ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR AND MANAGEMENT

UNIT II
Personality is a concept that we use in our routine working while dealing with people. We
generally talk about people who are close to us or may or may not related to us. We generally say
that a person has good, bad, arrogant or aggressive personality. Thus the word good, bad,
arrogant and aggressive explains that personality is related with the behavior of an individual.
The term personality has been derived from the Latin word 'per sonare' which means to
speak through. This Latin word denotes the mask, which the actors used to wear in ancient
Greece and Rome. Long ago when plays were performed the numbers of actors used to be less
than the number of roles. So the same actor used to change the masks to make people realize
that they are performing a different character. Perhaps due to this reason people relate
personality to physical and outward appearance.
MEANING AND DEFINITION OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHVIOUR

Personality Enduring characteristics that describe an individual’s behavior. Personality is

a dynamic concept describing the growth and development of a person’s whole psychological
system. Personality is sum total of ways in which an individual reacts and interacts with others.
“A stable set of characteristics and tendencies that determine those commonalities and
differences in the psychological behavior and that may not be easily understood as the sole result
of the social and biological pressures of the moment".
Gorden Allport defines “Personality is the dynamic organisation within an individual of those
psychological systems that determine his unique adjustment to his environment”

DETERMINANTS OF PERSONALITY
The factors, which shape, change or develop the personality of an individual,
are discussed as under. These determinants of personality can be classified into
following categories:

Biological factors
The ways an individual sense the external event data, interpret and respond to
them are general biological characteristics of human biological system. The study
of biological contribution to personality can be divided into:

a) Heredity: It is transmission of the qualities from ancestor to descendant through a

mechanism lying primarily in the chromosomes of the germ cells. These qualities are present
in a person by birth. Heredity refers to those factors like physical stature, facial
 attractiveness, sex, temperament, muscle composition, energy level and biological rhythms
etc. that were determined at conception. At conception, each parent contributes
chromosomes containing thousands of genes, which seems to be transmitter of traits in the
child. Saying such as “like father, like son" proves the above discussion. Thus, heredity is
generally more important in determining a person's temperament than his values and
beliefs.

b) Brain: It plays very important role in shaping personality. The structure of brain
determines personality. People normally say that a person with more number of lines on his
brain is more intelligent. Different people will give value to different things. For some beauty
is more valuable than intelligence. However, no conclusive proof is available so far about the
nature of relationship between brain and personality.

c) Physical Features: Another factor that contributes to personality

formation is physical characteristics of an individual. While defining
personality some individuals give higher weights to physical features of an
individual. The external appearance includes height, weight, colour, facial
features etc of the individual while determining his personality. The normal
belief is that the healthy person is lazy and the thin is angry determines the
individual personality. In today's competitive environment for the job of sales
executive the physical appearance is an asset of an individual.

Family and Social Factors:

Family plays an important role in early personality development. The infant acquires those
behaviour patterns that depend upon the socio-economic level of the family, family size, birth-
order, race, religion, parent education level, geographic location etc. Social factors include the
person’s interaction with other people throughout his life. The family and social factors are
categorize as below:

a) Home environment: It is a critical factor in personality development. A child will have

soft personality if he will grow in a warm, loving and protective environment. And if
everybody in the family is busy in their life and have no concern for each other then the
infant will have rigid personality. The key variable is not the parents per se rather the
type of environment that is generated for the child.

b) Family Members: Parents and other family members have strong influence on
personality development of the child. Parents have more impact than other members of the
family do in building the child's personality. We generally see that small children behave like
their parents. The relationships between the parents and children are higher than between
the children and teachers in building child's personality c) Social Group: In addition to home
environment and family members, there are other influences from the social placement of
the family. Social groups includes the person’s interaction with other people which starts
with playmates during childhood and continue with peers at work, associates and other
work groups. The internal and external work environment continues to influence the people
personalities, perception and behaviour throughout his life.

The home environment, family members and social groups influence the socialization and
identification process of an

individual. Socialization is a process by which an infant acquires from

the wide range of behavioral potentialities that are open to him at birth, those
behavior patterns that are customary and acceptable to family and social
groups. It starts with the initial contact between an infant and mother and
continues with interaction of infant with other family members and social
groups. Identification process occurs when a person tries to identify himself
with some person whom he feels ideal in the family. Generally a child in the
family tries to behave like his father or mother.

Cultural Factors:

According to Hoebel, Culture is sum total of learned behaviour traits which are
manifested and shared by the members of the society. The culture within which
a person is brought up is very important determinant of behaviour of a person.
Culture is a unique system of perception, beliefs, values, norms, patterns of
behaviour and code of conduct that influence the behaviour of the individual.
It determines what a person is and what a person will learn. The way of talking
and dressing sense of Hindus and Muslims are entirely different, as they are
prone to different cultures. Each culture trains its members to behave in the
ways that are acceptable to the group. The difference among individual
behaviour is also based upon socio-economic classes, ages, education,
professions and geographic regions. As skilled have different behaviour
pattern than the unskilled workers do.
 Situational Factors:

An individual personality is generally stable and consistent; it may change in different

situations. An individual life is unique in terms of events and experience, but these
experiences sometimes change the structure of the entire personality of an individual.
Suppose there is a worker who is very fond of doing work. But sometime due to overload he
becomes frustrated from the existing job. Due to this changed situation, his personality
composition also changes. Thus demand of different situation may call for different aspects
of one’s personality.

The Big Five Personality Model

The MBTI may lack strong supporting evidence, but an

impressive body of research supports the thesis of the Big Five Model —that five basic
dimensions underlie all others and encompass most of the significant variation in human
personality. Moreover, test scores of these traits do a very good job of predicting how people
behave in a variety of real- life situations. The following are the Big Five factors:

Extraversion: Extraversion dimension captures a person’s comfort level with relationships.

Extraverted individuals are sociable, talkative, and assertive.

Agreeableness: The agreeableness 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: The conscientiousness dimension is a measure of reliability. A highly

conscientious person is responsible, organized, dependable, and persistent. Those who score
low on this dimension are easily distracted, disorganized, and unreliable.

Emotional stability: The emotional stability dimension taps a person’s ability to withstand
stress. People with positive emotional stability tend to be calm, self-confident, and secure.
Those with high negative scores tend to be nervous, anxious, depressed, and insecure.

a) Openness to experience: The openness to experience dimension addresses range of

interests and fascination with novelty. Extremely open people are creative, curious, and
artistically sensitive. Those at the other end of the category are conventional and find
 comfort in the familiar.

How Do the Big Five Traits Predict Behavior at Work?

• Research has found relationships between these personality dimensions and job
performance. The evidence shows that individuals who are dependable, reliable,
careful, thorough, able to plan, organized, hardworking, persistent, and achievement-
oriented tend to have higher job performance in most if not all occupations.”

• In addition, employees who score higher in conscientiousness develop higher levels

of job knowledge, probably because highly conscientious people learn more. Higher
levels of job knowledge then contribute to higher levels of job performance.

Conscientious individuals who are more interested in learning than in just

performing on the job are also exceptionally good at maintaining
performance in the face of negative feedback.

• Emotional stability is most strongly related to life satisfaction, job

satisfaction, and low stress levels. This is probably true because high
scorers are more likely to be positive and optimistic and experience fewer
negative emotions. They are happier than those who score low. People low
on emotional stability are hyper vigilant (looking for problems or
impending signs of danger) and are especially vulnerable to the physical
and psychological effects of stress.

• Extraverts tend to be happier in their jobs and in their lives as a whole.

They experience more positive emotions than do introverts, and they more
freely express these feelings. They also tend to perform better in jobs that
require significant interpersonal interaction, perhaps because they have
more social skills—they usually have more friends and spend more time in
social.

THEORIES OF PERSONALITY

1. Psycho-analytical Theory

The mile stone in the study of personality is Freud’s psychoanalytical theory. Freud is of the
belief that the personality as a reflection of behaviour has been primarily based on the
unconscious nature of personality. The human behaviour and motivation is outcome of
following psychoanalytical concepts. Such as:

a) ID:

It is the unconscious part of the human personality. It is most primitive part and is the
storehouse of biologically based urges. Example- urges to have food, water etc.

ID is original source of personality present in a newborn or infant. The principal of working

for ID is ‘Pleasure’. Id tries to satisfy the urge as soon as possible without considering the
realities of life.

b) Ego:

Ego manages ID through the realities of the external environment. Ego is conscious in nature
and is a mechanism to relate our conscious urge to outside real world. As Ego is

conscious and logical part of human personality, ID is guided and governed by

Ego. It explains the ways of thinking and behaving. ID demands immediate
pleasure at whatever cost, Ego controls it so that the pleasures are granted at
appropriate time and in acceptable manner. Ego delays satisfying ID motives
and channels the behaviour, which is socially acceptable. It makes people work
to live and adjusting to the realities of life. The principle of ego to work is
‘Reality Principle’. It takes into account what is possible in this world.

As the function of ID and Ego are contrary there is always ongoing tension
between ID and Ego i.e. between urges and realities of life which keeps Ego to
develop more sophisticated thinking skills. Thus to keep ID under control, Ego
is supported by Super Ego.

c) Super Ego:

It is higher level restraining force and can be described as the conscience of the
person. The conscience creates standards of what is right or wrong. It
represents the rules and the norms that check the cultural, moral or ethical
behavioral values of the individual in the social environment. However, an
 individual is not aware of presence and working of superego in

oneself. It is developed slowly in a person when he absorbs central values and follows the
standards of society. Superego keeps ego to judge what is right or wrong.

Example: A Boy is feeling hungry because of ID. He passes through a shop with food displayed
in the window and thus the urge of hunger arises more strongly. But the boy has no penny
and the Ego suggest the ways to satisfy hunger that if you don’t have money to buy food, steal
and run. Then, Super Ego warns boy that there is something wrong as stealing is considered
blundered in society and it is punishable.

2. Trait Theory:

It visualizes personality as a reflection of certain traits of the individual. This

theory was put forward by ‘ALLPORT”. Trait is a distinctive and personal form
of behaviour. There are many traits, which are common to most people, some
are unique to a person and other individuals share some. On the basis of trait
theory, people can be described as aggressive, loyal, pleasant, flexible,
humorous, sentimental, impulsive, cool and so on. Traits are basic elements
of personality and can be used to summarize behaviour. The trait of an
individual or ‘Personal disposition is studied at three levels:

a) Cardinal Trait Level: ALLPORT defined cardinal traits as those pervasive

traits which are so powerful / dominant that rarely all the individual action can
be traced back to them. As these are highly influential traits, so they are named
after key historical figures like Mother Teresa, Hitler, Romeo etc. This level
describes a trait so broad and so deep in its impact that it overshadows the
influence of other traits for the same individual.

b) Central Trait Level: ALLPORT describes central traits as those that might
be referred in careful recommendations or at a rating scale. These are unique
and limited in number. The traits at this level means to convey what can be
expected from a person most of the time.
 c) Secondary Trait level: These are least generalized traits of a person. The
range of influence of these traits is very narrow. These peripheral traits are
specialized to the situation.

Cattell used groups of traits to describe the structure of personality. He put

these traits in the following categories:

i) Surface Traits: Wise-foolish, sociable-seclusive, honest- dishonest etc.

ii) Source Traits: Trustful-suspicious, relaxed-tense, dominant-submissive, forthright

shrewd, cheerfulness- depressed etc.

3. Type Theory:

“Type is simply a class of individuals said to share common collection of characteristics”.

Type approach discusses the personality in the following ways:

a) Type on the basis of body build:

i. Endomorph: They are fat, thick in proportion to their height. They seek comfort, eat too
much, jovial, affectionate and liked by all. They are even tempered, show a relaxed posture,
easy to get along with others and are tolerant of others. They prefer to be led than to lead.

ii. Ectomorph: They are thin, long and poorly developed physically. They work well in
closed areas and displays restraint, inhibition and desire for concealment. They prefer not to
attract attention to him and tend to be distrustful of others. They are anxious, ambitious and
dedicated.

iii. Mesomorph: They are basically strong, athletic and tough. They seeks lot
of muscular activity, tends to be highly aggressive and self-assertive. They
desire action, power and domination and they can run faster and smile
brighter.

b) Type on the basis of nature:

i. Introvert: The people with following characteristics are introvert such as-
shyness, social withdrawal, emotional, process the idea within themselves.
Introvert can be good scientists and researchers.

ii. Extrovert: People having following characteristics are extrovert. These

 are- socials, talkative, less emotional, easily makes friends, easily express their
ideas and gfrbfeelings. Extroverts propagate more knowledge and ideas to
society. They can be good reporters, actors and marketers.

iii. Ambiverts/Reserved: These are the people between introverts and

extroverts.

c) Type A and Type B:

i. Type A: Persons are those who are highly achievement oriented,

competitive feel, chronic sense of time urgency and impatient whenever their
work slow down. Type A are on fast
track of life and are more successful in reaching top slot. They

work against opposing forces. Managers in this category are hard drivers, detailed oriented
people with high performance standards. These people have difficulty in increasing cordial
interpersonal relationships and create a lot of stress for themselves and for the people they
deal with. If they have to complete a task within given deadline, they feel pressurized.
Researchers have proved that Type A personality profile lead to health problems and
specially heart related illness.

ii. Type B: These kinds of persons are easy going, no competitive drive, feel no emergency.
They are relaxed, sociable and have a balanced outlook on life. They are not over ambitious,
are more patient and take a broader view of things. In order to meet a deadline they do not
feel pressurized. They may be hardworking but feel no pressing conflict with people or time
and hence are not prone to stress and coronary problems.

4. Self-Concept Theory:

This theory is organized around the concept that the individual himself largely
determines personality and behaviour. It is also termed as organismic or field
theories, which emphasize on totality and inter relatedness of all behaviour.

There are four factors consider in self-concept theory. These area)

a) Self-Image: Every person has certain beliefs about who or what he is. The
beliefs of the individuals are the proof of self- image or self-identity. Thus self-
image is the way one sees himself.

b) Ideal Self: As discussed earlier self image indicates the realities of a person
as perceived by him, but ideal self indicates the ideal position as perceived by
him. It denotes the way one would like to be.

c) Looking glass-self: This is the way one thinks people perceive about him
and not the way people actually see him. It is the perception of a person about
how others perceive his qualities and characteristics. It is a social product,
which emerges from face-to-face interaction with others from the very
beginning of life. This interaction directs how others see him as an individual.
d) Real Self: This is what one actually is. An individual self- image is
confirmed when other persons response to him,