PERSONALITY

Introduction
Personality is a major psychological factor affecting behaviour of an individual. The word
‘personality’ is used very commonly in our daily lives to describe a person’s job prospects,
achievements, smartness, dressing sense, popularity, physical attraction, way of speaking etc.
But, this view of personality is very narrow and this narrow view is not enough to understand
and predict the behaviour of an individual in organisational context. In a broader sense,
personality can be viewed as a dynamic concept which describes the growth and
development of an individual’s whole psychological system. Rather than looking at parts of
the person, personality looks at some aggregate whole that is greater than the sum of the
parts. A thorough study of personality will help us in understanding the differences between
various individuals and examining why behaviour of individuals vary from each other in an
organisation.

Meaning and Definitions of Personality

The word ‘personality’ has been derived from the Latin word ‘persona’ which means to ‘speak
through’. This Latin word means the mask worn by the actors. Therefore, the personality
refers to role which an individual displays to the public. Personality does not only mean the
charm, beauty, smiling face and attitude of a person towards life. But, it is a dynamic concept
which describes the growth and development of a person’s whole psychological system. The
concept of personality traditionally refers to how people-influence others through their
external appearances and actions. But for the psychologists personality includes: I. Eternal
appearances and behaviour ii. The inner awareness of self as a permanent organizing force,
and iii. The particular organization of measureable traits, both inner and outer. Personality is
an individual difference that lends consistency to a person's behaviour; Personality is a
relatively stable set of characteristics that influence an individual's behaviour and can be
described as the sum total of ways in which an individual reacts and interacts with others. The
concept of personality can be better understood through the following mentioned
definitions:
According to Gordon Allport, “Personality is the dynamic organisation within the individual
of those psychological systems that determine his unique adjustment to his environment.”

According to Fred Luthans, “Personality means how a person affects others and how he
understands and views himself as well as pattern of inner and outer measurable traits and
the person-situation interaction.”

Different psychologists interpreted personality in different ways. The above mentioned

definitions of personality clearly explain that meaning of personality is much more than just
the role which an individual displays to the public. Combining all these definitions together it
can be said that personality represents the sum total of several attributes which are
noticeable in an individual and which determine his pattern of behaviour.

Determinants of Personality

After understanding the meaning of personality, the next question is what makes the
personality of an individual or how the personality of an individual is developed. Major
determinants of personality are discussed are as below:

a) Heredity: Heredity is referred to those attributes of personality which are determined at

the time of conception of an individual. The characteristics such as body type, build, facial
attractiveness, eye colour, hair colour, height, temperament, sex, energy level and reflexes
are generally inherited from the parents either completely or partially. This approach argues
that the basis of human personality lies in the molecular structure of the genes.

b) Environment: No doubt that heredity is an important determinant of the personality, but,

if all traits of personality were determined by heredity, they would be fixed at the time of the
birth and would never change in the life span of an individual. Sadly, it is not true. This means
that personality of an individual is determined as much by the environment as it does by the
heredity. Environment of a person which affects his personality is comprised of culture,
family, society and situation. Influence of all these factors on personality of an individual can
be explained as below:

Culture: Culture defines the norms, values, attitudes and beliefs which are passed from one
generation to another generation. Every individual learns different values and the way he
should behave in different situations from the culture to which he belongs. The way people
develop their attitude towards independence, competition, aggression, task assigned, risk
taking, and cooperation is determined by the culture. Every culture has its own sub-cultures,
which further establish moral values, style of dress, standards of cleanliness, definition of
success etc. These cultural sub groups have great influence on personality development of an
individual. For example: A girl who is born and brought up in a rich family of an urban area
will behave differently from a girl who is born and brought up in a poor family of slum area.

Family: Family is one of very important determinants of personality. It affects the personality
development of an individual specifically in the early phases of the life. Influence of family on
a person’s personality is determined by the following factors:

 Socio-economic level of the family

 Family size

 Birth order of the child

 Race

 Religion

 Education level of parents

Every child identifies a role model in the family and tries to behave like the role model which
he chooses. The process of identification can be viewed from three different perspectives
given as below:

 It can be viewed as similarity of behaviour.

 It can be viewed as child’s motives and desires to become like role model.

 It is viewed as the process through which it acquires the traits of role model.

Society: Various groups and relevant people of society as well as the organisation exert a great
influence on the personality development of an individual. This phenomenon is called
socialisation. In other words, it can be said that socialisation involves the process by which a
person learns and acquires from the society, the behaviour patterns that are customary and
acceptable to the family, society and organisations.
Situation: Situational factors also play a very important role in determining the personality of
an individual. It is often said that life is a collection of experiences. Every individual faces
different experiences in his life which exert a great deal of influence on his personality
development. It sometimes offers constraints and sometimes provides push to a person’s
behaviour. For example: A physically weak and coward person sometimes performs
heroically in saving life of his close one.

PERSONALITY THEORIES
Psychoanalytic Theory
Definition: The Psychoanalytic Theory is the personality theory, which is based on the notion
that an individual gets motivated more by unseen forces that are controlled by the conscious
and the rational thought. Sigmund Freud is closely related to the psychoanalytic theory.
According to him, the human behavior is formed through an interaction between three
components of the mind, i.e. Id, Ego and Super Ego.

1) Id: Id is the primitive part of the mind that seeks immediate gratification of biological or
instinctual needs. The biological needs are the basic physical needs and while the instinctual
needs are the natural or unlearned needs, such as hunger, thirst, etc. Id is the unconscious
part of the mind; that act instantaneously without giving much thought to what is right and
what is wrong.
Example: If your Id passed through a boy playing with a ball, the immediate urge to get that
ball will drive you to snatch it by any means, this is irrational and may lead to the conflict
between the boys. Thus, Id is the source of psychic energy, a force that is behind all the mental
forces.
2) Super-Ego: The Super-Ego is related to the social or the moral values that an individual
inculcates as he matures. It acts as an ethical constraint on behavior and helps an individual
to develop his conscience. As the individual grows in the society, he learns the cultural values
and the norms of the society which help him to differentiate between right and wrong.
Example: If the super-ego passed that boy playing with a ball, it would not snatch it, as it
would know that snatching is bad and may lead to a quarrel. Thus, super ego act as a
constraint on your behavior and guides you to follow the right path. But if the Id is stronger
than super-ego, you will definitely snatch the ball by any means.
3) Ego: Ego is the logical and the conscious part of the mind which is associated with the reality
principle. This means it balances the demands of Id and super-ego in the context of real life
situations. Ego is conscious and hence keeps a check on Id through a proper reasoning of an
external environment.
Example: If you pass through the same boy playing with the ball, your ego will mediate the
conflict between the Id and super-ego and will decide to buy a new ball for yourself. This may
hurt you Id, but the ego would take this decision to reach to a compromise situation between
the Id and super-ego by satisfying the desire of getting a ball without committing any
unpleasant social behavior.

Socio-Psychological Theory
Definition: The Socio-Psychological Theory asserts that individual and society are interlinked.
• This means, an individual strives to meet the needs of the society and the society
helps him to attain his goals. Through this interaction, the personality of an individual
is determined.
 • The Socio-Psychological theory is the contribution of Adler, Horney, Forman and
Sullivan. This theory is also called as Neo-Freudian Theory because it differs from the
Freud’s psychoanalytic theory in the following respects:
• According to this theory, the social variables and not the biological instincts are the
important determinants in shaping the individual’s personality.
• Here, the motivation is conscious, i.e. an individual knows what are his needs and
wants and what kind of behavior is required to meet these needs.
• Thus, the theorists believe that socio-psychological factors, i.e. the combination of
both the social (family, society, wealth, religion) and the psychological factors
(feelings, thoughts, beliefs) play an important role in shaping the personality of an
individual.

Trait Theory
Definition: The Trait Theory asserts that an individual is composed of a set of definite
predisposition attributes called as traits. These traits are distinguishable and often long lasting
quality or a characteristic of a person that makes him different from the others.
The two most common trait theories are:
Allport’s Trait Theory:-
• This theory is given by Gordon Allport. According to him, the personality of an
individual can be studied through a distinction between the common traits and the
personal dispositions.
• The common traits are used to compare the people on the grounds of six values, such
as religious, social, economic, political, aesthetic and theoretical.
• Besides the common traits, there are personal dispositions which are unique and are
classified as follows:
• Cardinal Traits: The cardinal traits are powerful, and few people possess personality
dominated by a single trait. Such as Mother Teresa’s altruism (selfless concern for
others).
• Central Traits: These traits are the general characteristics possessed by many
individuals in the varying degrees. Such as loyalty, friendliness, agreeableness,
kindness, etc.
• Secondary Trait: The secondary traits show why at times, a person behaves differently
than his usual behavior. Such as a jolly person may get miserable when people try to
tease him.

Cattell’s Trait Theory

This trait theory is given by Raymond Cattell. According to him, the sample of a large
number of variables should be studied to have a proper understanding of the
individual personality.
He collected the life data (everyday life behaviors of individuals), experimental data
(standardizing experiments by measuring actions), questionnaire data (responses
gathered from the introspection of an individual’s behavior) and done the factor
analysis to identify the traits that are related to one another.
 Self-Theory:-
• The Self Theory emphasizes on the set of perceptions an individual has for himself and
the perceptions of the relationships he has with others and the other aspects of life.
Carl Rogers has contributed significantly towards the self-theory.
• The self-theory comprises of four factors that are explained below:
1) Self-Image: Self-image means what an individual thinks about himself. Everybody has
certain beliefs about themselves, such as whom or what they are, these beliefs form the self-
image and identity of a person.
According to Erikson, identity is formed through a lifelong development usually unconscious
to the individual and his society, i.e. an individual forms perception about himself
unconsciously, according to the social circumstances.
2) Ideal-Self: The ideal-self means, the way an individual would like to be. It is very much
different from the self-image, as it shows the ideal position perceived by an individual,
whereas the self-image is the reality that an individual perceives. Thus, there could be a gap
between these two.
The ideal-self-acts as a stimulus to motivate an individual to undertake those activities that
is in compliance with the characteristics of his ideal self.
3) Looking-Glass-Self: The looking-glass self means an individual’s perception of how others
are perceiving his qualities or feeling about him. Simply, it is the perception of other’s
perception, i.e. perceiving what others perceive about yourself and not see what actually you
are.
4) Real-Self: The real-self is what others show you with respect to your self-image. An
individual’s self-image is confirmed when others responses to him and shares their beliefs or
perception, about what they actually feel about him.

The Big Five Personality Model

The Big Five Personality Model is a framework which provides five basic dimensions of
personality viz. Extraversion, Agreeableness, Emotional stability, Conscientiousness and
Openness to experience. These five traits are so important and describe most of the
significant variations of personality that they are named as ‘The Big Five Model of Personality’.
These traits are discussed as follows:
Extraversion:
This dimension of personality describes the comfort level of an individual in terms of their
relationships with others. Extroverts are more talkative, social, gregarious, friendly and
confident. In opposite to this introverts are reserved, less social and calm.
Agreeableness:
This trait refers to an individual’s ability to get along with others. Highly agreeable
personalities are cooperative and caring. Whereas, people who score low on this dimension
tend to be uncooperative, disagreeable and self-centred.
Emotional Stability:
This trait reflects a person’s ability to withstand stress. People who are highly emotionally
stable tend to be calm, secure and self-confident. On the other hand, people who are
emotionally weak tend to be depressed, nervous and insecure.
Conscientiousness:
This dimension assesses the reliability score of an individual. Highly conscientious people are
more dependable, reliable, systematic and well organised. Whereas, people who have low
conscientiousness are irresponsible, less dependable, negligent and unorganised.
Openness to Experience:
This dimension measures a person’s interests and creativity. Extremely open people are
highly creative and are always open to new ideas. Whereas, people who score low on this
dimension are less interested or don’t respond to new ideas. They generally stick to the
conventional ways of doing things.
Various researchers have found strong relationship between these five dimensions of
personality and individual’s performance on the job. The employees who score high on
conscientiousness tend to acquire higher job knowledge and perform better on the job.
Individuals who are emotionally stable tend to be happier and satisfied from the job as
compared to those who are emotionally weak. This is because emotionally stable people
generally think positively and experience less negative emotions. In addition to this,
extraverts also stay happier on their jobs, express their feelings freely and experience positive
emotions as compared to introverts. Extraverts also tend to perform better in the jobs that
involve frequent interpersonal interactions and require more social skills. The table given
below summarizes the effect of big five traits on the performance of individuals on the job.
Other Personality Traits Relevant to Organisational
Behaviour
Other personality traits influencing personality of a person are discussed as follows:
1) Authoritarianism:
This concept was developed by a psychologist Adorno during World War II to measure
susceptibility to autocratic, fascistic and anti-democratic appeals. Since then, this concept
has been used to describe human personality which strongly believes in the legitimacy of
formal authority, set rules and regulations. Authoritarian people generally treat
obedience to authority as necessary, view people negatively, stick to the conventional
value systems towards people and work, very rigid and against decision making based on
the feelings and emotions. Such type of people generally prefer organised and structured
work environment governed by rules and regulations. They prefer autocratic style of
leadership, respect the people who are on the higher positions of organisational hierarchy
and expect respect from those who are working under them.
2) Locus of control:
Locus of control refers to an individual’s belief that events happening around are either in
one’s own control or determined by some forces out of one’s control. The former types of
individuals are called internals and have internal locus of control. The latter types of people
are externals and have external locus of control. It is an individual’s generalised belief
regarding Internal vs. External control over the situation surrounding him.

 Internals: Internals believe that they are masters of their fate and whatever is happening in
their lives is due to their own hard work. Internals believe that they have control over their
behaviour and therefore, they are more active in seeking information and performing better
on the jobs. Internals usually enjoy higher levels of job satisfaction than others.

 Externals: Externals are those who believe that whatever is happening in their lives is
determined by their luck or fate or some other outside forces which are beyond their control.
It has been seen that externals tend to be frequently absent from their jobs, less satisfied and
less involved in the jobs than the internals.
3) Machiavellianism:
The term Machiavellianism was derived from the works of Nicolo Machiavelli.
Machiavellianism is referred to the tendency of an individual to manipulate others in order to
acquire and gain power. Such people are more likely to be involved into organisational
politics. The people who display this trait with higher intensity are called High Machs.
Prominent characteristics of high Machs are discussed as follows:  High Machs are more
pragmatic, emotionally stable and tend to adopt any type of means to achieve desired ends.

 They are more manipulative and persuasive. They usually win more.

 They generally flourish when they interact with others directly than indirectly.

 These people are more likely to be successful in the environment where minimum rules and
regulations prevail.

 They are more self-confident and have high self-esteem. In an organisational setting,
whether High Machs will prove to be good employees or not will depend upon the nature of
the job assigned to them. They are more likely to perform better in the jobs that require
bargaining skills or in the jobs that are more rewarding.
4) Achievement orientation:
It is another personality trait which is very useful to predict the behaviour of individuals at
work. People with high need to achieve tend to put continuous efforts to do things in better
way. Such people strongly believe that their success or failure is due to their own strengths
or weaknesses and their actions. These people neither like to perform very easy task as they
don’t seem to be challenging nor they like to perform very difficult tasks as chances of failure
are high in case of difficult tasks. Therefore, they prefer the tasks that involve moderate level
of difficulty. High achievers generally perform better when continuous performance feedback
is given to them and the job has direct relationship between efforts and rewards.
5) Self-Esteem:
Self-esteem refers to the feeling of one’s liking or disliking for oneself or it can be denoted as
degree of self-respect a person has for himself. This trait is directly related to an individual’s
desire for success. People who have high self-esteem have full confidence in their abilities
and tend to undertake challenging and unconventional tasks. Such people are more satisfied
with their jobs, friendlier, more affectionate and establish sound interpersonal relationships
on the jobs. On contrary to this, people with low self-esteem are more prone to be influenced
by external forces and tend to seek approvals of their behaviours from others than those with
high self-esteem. Such people when posted on higher managerial positions tend to please
others and therefore, less likely to choose unconventional methods of doing the things. They
are generally depressed and blame others for their failures.
6) Self-Monitoring:
Self-Monitoring is a personality trait which describes a person’s ability to adjust his or her
behaviour to external factors. Individuals with high self-monitoring trait pay considerable
attention to external cues, what is appropriate in particular situations and behaviour
differently in different situations. Low self-monitors, in contrast, are not as vigilant to
situational cues, and act from internal states rather than paying attention to the situation. As
a result, the behaviour of low self-monitors is consistent across situations. High self-monitors,
because their behaviour varies with the situation, appears to be more unpredictable and less
consistent. High self-monitors are capable of presenting striking, contradictions between
their public persona and their private self. Low self-monitors can't disguise themselves this
way.
7) Risk Taking:
Every individual is different from another individual in their willingness to take risks and
chances. This trait exhibits an individual’s propensity to assume or avoid risk. The degree to
which managers are willing to take risks influence their decision making and how much
information they require before making their choice. High-risk-taking managers make more
rapid decisions and use less information in making their choices than low-risk-taking
managers. Generally, managers in organizations tend to be risk aversive; there are still
individual differences on this dimension. As a result it makes sense to recognize these
differences and even to consider aligning risk-taking propensity with specific job demands. 8)
Type A Personality and type B personality: Individuals can also be categorised into Type A
personality and type B personality on the basis of their general behaviour pattern. Type A
personality describes a person who displays the characteristics like competitiveness, time
urgency, social status, insecurity, aggression, hostility and a quest for achievements.
Characteristics of Type A personalities are discussed as follows:
Type A personalities:
(i) Hurried moving, eating and walking.
(ii) Tend to undertake two or more tasks simultaneously;
(iii) Cannot be relaxed and don’t believe in having leisure time
(iv) Believe in evaluating their success in terms of how much they gain from everything. The
alternative to the Type A personality is the Type B personality. People with Type B
personalities are usually relaxed, incompetent and easy going.

Type B Personality:
(i) Never become impatient and never face hurriedness.
(ii) Never discuss achievements with others unless or until situation demands so.
(iii) More relaxed and Play for fun and relaxation than to win.
9) Self Efficacy:
It can be described as an individual's belief in his own capability of performing a task. The
people who have higher self-efficacy are generally more confident that they will succeed in a
task. Whereas, the people with low self-efficacy are more likely to slacken their effort or give
up altogether in difficult situations. In addition, individuals high in self-efficacy seem to
respond to negative feedback with increased effort and motivation and those who score low
in self-efficacy are likely to reduce their effort when given negative feedback. Believing in
one's own capability to get something done is an important facilitator of success. There is
strong evidence that self-efficacy leads to high performance on a wide variety of physical and
mental tasks. Managers can help employees develop their self-efficacy. This can be done by
providing avenues for showing performance, and rewarding an employee's achievements. 6.
Summary Personality is a major psychological factor affecting behaviour of an individual.
Personality can be viewed as a dynamic concept which describes the growth and
development of an individual’s whole psychological system. Rather than looking at parts of
the person, personality looks at some aggregate whole that is greater than the sum of the
parts. Personality does not mean the charm, beauty, smiling face, attitude of a person
towards life. But, it is a dynamic concept which describes the growth and development of a
person’s whole psychological system. In order to understand how the personality of an
individual is developed, four major determinants of personality viz. Heredity, environment,
society and situation have been discussed. Personality traits can be defined as enduring
characteristics that describe an individual’s behaviour. A trait can be better described as
tendency of an individual to respond in an equivalent manner to various stimuli he is facing
in daily life. In past, various researches have been performed to identify the primary traits
determining individual behaviour predominantly. These all researches resulted into a long list
of traits which were very difficult to generalize. But, two studies namely: The Myers-Briggs
Type Indicator (MBTI) and The Big Five Personality Model provided a useful framework for
classifying traits of human personality. Among these also, the big five model of personality is
most popular in understanding and predicting human personality. In addition to this, other
personality traits influencing human behaviour at work are: Authoritarianism, locus of
control, Machiavellianism, self-monitoring, self-efficacy, risk taking, type A and type B
personality, achievement- orientation and self-esteem.