COURSE LEARNING MODULE

HBOR 1013 Human Behavior in Organization

AY 2023-2024

Lesson: Personality

Topic: Explain how personality affect job performance

Learning Outcomes: At the end of this module, you are expected to:

1. Explain the factors that determine an individual’s personality

2. Describe the MBTI personality traits

LEARNING CONTENT

Introduction:

This is our 3rd week already in our course. I have seen how dedicated you are in your studies. Based
from your performance in the learning task assigned to you I can say that you learned a lot from our lessons. I
know learning on your own is not as easy as when you have face to face discussion, but I believe that as you
grow you mature which means you will be responsible enough to study your lessons, pandemic is not a hindrance
towards the attainment of your foal in life.
Last week’s lesson you were able to understand about values attitude and job satisfaction as a recap to
our previous lessons. Wherein you can determined how these values particularly in the terminal and instrumental
can be useful to you on your future career also values is the foundation for shaping you towards your positive
attitude. Likewise, attitude can be a determinant for you to be taken into a job. Values and attitude can lead you
to job satisfaction.
Why are some people quiet and passive, while others are loud and aggressive? Are certain personality
types better adapted to certain jobs? Before we can answer these questions, we need to address a more basic
one: What is personality?

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Lesson Proper:

When we talk of personality, we don’t mean that a person has charm, a positive attitude toward life, a smiling
face, or is a finalist for “Happiest and friendliest”. When psychologists talk of personality, they mean a dynamic
concept describing the growth and development of a person’s whole psychological system.

It is most often described in terms of

measurable traits.
The most frequently used definition
of personality was produced by
Gordon Allport more than 60 years
ago. He said personality is "the
dynamic organization within the
individual of those psychophysical
systems that determine his unique
adjustments to his environment.
Personality is the sum total of ways
in which an individual reacts and
interacts with other people.

https://slideplayer.com/slide/13209466/

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 Are personality Traits
cause by genes?
PERSONALITY
DETERMINANTS An
early argument in
personality research
was whether an
individual's
personality was the
result of heredity or of
environment. Was the
personality
predetermined at
birth, or was it the
result of the
individual's interaction
with his or her
environment? Clearly,
there is no simple
answer. Personality
appears to be a result
of both influences. In
addition, today we
recognize a third
factor-the situation.
Thus, an adult's
personality is now
generally considered
to be made up of both
hereditary and
environmental factors,
moderated by
situational conditions.

Heredity
Refers to those factors that were determined at conception Physical stature, facial attractiveness, gender,
temperament, muscle composition and reflexes, energy level, and biological rhythms are characteristics that
are generally considered to be either completely or substantially influenced by who your parents were, that is,
by their biological, physiological, and inherent psychological makeup.
The heredity approach argues that the ultimate explanation of an individual's personality is the molecular
structure of the genes, located in the chromosomes
Three different streams of research lend some credibility to the argument that heredity plays an
important part in determining an individual's personality.
1. The first looks at the genetic underpinnings of human behavior and temperament among young children.
2. The second addresses the study of twins who were separated at birth.
3. The third examines the consistency in job satisfaction over time and across situations.

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 Recent studies of young children lend strong support to the
power of heredity. Evidence demonstrates that traits such as
shyness, fear, and distress are most likely caused by inherited
genetic characteristics. This finding suggests that some
personality traits may be built into the same genetic code that
affects factors such as height and hair color.

Researchers have studied more than 100 sets of identical twins who were separated at birth and raised
separately. If heredity played little or no part in determining personality, you would expect to find few similarities
between the separated twins. But the researchers found a lot in common. For almost every behavioral trait, a
significant part of the variation between the twins turned out to be associated with genetic factors. For instance,
one set of twins who had been separated for 39 years and raised 45 miles apart were found to drive the same
model and color car, chain-smoked the same brand of cigarette, owned dogs with the same name, and regularly
vacationed within three blocks of each other in a beach community 1,500 miles away. Researchers have found
that genetics accounts for about 50 percent of the personality differences and more than 30 per cunt of the

variation in occupational and leisure interests.

Further support for the importance of heredity can be found in studies of individual job satisfaction,
which we discussed in the previous chapter. Individual job satisfaction is found to be remarkably stable
over time. This result is consistent with what you would expect if satisfaction is determined by something
inherent in the person rather than by external environmental factors, if personality characteristics were
completely dictated by heredity, they would be fixed at birth and no amount of experience could alter them. If
you were relaxed and easygoing as a child, for example that would be the result of your genes, and it would not
be possible for you to change those characteristics.

Environment
Among the factors that exert pressures on our personality formation are the culture in which we are raised,
our early conditioning, the norms among our family, friends, and social groups, and other influences that we
experience. The environment to which we are exposed plays a substantial role in shaping our personalities.
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 For example, culture establishes the norms, attitudes, and values that are passed along from one generation
to the next and create consistencies over time. An ideology that is intensely fostered in one culture may have
only moderate influence in another. For instance, North Americans have had the themes of industriousness,
success, competition, independence, and the Protestant work ethic constantly instilled in them through books,
the school system, family, and friends.

Situation A third factor, the situation, influences the effects of heredity and environment on personality. An
individual's personality, although generally stable and consistent, does change in different situations. The varying
demands of different situations call forth different aspects of one's personality.

Exhibit 4-1

It seems only logical to suppose that situations will influence an individual's personality, but a neat classification
scheme that would tell us the Impact of various types of situations has so far eluded us. "Apparently we are not
yet close to developing a system for clarifying situations so that they might be systematically studied. However,
we do know that certain situations are more relevant than others in influencing personality,

What is of interest taxonomically is that situations seem to differ substantially in the constraints they impose on
behavior. Some situations (e.g., church, an employment interview) constrain many behaviors; other situations
(e.g., a picnic in a public park) constrain relatively few.

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 PERSONALITY TRAITS he early
work in the structure of personality
revolved around attempts to
identity and label enduring
characteristics that describe an
individual's behavior Popular
characteristics include shyness,
aggressiveness, submissiveness,
laziness ambition, loyalty, and
timidity. These characteristics,
when they are exhibited in a large
number of situations, are called
personality traits. The more
consistent the characteristic and
the more frequently it occurs in
diverse situations, the more
important that trait is in describing
the individual.

Early Search for Primary Traits Efforts to isolate traits have been hindered because there are so many of them.
In one study, 17,953 individual traits were identified. It is virtually impossible to predict behavior when such a
large number of traits must be taken into account. As a result, attention has been directed toward reducing these
thousands to a more manageable number.

Exhibit 4-2

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HBOR 1013: Human Behavior in Organization| 7
 The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator One of the
most widely used personality Frameworks is
called the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
(MBTI)." It is essentially a 100-question
personality test that asks people how they
usually feel or act in particular situations.

These types are different from the 16 primary

traits, let's take several examples INT ally
have original minds and great drive for their
own ideas and purposes are visionaries.

They are characterized as skeptical, critical,

independent, determined and often
stubborn ESTIs are organizers. They are
realistic logical, analytical, decisive, and have
a natural head for business or mechanics.

They like to organize and run activities. The

INTP type is a conceptualizer. He or she is
innovative individualistic versatile, and
attracted to entrepreneurial ideas.

The Big Five Model MBTI may lack valid supporting evidence, but that can't be said for the five-factor model of
personality --more typically called the Big Five." In recent years, an impressive body of research supports that
five basic di bensons underlies all others and encompass most of the significant variation in human personality.

The Big Five factors

Extraversion. This dimension captures one's comfort level with relationships. Extraverts tend to be
gregarious assertive, and sociable. Introverts tend to be reserved, timid, and quiet.
Agreeableness. This dimension refers to an individual's propensity to defer to others. Highly agreeable
people are cooperative, warm, and trusting. People who score low on agreeableness are cold, disagreeable,
and antagonistic
Conscientiousness. This dimension is a measure of reliability. A highly corc entious person is responsible
organized, dependable and persistent. Those who Score low on this dimension are easily distracted,
disorganized, and unreliable
Emotional stability. This dimension taps a person's ability to withstand stress. People with positive
emotional stability tend to be calm, self-confident, and secure those with highly negative scores tend to be
nervous, anxious, depressed, and insecure.
Openness to experience. The final dimension addresses an individual's range of interests and fascinations
with novelty Extremely open people are Creative, curious and artistically sensitive. Those at the other end of
the openness category are conventional and find comfort in the familiar.

For the other personality dimensions, predictability depended upon both the performance criterion and the
occupational group. For stance, extraversion predicted performance in managerial and sales positions. This

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finding makes sense since these occupations involve high social interaction. Similarly, openness to experience
was found to be important in predicting training proficiency, which, too, seems logical. What wasn't so clear was
why positive emotional stability wasn't related to job performance.

Bill Gates co-founder and chairman of Microsoft would score high on

the conscientiousness dimension of the Big Five model. His success
stems from his personality an intense drive to succeed, persistence,
personality, brilliant intellect and competitiveness. Gates's personality
has influenced the cultured success of Microsoft and made him the
most famous business celebrity in the world.

MAJOR PERSONALITY ATTRIBUTES INFLUENCING OB

In this section, we want to evaluate more carefully specific personality attribute that have been found to be
powerful predictors of behavior in organizations. The first is related to where a person perceives the locus of
control to be in his or life. The others are Machiavellianism, self-esteem, self-monitoring, propensity for risk
taking, and Type A personality. In this section, we shall briefly introduced these attributes and summarize what
we know about their ability to explain and predict employee behavior.

# To do! Caselet

“Heredity determines personality.”

A. Build an argument to support this statement.
B. Build an argument against this statement.

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 Other people see themselves as pawns of fate,
believing that what happens to them in their lives is
due to luck or chance. The first type, those who
believe that they control their destinies, have been
labelled internals, whereas the latter, who see their
lives as being controlled by outside forces, have
been called externals. A person's perception of the
source of his or her fate is termed locus of control.
A large amount of research comparing internals with
externals has consistently shown that individuals
who have high scores in externality are less
satisfied with their jobs, have higher absenteeism
rates, are more alienated from the work setting, and
are less involved on their jobs than are internals.

Why are externals more dissatisfied? The answer is probably because they perceive themselves as having
little control over those organizational outcomes that are important to them. Internals, facing the same situation,
attribute organizational outcomes to their own actions. If the situation is unattractive, they be believe that they
have no one else to blame but themselves. Also, the dissatisfied internal is more likely to quit a dissatisfying job.

The impact of locus of control on absence is an interesting one. Internals believe that health is substantially
under their own control through proper habits, so they take more responsibility for their health and have better
health habits. Consequently, their incidences of sickness and, hence, of absenteeism are lower.

We shouldn't expect any clear relationship between locus of control and turnover because there are opposing
forces at work. "On the one hand, internals tend to take action and thus might be expected to quit jobs more
readily. On the other hand, they tend to be more successful on the job and more satisfied, factors associated
with less individual turnover.

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 Machiavellianism The
personality characteristic of
Machiavellianism (Mach)
Named after Niccolò
Machiavelli, who wrote in the
sixteenth century on how to
gain and use power. An
individual high in
Machiavellianism is pragmatic,
maintains emotional distance,
and believes that ends can
justify means. "If it works, use
it is consistent with a high-
Mach perspective.

A considerable amount of
research has been directed
toward relating high and low-
Mach personalities to certain
behavioral outcomes." High
Machs manip ulate more, win
more, are persuaded less, and
persuade others more than do
low Machs. Yet these high-
Mach outcomes are
moderated by situational
factors. It has been found that
high Machs flourish (1) when
they interact face-to-face with
others rather than indirectly;
(2) when the situation has a
minimum number of rules and
regulations, thus allowing
latitude for improvisation; and
(3) when emotional
involvements with details
irrelevant to winning distract
low Machs.

Should we conclude that high Machs make good employees? That answer depends on the type of job and
whether you consider ethical implications in evaluating performance. In jobs that require bargaining skills (such
as labor negotiation) or that offer substantial rewards for winning (as in commissioned sales), high Machs will be
productive. But if ends can't justify the means, if there are absolute standards of behavior, or if the three
situational factors noted in the preceding paragraph are not in evidence, our ability to predict a high Mach's
performance will be severely curtailed.

Machiavellianism Degree to which an individual is pragmatic,

maintains emotional distance, and believes that ends can
justify means.

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Self-Esteem. People differ in the degree to which they like or dislike themselves. This trait is called self-esteem.
The research on self-esteem (SE) offers some interesting insights into organizational behavior. For example,
self-esteem is directly related to expectations for success. High SEs believe that they possess the ability they
need in order to succeed at work.

Individuals with high self-esteem will take more risks in job selection and are more likely choose
unconventional jobs than people with low self-esteem.
Not surprisingly, self-esteem has also been found to be related to job satisfaction. A number of studies confirm
that high SEs are more satisfied with their jobs than are low SES.

Self-Monitoring
A personality trait that has recently received increased attention is called self-monitoring. It refers to an
individual's ability to adjust his or her behavior to external, situational factors.

Individuals high in self-monitoring show considerable adaptability in adjusting their behavior to external
situational factors. They are highly sensitive external cues and can behave differently in different situations.
High self monitors are capable of presenting striking contradictions between their public persona and their
private self. Low self-monitors can't disguise themselves in that way. They tend to display their true
dispositions and attitudes in every situation; hence, there is high behavioral consistency between who they
are and what they do.
A personality trait that measures an individual's ability to adjust his or her behavior to external, situational
factors.

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 The research on self-
monitoring is in its infancy,
so predictions must be
guarded. However,
preliminary evidence
suggests that high self-
monitors tend to pay
closer attention to the
behavior of others and
are more capable of
conforming than are low
self-monitors. In addition,
high self-monitoring
managers tend to be more
mobile in their careers
and receive more
promotions (both
internal and cross-
organizational)." We
might also hypothesize that
high self-monitors will be
more successful in
managerial positions in
which individuals are
required to play multiple,
and even contradicting, roles. The high self-monitor is capable of putting on different "faces" for different
audiences.

Risk Taking Donald Trump stands out for his willingness to take risks. He started with almost nothing in the
1960s. By the mid-1980s, he had made a fortune by betting on a resurgent New York City real estate market.
Then, trying to capitalize on his previous successes, Trump overextended himself. By 1994, he had a negative
net worth of $850 million. Never fearful of taking chances, "The Donald" leveraged the few assets he had left on

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several New York, New Jersey, and Caribbean real estate ventures. He hit it big again. By 1999, FoRbes
estimated his net worth at over $2 billion.
People differ in their willingness to take chances. This propensity to assume or avoid risk has been shown to
have an impact on how long it takes managers to make a decision and how much information they require
before making their choice. For instance, 79 managers worked on simulated personnel exercises that required
them to make hiring decisions.

While it is generally correct to conclude that managers in organizations are risk averse, there are still individual
differences on this dimension. For instance, a high risk-tak ing propensity may lead to more effective performance
for a stock trader in a brokerage firm because that type of job demands rapid decision making.

*** END of LESSON ***

Textbooks

Mcshane, S. & Glinow, M. (2018). Organizational behavior: emerging knowledge. global reality, McGraw-Hill Education

Books:

Colquitt, J., et. al. (2019). Organizational Behavior -Improving Performance and Commitment in the Workplace. Mc Graw
Hill Education

King, D. and Lawley, S. (2019). Organizational Behavior. Oxford

Knights, D., Willmott, H. (2022). Introducing organizational behaviour and management. 4th ed. Annabel Ainscow

Lussier, R. (2019). Human Relations in Organizations: Applications and Skills Building. MCGraw Hill.

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