Arsi University
College of Business and Economics
Department of Management (MBA program)
Organizational Behavior
Group Assignment on Personality
April, 2024
Asella, Ethiopia
Contents
Introduction
Definition
Measuring Personality
Determinants of Personality
Personality Frameworks
Personality and Situation
Introduction
✓ Personality is a major psychological factor affecting behavior
of an individual.
• Personality can be viewed as a dynamic concept which
describes the growth and development of an individual’s
whole psychological system.
• Help us in understanding the differences between various
individuals and examining why behavior of individuals vary
from each other in an organization
Definition
• Personality is the sum of ways in which an individual reacts
to and interacts with others.
• Role which an individual displays to the public
• traditionally refers to how people-influence others through
their external appearances and actions.
Measuring Personality
• Personality assessments have been increasingly used in diverse
organizational settings.
• The most common means of measuring personality is :
Self-report surveys
Observer-ratings surveys
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:
Heredity
Environment
Heredity
❖ are determined at the time of conception of an individual.
❖ This approach argues that the basis of human personality lies
in the molecular structure of the genes.
❖ 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.
Environment
✓ Personality of an individual is determined as much by the
environment as it does by the heredity.
✓ Comprised of:
Culture
Family
Society and
Situation
Personality Frameworks
• Many of our behaviors stem from our personalities, so
understanding the components of personality helps us predict
behavior.
• Important theoretical frameworks and assessment tools help us
categorize and study the dimensions of personality.
• The most widely used and best known personality frameworks
are the
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and
Big Five Personality Model.
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
(MBTI)
• Most widely used personality assessment instruments in the
world.
• It is a 100-question personality test that asks people how they
usually feel or act in situations.
• Respondents are classified as
Extraverted or Introverted (E or I),
Sensing or Intuitive (S or N),
Thinking or Feeling (T or F), and
Judging or Perceiving (J or P):
✓ Extraverted Vs. Introverted: Extraverted people are social, friendly and self-
confident whereas, introverted people are more shy and calm.
✓ Sensing Vs. Intuitive: Sensing personalities are very practical and prefer to
follow routine and orders. On the other hand, intuitive types of people are
not practical and usually rely on unconscious processes.
✓ Thinking Vs. Feeling: Feeling types of people generally take decisions
based on their personal values and emotions. Thinking types of people are
generally more logical and rational.
✓ Judging Vs. Perceiving: Judging types want control and prefer their world
to be ordered and structured. Perceiving types are more flexible and
spontaneous.
The Big Five Personality Model
The MBTI may lack strong supporting evidence.
Proposes that five basic dimensions underlie all others and
encompass most of the significant variation in human
personality.
Test scores of these traits do a very good job of predicting how
people behave in a variety of real-life situations and remain
relatively stable for an individual over time
Conscientiousness: is a measure of personal consistency and
reliability.
Emotional stability: a person’s ability to withstand stress.
Extraversion: captures our relational approach toward the social
world.
Openness to experience: addresses the range of interests and
fascination with novelty.
Agreeableness: individual's propensity to defer to others
Other Personality Traits
Researchers have found that three other socially undesirable
traits, which we all have in varying degrees, are also relevant to
organizational behavior:
Because of their negative nature, researchers have labeled these
the Dark Triad —though they do not always occur together.
Machiavellianism: pragmatic, maintains emotional distance, and
believes ends can justify means
Narcissism: describes a person who has a grandiose sense of self-
importance, requires excessive admiration, and is arrogant.
Psychopathy: psychopathy is defined as a lack of concern for
others and a lack of guilt or remorse when actions cause harm.
Powerful predictors of behavior in
organizations:
Core Self-Evaluations (CSEs)
: are bottom-line conclusions individuals have about their
capabilities, competence, and worth as a person.
Self-Monitoring
:Self-monitoring describes an individual’s ability to adjust
behavior to external, situational factors.
Proactive Personality
: identifies opportunities, show initiative, take action, and
persevere
until meaningful change occurs, unlike those who generally react
Personality and Situations
❑ Heredity and environment are important factors in determining
personality of individuals in an organization.
❑ However, we are learning that the effect of particular
traits on organizational behavior may depend on the situation.
❑ Two theoretical frameworks, situation strength and trait
activation, help explain how this works.
Situation Strength Theory
• The way personality translates into behavior depends on
the strength of the situation.
• By situation strength, we mean the degree to which
norms, cues, or standards dictate appropriate behavior.
• Analyzed situation strength in organizations in terms of
four
elements:Clarity, Consistency,Constraints and
Consequences
Trait Activation Theory
• Another important theoretical framework toward
understanding personality and situations is trait activation
theory
• predicts that some situations, events, or interventions
“activate”n trait more than others.
