another in terms of where they
stand on a set of basic trait dimensions that
persist over time and across situations
Five Factor Model
 Five Factor Model
● Openness - Openness to experience describes
a person's degree of intellectual curiosity,
creativity, and preference for novelty and
variety. Some disagreement remains about how
to interpret this factor, which is sometimes
called intellect
 Five Factor Model
● Conscientiousness - Conscientiousness is a
tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully,
and aim for achievement. Conscientiousness
also refers to planning, organization, and
dependability.
 Five Factor Model
● Extraversion - Extraversion describes energy,
positive emotions, assertiveness, sociability,
talkativeness, and the tendency to seek
stimulation in the company of others.
 Five Factor Model
● Agreeableness - Agreeableness is the tendency
to be compassionate and cooperative towards
others rather than suspicious and antagonistic.
 Five Factor Model
● Neuroticism/ Emotional stability - Neuroticism
describes vulnerability to unpleasant emotions
like anger, anxiety, depression, or vulnerability.
Neuroticism also refers to an individual's level
of emotional stability and impulse control and is
sometimes referred to as emotional stability.
● + indicates that higher scores on the trait appear to
promote the listed compentency.
● ++indicates that higher scores on the trait appear to
have a very significant effect the listed compentency.
● - indicated that low levels of a trait appear to promote
the listed compentency.
● Parenthesis refers to a relationship that is not very
significant on that compentency.
● Reference – OB by Hitt- Miller -Colella
Wiley ( Student Edition)
 Applicability to Organizational
Behavior
● When scored for individual feedback, these traits are frequently
presented as percentile scores.
● Employees are sometimes tested on the Big Five personality traits in
collaborative situations to determine what strong personality traits
they can add to the group dynamic.
● Personality tests can also be part of the behavioral interview process
when a company is hiring to determine an individual's ability to act on
certain personality characteristics.
● Understanding its people is as important to a company as
understanding its operations and processes.
● Understanding what personality components drive the behavior of
subordinates is a highly useful informational data point for
management that can be used to determine what type of assignments
should be set, how motivation should be pursued, what team
dynamics may arise, and how to best approach conflict and/or praise
when applicable.
Theories of personality
 Measuring personality Traits
Myers- Briggs Type Indicator
● The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) Step I is
based on Carl Jung’s theory of psychological type. It
indicates your personality preferences in four
dimensions:
● Where you focus your attention – Extraversion (E) or
Introversion (I)
● The way you take in information – Sensing (S) or
INtuition (N)
● How you make decisions – Thinking (T) or Feeling (F)
● How you deal with the world – Judging (J) or
Perceiving (P)
Personality attributes affecting OB
 1 Locus of control
● A person with an internal locus of control
believes that he or she can influence events
and their outcomes, while someone with an
external locus of control blames outside forces
for everything.
 2
Machiavellianism
: also known as Mach is named
This personality trait of Machiavellianism
after Niccolo Machiavelli, who wrote in the 16th century on how to gain
and use power.

The characteristics of high MACH employers are as follows:

(i) A Mach man is pragmatic, maintains emotional distance and believes
that ends can justify means.
(ii) A high Mach man manipulates more, wins more, are persuaded less
and persuade others more than the low machs.
(iii) High Mach people flourish when they interact face to face with others
rather than indirectly.
(iv) These people are successful when the situation has a minimum
number of rules and regulations.
 Machiavellianism

● (v) High Mach man has high self confidence and high
self esteem. They are cool and calculating and have
no hesitation using others or taking advantage of
others in order to serve their own goals.
● (vi) They are not easily swayed by a sense of
friendship, trust or loyalty. They are specially
successful in exploiting structured situations and
vulnerable people.
● We cannot conclude that whether high machs make
good employees or not. The answer will depend upon
the type of the job and whether moral and ethical
values are considered in evaluating the performance
of a person.
 3 Self esteem
● Self Esteem refers to the feeling of like or
dislike for oneself.” “Self Esteem is the degree
of respect a person has for himself.”
● This trait varies from person to person as
people differ in the degree to which they like or
dislike each other.
● (i) Self esteem is directly related to the expectations for success. High
self esteem people believe that they possess the ability they need to
succeed at work.
● (ii) Individuals with high self esteem will take more risks in job
selection. They are more likely to choose unconventional jobs than
people with low self esteem.
●

● (iii) People with low self esteem are more susceptible to external
influence than are those with high self esteems. Low esteems are
dependent on the receipt of positive evaluations from others. As a
result they are more likely to seek approval from others and more
prone to conform to the beliefs and behaviours of those they respect
than are the high esteem.
● (iv) In managerial positions, the low esteems tend to be concerned
with pleasing others and, therefore, less likely to take unpopular
stands than are high esteems.
● (v) High esteems are more satisfied with their job than the low
esteems.
● (vi) High self esteem people are very friendly, affectionate, find it easy
to form interpersonal attachments and find good in other people. Low
self esteem people are usually critical of others, are generally
depressed and blame others for their own failures.
● (vii) High esteem people are high performers while low esteem
people contribute to poor performance which in turn reinforces low
self esteem.
 4 Self Monitoring
● Self monitoring is a personality trait that measures an individual’s
ability to adjust his or her behaviour to external situational factors”.
Self monitoring is a personality trait which has recently received
attention. The research on self monitoring is in infancy, so predictions
must be guarded.
● However, prime evidence suggests the following points:
● (i) As self monitoring refers to the individual’s ability to adjust his or
her behaviour to external factors, individuals with high self monitoring
can show considerable adaptability in adjusting their behaviour to
external, situational factors.
● (ii) High self monitors can behave differently in different situations.
They are capable of presenting striking contradictions between their
public, personal and private selves. Low self monitors cannot deviate
their behaviour. They tend to display their true dispositions and
attitudes in every situation; hence, there is high behavioural
consistency between who they are and what they do.
● (iii) The high self monitors tend to pay closer attention to the
behaviour of others and are more capable of conforming than are low
self monitors.
● (iv) We can also hypothesize that high self monitors will be more
successful in managerial positions where individuals are required to
play multiple and even contradictory roles. The high self monitor is
capable of putting different faces for different audiences.
 5 Risk Taking
● The propensity of people to assume risks or avoid risks varies
from person to person depending upon the willingness of the
people to take chances.
● This human trait will affect the decision making capability of a
manager.
● This individual personality trait will determine how long will it
take a person to take a decision or how much information will
be needed before he takes a decision.
● Some people are very conscious in nature, while the others are
impulsive.
● An impulsive person is a high risk taking manager; he will make
rapid decisions and use less information in making their choices
than a very conscious and low risk taking manager.
● But the research shows that the decision accuracy is generally
the same in both the groups.
● Research has concluded that managers in
organisations are risk aversive, but still there are
individual differences on this point.
● Some jobs specifically demand high risk taking
persons e.g. the job of a broker in a brokerage firm.
● Because in this job for effective performance rapid
decisions are required.
● On the other hand, some jobs are such where risk
taking may prove a major obstacle e.g. the job of an
accountant who performs auditing activities.
● This job should be filled by, someone, with low risk
taking trait.
 6 Type A and 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,
good team players, more irritable and have poor
judgment.
● Type ‘B’ people do better on complex tasks involving
judgment and accuracy rather than speed and hard
work.
● Despite Type ‘A’s hard work, the Type ‘B’
people are the ones who appear to make it to
the top.
● Great sales persons are usually Type A’s while
senior executives are generally Type B’s.
● The reason is that promotions in corporate and
professional organisations usually go to those
“who are wise rather than to those who are
merely hasty, to those who are tactful, rather
than to those who are hostile and to those who
are creative rather than to those who are
merely agile in competitive stride.”
 Personality job fit
● Personality-job fit theory revolves around the idea that
every organization and individual has specific personality
traits.
● The closer the traits between the person and the company
match, the higher the chance of workplace productivity and
satisfaction
● The best personality fit will also decrease job turnover and
stress, absenteeism, and poor job satisfaction.
● Personality-job fit theory or person-environment (P-E) fit is
a match between a worker's abilities, needs, and values
and organizational demands, rewards, and values.
 Hollands Typology of personality
and congruent occupations
● Choosing work or an education program that matches, or
is similar to your personality, will most likely lead to
success and satisfaction. This good match is called
"congruent" (meaning compatible, in agreement or
harmony).
● So for example, imagine you score highest for the Realistic
type on the Career Key Discovery assessment.
● On the table below, you see that your most compatible
work environment is Realistic, a congruent match.
● It's best if you choose a Realistic job, or you might also
choose Investigative or Conventional jobs.
 Johari Window
● The Johari Window model is a simple and
useful tool for illustrating and improving self-
awareness, and mutual understanding between
individuals within a group.
● The Johari Window model can also be used to
assess and improve a group's relationship with
other groups.
● The Johari Window model was devised by
American psychologists Joseph Luft and Harry
Ingham in 1955, while researching group
dynamics at the University of California Los
Angeles
Johari Window
 Johari window four regions

● what is known by the person about him/herself

and is also known by others - open area, open
self, free area, free self, or 'the arena'
● what is unknown by the person about him/herself
but which others know - blind area, blind self, or
'blindspot'
● what the person knows about him/herself that
others do not know - hidden area, hidden self,
avoided area, avoided self or 'facade'
● what is unknown by the person about him/herself
and is also unknown by others - unknown area or
unknown self
 Application
● johari quadrant 1 - 'open self/area' or 'free area' or 'public area', or
'arena'
● Established team members logically tend to have larger open areas than
new team members.
● New team members start with relatively small open areas because relatively
little knowledge about the new team member is shared.
● Managers and team leaders can play an important role in facilitating
feedback and disclosure among group members, and in directly giving
feedback to individuals about their own blind areas.
● Leaders also have a big responsibility to promote a culture and expectation
for open, honest, positive, helpful, constructive, sensitive communications,
and the sharing of knowledge throughout their organization.
● Top performing groups, departments, companies and organizations always
tend to have a culture of open positive communication, so encouraging the
positive development of the 'open area' or 'open self' for everyone is a
simple yet fundamental aspect of effective leadership.
 johari quadrant 2 - 'blind self' or
'blind area' or 'blindspot'
● Group members and managers can take some
responsibility for helping an individual to reduce their blind
area - in turn increasing the open area - by giving sensitive
feedback and encouraging disclosure. Managers should
promote a climate of non-judgemental feedback, and
group response to individual disclosure, which reduces
fear and therefore encourages both processes to happen.
The extent to which an individual seeks feedback, and the
issues on which feedback is sought, must always be at the
individual's own discretion. Some people are more resilient
than others - care needs to be taken to avoid causing
emotional upset. The process of soliciting serious and
deep feedback relates to the process of 'self-actualization'
described in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs development
and motivation model.
 johari quadrant 3 - 'hidden self' or
'hidden area' or 'avoided self/area'
●
or 'facade'
rganizational culture and working atmosphere have a major influence
on group members' preparedness to disclose their hidden selves.
Most people fear judgement or vulnerability and therefore hold back
hidden information and feelings, etc, that if moved into the open area,
ie known by the group as well, would enhance mutual understanding,
and thereby improve group awareness, enabling better individual
performance and group effectiveness.
● The extent to which an individual discloses personal feelings and
information, and the issues which are disclosed, and to whom, must
always be at the individual's own discretion. Some people are more
keen and able than others to disclose. People should disclose at a
pace and depth that they find personally comfortable. As with
feedback, some people are more resilient than others - care needs to
be taken to avoid causing emotional upset.
johari quadrant 4 - 'unknown self' or
'area of unknown activity' or
'unknown area'
● Managers and leaders can help by creating an
environment that encourages self-discovery,
and to promote the processes of self discovery,
constructive observation and feedback among
team members. It is a widely accepted
industrial fact that the majority of staff in any
organization are at any time working well within
their potential. Creating a culture, climate and
expectation for self-discovery helps people to
fulfil more of their potential and thereby to
achieve more, and to contribute more to
organizational performance.