Chapter 3 Different Personalities PDF

 Chapter (3) Different Personalities Chapter outline: 1.Meaning of personality 2.Determinants of Personality. 3.Personality Framework. 4.Recent Developments in Personality and OB Meaning of Personality: Personality is the unique and relatively stable pattern of behavior, thoughts, and emoti...

 Chapter (3) Different Personalities Chapter outline: 1.Meaning of personality 2.Determinants of Personality. 3.Personality Framework. 4.Recent Developments in Personality and OB Meaning of Personality: Personality is the unique and relatively stable pattern of behavior, thoughts, and emotions shown by individuals. Also, Personality can be defined as the stable patterns of behavior and consistent internal states that determine how an individual reacts to and interacts with others. Determinants of Personality: 1- Biological Factors Biological factors are divided into two categories: a) Heredity: The factors which are determined at the conception stage comes under the head heredity. Hence, when the qualities of parents are transmitted to the children. These factors include intelligence level, temper, various inherited diseases...etc. Many psychologists and geneticists have confirmed that heredity plays a significant role in determining one’s personality. b) Physical Features: Physical characteristics include height (short or tall), weight (fat, skinny), color (white, black), beauty (handsome, ugly), etc. 2-Family and Social Factors: It is a truth that an infant acquires most of his/her personality traits and pattern of behavior from his family or community to which he/she belongs. Hence, parents, classmates, coworkers, neighbors, friends, etc. have a very strong impact on the personality development of a child. 3- Cultural Factors: Culture is the set of norms, beliefs, values, customs, rules and regulations which are shared and transferred from one generation to another. The culture within which a person is born and brought up plays an important role in shaping an individual's personality. For example, a person belonging to Japanese culture possesses cooperation and team spirit behavior. 4- Situational Factors Although these factors don’t create or shape up an individual’s personality, situational factors do alter a person’s behavior and response from time to time. The situational factors can be commonly observed when a person behaves contrastingly and exhibits different traits and characteristics. For example, a person’s behavior will be totally different when he is in his office, in front of his boss, when compared to his hangout with old friends in a café. In this way situational factors impact a personality in a significant way.  Personality Framework: The most widely used and best-known personality is the Big Five Personality Model. It describes a person’s total personality through exploration of the facets of personality. The Big five model: An impressive body of research supports that five basic dimensions underlie all other personality dimensions. 1- Extraversion: a tendency to enjoy the company of others. Extraverts (also extroverts) tend to be energetic, sociable, talkative, and enthusiastic, while introverts tend to be reserved, silent, cautious. 2- Agreeableness: A tendency to be compassionate toward others. Highly Agreeable people are good- natured, cooperative, trusting, and helpful, while people who score low in agreeableness are suspicious, uncooperative. 3- Conscientiousness: A tendency to show self-discipline and reliability, and to strive for competence and achievement. A highly conscientious person is well-organized, careful, self-disciplined, responsible, whereas a low conscientious person is disorganized, impulsive, careless, and unreliable. 4- Neuroticism (emotional stability) : The person’s ability to withstand stress. People with positive emotional stability tend to be calm, self- confident and secure, and people with low emotional stability tend to be nervous, anxious, depressed and insecure. 5- Openness to experience: A tendency to enjoy new experiences and new ideas. Extremely open people are creative, imaginative, and have broad interests. Those at the other end of openness are simple, having narrow interests, and find comfort in the familiar issues. How the big five traits predict behavior at work: Extraversion is a predictor of leadership emergence in groups. Extroverts tend to perform better in jobs that require interpersonal interaction because they have more social skills, are more socially dominant. Conscientiousness is the Big Five trait most consistently related to job performance in terms of persistence, attention to details, and setting of high standards. Emotional stability is strongly related to job satisfaction and low stress level. People low in emotional stability look for problems or signs of danger, and are especially vulnerable to the physical and psychological effects of stress.  People high on openness to experience are more likely to be effective leaders, because creativity is important to leadership. Agreeable people tend toward interpersonally oriented jobs such as customer service. One downside of agreeableness is that it is associated with lower levels of career success. Agreeable people may be poorer negotiators because they are so concerned with pleasing others that they often don’t negotiate as much for themselves as they should. Recent Developments in Personality and OB Research has identified number of personality variables as important for OB, including: I) Type (A) & type (B) patterns: Type (A) characteristics: Hard workers, highly competitive. Tend to get involved in conflicts at work. Impatient and always in a hurry even when no pressure or deadline are involved. Perform poorly on tasks that require patience or careful judgment. Seek challenging work and may excel on tasks involving time pressure or solitary work.. Type (B) Characteristics: Tend to exhibit flexibility, low competitiveness. Relaxed, more laid-back approach to life. Remain calm in almost all situations and rarely lose their temper. Excel in tasks involving accuracy as opposed to speed. Better suited to those kinds of jobs in which interpersonal skills are important. II) Machiavellianism: Machiavellianism is a personality trait involving willingness to manipulate others for one’s own purposes. Some guiding principles that he recommended: Never show humility; arrogance is far more effective when dealing with others. Ethics are for the weak; powerful people feel free to lie, cheat, or deceive if it fits their purpose. It is much better to be feared than loved. Characteristics of High Machs: Liars, irresponsible. Have little guilt about harming others. Successful in organizations that are loosely structured (with few established rules) because when rules are clear and strict, High Machs are limited in what they can do. III) Morning Persons & Evening Persons: Morning Persons: Individuals who feel most energetic and alert early in the day. Evening Persons: Individuals who feel most energetic and alert late in the day or at night. DISSCUSION QUESTIONS: 1- A personality trait involving willingness to manipulate others for one’s own purpose. a. Problem solving style b. Machiavellianism. c. Extrovert personality d. Negative affectivity 2- Type (A) personality characterized by : a. Exhibit flexibility b. Relaxed c. Remain calm in almost all situations d. Seek challenging work..  3- ……. Is the tendency to enjoy the company of others. a. Conscientiousness b. Extraversion. c. Openness to experience d. Emotional stability 4-Which of the following is not related to Machiavellianism: a. Ethics are for the weak b. Powerful people feel free to lie c. Cheat, or deceive if it fits their purpose. d. It is much better to be loved than feared. 5-Type (B) personality tends to excel in tasks involving speed as opposed to accuracy a. True b. False.