PERSONALITY

INTRODUCTION

People tend to have a general notion that personality refers to a personal appearance with charming smile, or outlook. But psychologists view the concept as dynamic in nature concerned with growth and development of a person’s whole psychological system. Personality can be defined as the consistent psychological patterns within an individual that affect the way they interact with others and the situations they encounter. Personality is defined as relatively stable and enduring characteristics that determine our thoughts, feelings and behavior. Personality is a complex phenomenon and there are various perspectives of personality construct. One common and simple definition of Personality is: It is the consistent psychological patterns within an individual that affect the way they interact with others and the situations they encounter.

PERSONALITY

Research studies shows that individual’s personality is more or less consistent, lasting, and can remain substantially constant across all the situations and time. But there are individual differences, for some people, these straits may be consistent across a number of situations, that is, they exhibit the same behavior such as shyness or inhibitions in the entire situation at all the time. But others may vary quite a lot. Changes in personality occur slowly over an extended period of time. Thus, if managers are able to understand certain dimensions of personality traits exhibited by individuals, they can predict confidently to a great extent the daily behavior of employees.

Personality Determinants

There are several factors that determine the formation or shaping of our personality. Among them the three major factors are: Heredity, Environment and Situation.

• Heredity The genetic components inherited from our parents at the time of conception determine strongly the personality characteristics of an individual. The color, height, physical statutory, facial attractiveness, gender, temperament, muscle composition, inheritable diseases etc are considered to be inherited from our parents. Research studies conducted on identical twins that were reared in different places, temperament of young children, longitudinal studies on the job satisfaction of employees over long period of time and across different situation reveal that the heredity plays a substantial role in determining the behavior of individuals. If all personality characteristics were completely dictated by heredity, they would be fixed at birth and no amounts of experience could alter them.
• Environment The culture in which people are brought up in their lives and they type of socialization process such as family’s child rearing practices, socio economic status of the family, number of children in a family, birth order, education of the parents, friends and peer group pressures, religious practices, the type of schooling and recreational activities, pastime behavior etc play a critical role in shaping our personalities. For example, our parents mould the character of all children, almost from birth by expressing and expecting their children to conform to their own values through role modeling and through various reinforcement strategies such as rewards and punishments. Research studies reveal that the birth order – the difference between first born children and later born children determine certain key personality characteristics, that is, first born tend to exhibit more ambitious, and hard working, more cooperative, more prone to guilt and anxiety and less openly aggressive. Both the heredity and environment are equally important in determining personality characteristics of an individual. Heredity sets the parameters or outer limits, but a person’s full potential will be determined by how well he or she adjusts to the demands and requirements of the environment.
• Situation The type of specific situation which a person encounters also equally shapes the type of personality characteristics. For example, an individual’s exposure to a job interview and the type of experiences encountered during that time will shape certain personality characteristics. Similarly, going for a picnic with friends and encountering the type of experiences whether pleasant and unpleasant will shape the personality characteristics of individuals.

Dimensions of Self-Concept

It is defined as the totality of individual’s thoughts and feelings having reference to himself as an object. The self concept is made up of collection of attitudes, feelings, ideas, opinions that they have about themselves including their preference towards sports, books, physical ability, smartness sexuality, job performance etc. In short, the self-concept is what we think and feel about ourselves. People tend to have both positive and negative self concept. Those who have very positive self concept tend to have high level of confidence, achievement, and success in their life.

Key Personality Traits Relevant to Work Behavior

i) Self Esteem: It refers to the individuals’ self worthiness and the extent to which they regard themselves as capable, successful, important and worthwhile. People who feel good about themselves will always produce good results. Studies of self-esteem show that it is closely related to mental health. People with low self-esteem are more likely to suffer depression and greater stress. People with positive self-esteem adjust to life better and deal every day problems more effectively. Individuals’ with high self esteem will try to take up more challenging assignments and be successful, which in turn, enhance their overall self-concept. People with high self esteem would tend to classify themselves as highly valuable in the organization.

ii) Locus of Control: It refers to the extent to which people tend to have control over their own fate and life. There are two type of locus of control. The Internal Locus of Control refers to those who believe that they control what happens to them and shape the course of their evens in their lives, whereas the External Locus of Control believe that what happens to them is controlled by outside forces such as luck or chance. Internals always believe in putting more effort and seek more job related information, rely more on their own abilities and judgment at work, and more actively seek opportunities for advancement.

iii) Self Efficacy: It refers to the belief that a person has in their own capability to perform a specific task. People with high self-efficacy will prefer to have moderate level of task difficulty, strong self confidence and conviction in the chosen tasks and possess high expectation in completing the assignment across the entire situation. Employees with high self-efficacy respond to specific negative feedback about their performance with increased motivation and effort, while those with low self-efficacy are more likely to give up and reduce their motivation

iv) Self-Monitoring: It refers to the extent to which a person has the ability to adjust his or her behavior to external or situational factors. Those with high self-monitoring will be more sensitive and notice the significant changes occurring in the environment and able to adapt them by adjusting their behavior. High self-monitors are capable of exhibiting a striking contrast between their public persona and their private self. Low self-monitors cannot disguise their behavior and tend to exhibit the same behavior all the time.

v) Emotional Intelligence: It is also called as EQ which refers to individual’s ability to be aware of feelings and emotions and the extent to which they can manage them more effectively in dealing with others and challenging events. It consists of five main abilities:

• Knowing one’s emotions: Self-awareness and recognizing ones feelings as it occurs
• Managing emotions: Handling feelings and emotions appropriately to the relevant situations
• Motivating oneself: Directing the feelings and emotions in such a way to fulfilling the desired goals
• Recognizing emotions in others: Empathizing and understanding the feelings and emotions for others
• Handling Relationships: Being able to interrelate, communicate and work with others.

Emotional Intelligence (EI) is very closely linked to our self-concept, because it is strongly related to self awareness.

vi ) Big Personality Traits

There are five Big Personality Traits which have a significant impact in individual’s life.

They are as follows.

• Extroversion: Extroverts are sociable, lively, and gregarious and seek outward interaction. Such individuals are likely to be most successful working in marketing division, public relations etc. where they can interact face to face with others. Introverts are quite, reflective, introspective and intellectual people, preferring to interact with a small intimate circle of friends. Introverts are more likely to be successful when they can work on highly abstract ideas (accountant, R&D work etc) in a relatively quite atmosphere.
• Agreeableness: This refers to the extent to which individuals agreeing and cooperating with others. Highly agreeable people are cooperative, warm and trusting. People who score low on agreeableness are cold, disagreeable and antagonistic. This characteristic is very important and critical in attaining a successful achievement in their life.
• Conscientiousness: This refers to the extent to which people are responsible and dependable in their work and life. A highly conscientiousness person is responsible, organized, dependable and persistent. They are likely to move upward direction very quickly and attain remarkable achievement in their life. Those who score low on this dimension are easily distracted, disorganized and unreliable.
• Emotional Stability: This refers to the extent to which people have the ability to withstand stress. People with positive emotional stability tend to be calm, selfconfident and secure. Those with highly low level of emotional stability tend to be nervous, anxious, depressed and insecure.
• Openness to experience: This refers to the extent to which people are more imaginative, artistic sensitivity and intellectualism. Individuals tend to vary widely ranging from conservative to creative or artistic. Extremely open people are creative, and artistically sensitive. Whereas not so open category personnel are very conservative and find comfort in the familiar or routine activities.