2. Organizational Behavior
2
What is Personality?
People differ from
each other in
meaningful ways
People seem to
show some
consistency in
behavior
Personality is defined as distinctive and
relatively enduring ways of thinking,
feeling, and acting
3. What is Personality?
Organizational Behavior
3
The dynamic organization within the individual of those
psychophysical systems that determine his unique
adjustments to his environment. - Gordon Allport.
The sum total of ways in which an individual reacts and
interacts with others, the measurable traits a person exhibits
Measuring Personality
Helpful in hiring decisions
Most common method: self-reporting surveys
Observer-ratings surveys provide an independent
assessment of personality
4. Organizational Behavior
4
Personality
•Personality refers to a person’s unique and
relatively stable pattern of thoughts, feelings, and
actions
•Personality is an interaction between biology and
environment
•Genetic studies suggest heritability of personality
•Other studies suggest learned components of
personality
6. Personality Determinants
Organizational Behavior
6
Heredity
◦ Factors determined at conception: physical stature, facial
attractiveness, gender, temperament, muscle composition
and reflexes, energy level, and bio-rhythms
◦ This “Heredity Approach” argues that genes are the source of
personality
◦ Twin studies: raised apart but very similar personalities
◦ Parents don’t add much to personality development
◦ There is some personality change over long time periods
7. Organizational Behavior
7
The Big Five Model
• Openness to experience: Addresses ones range of
interests and fascination with novelty. A personality
dimension that characterizes someone in terms of
imagination ,sensitivity and curiosity.
• Conscientiousness: This dimension is a measure of
reliability. A personality dimension that characterizes
someone who is responsible, dependable, persistent
and organized.
• Extroversion: This dimension captures one’s comfort
level with relationships. A personality dimension that
characterizes someone who is sociable , gregarious
and assertive.
8. Organizational Behavior
8
The Big Five Model (contd.)
• Agreeableness : This dimension refers to an
individual’s propensity to defer to others. A personality
dimension that characterizes someone who is good-
natured, cooperative and trusting.
• Emotional Stability : This dimension refers To a
person’s ability to withstand stress. A personality
dimension that characterizes someone as calm, self-
confident , secure (positive) versus nervous , depressed
and insecure.
10. What would you do….
You are applying for the job of sales associate. You
have just found out that you will be given a personality
assessment as part of the application process. You
feel that this job requires someone who is very high in
extraversion, and someone who can handle stress
well. You are relatively sociable and can cope with
some stress but honestly you are not very high in
either trait. The job pays well and it is a great stepping-
stone to better jobs. How are you going to respond
when completing the personality questions? Are you
going to make an effort to represent yourself as how
you truly are? If so, there is a chance that you may not
get the job. How about answering the questions to fit
Organizational Behavior
10
11. Organizational Behavior
11
Five-Factor Personality and
Organizational Behavior
Conscientiousness and emotional stability
• Motivational components of personality
• Strongest personality predictors of performance
Extroversion
• Linked to sales and mgt performance
• Related to social interaction and persuasion
Agreeableness
• Effective in jobs requiring cooperation and
helpfulness
Openness to experience
• Linked to higher creativity and adaptability to
change
12. How Do the Big Five Traits Predict
Behavior?
Organizational Behavior
12
Research has shown this to be a better framework.
Certain traits have been shown to strongly relate to
higher job performance:
◦ Highly conscientious people develop more job
knowledge, exert greater effort, and have better
performance.
◦ Other Big Five Traits also have implications for work.
Emotional stability is related to job satisfaction.
Extroverts tend to be happier in their jobs and
have good social skills.
Open people are more creative and can be good
leaders.
Agreeable people are good in social settings.
13. Other Key Personality Traits
Organizational Behavior
13
Locus of control - Belief that life is controlled by oneself
vs. outsiders
Machiavellianism - Tendency to manipulate and
maintain emotional distance
Self-esteem - Degree one likes or dislikes oneself
Self-monitoring - Sensitive to external cues to behave
differently
Risk propensity - Willingness to take chances
Type A personality - Incessantly struggling to achieve
more
14. Organizational Behavior
14
LOCUS OF CONTROL
• A person’s perception of the source of his
or her fate is termed as locus of control.
• Internals are those who believe that they
control what happens to them.
• Externals are individuals who believe that
what happens to them is controlled by
outside forces such as luck or chance.
16. Organizational Behavior
16
• Core Self-Evaluation
– The degree to which people like or dislike themselves
– Positive self-evaluation leads to higher job performance
• Machiavellianism
– A pragmatic, emotionally distant power-player who believes
that ends justify the means.
– High Machs are manipulative, win more often, and
persuade more than they are persuaded. Flourish when:
• Have direct interaction
• Work with minimal rules and regulations
• Emotions distract others
• Narcissism
– An arrogant, entitled, self-important
person who needs excessive admiration.
– Less effective in their jobs.
17. Organizational Behavior
17
Self-Monitoring Assessment
• You are a new sales person and just made a
huge sale and are very excited. You run into
your boss’s office and start to tell her but she
keeps looking at the computer. You…
a. Keep telling her about the sale excitedly –
you know she wants to know.
b. Say, “I’m sorry, did I catch you at a bad
time?”
18. Organizational Behavior
18
Self-Monitoring
Behavior based on cues from people & situations
High self-monitors
flexible: adjust
behavior according to
the situation and the
behavior of others
can appear
unpredictable &
inconsistent
Low self-monitors
act from internal states
rather than from
situational cues
show consistency
less likely to respond
to work group norms or
supervisory feedback
19. Organizational Behavior
19
• Type A Personality
– Aggressively involved in a chronic, incessant
struggle to achieve more in less time
• Impatient: always moving, walking, and eating
rapidly
• Strive to think or do two or more things at once
• Cannot cope with leisure time
• Obsessed with achievement numbers
– Type B people are the complete opposite
• Proactive Personality
– Identifies opportunities, shows initiative, takes
action, and perseveres to completion
– Creates positive change in the environment
22. Organizational Behavior
22
Implications for Managers
Personality
–Match personality types with compatible jobs
–Can be difficult to separate personality from
culture
–Personality measures widely used but poorly
understood
23. Personality Assessment
Organizational Behavior
23
Projective measures give the subject an
abstract or unstructured stimulus
Inkblot or incomplete sentence
Requires subject to interpret the stimulus and
respond
Objective tests are standardized
questionnaires requiring written responses
Usually self-report (NEO- Big Five, MMPI-II)
Task is to answer some specified number of
questions about yourself
26. Organizational Behavior
26
Matching Personalities and jobs:
Sales Representative: This position involves calling existing
customers to ensure that they continue to be happy with your
firm’s products. The representative is expected to get customers
to buy more of your products and to attract new customers. He
must be aggressive.
Office Manager: Expected to oversee the work of a staff of twenty
secretaries, receptionists and clerks. The manager hires them,
trains them, evaluates their performance and sets their pay. The
manager also schedules working hours and when necessary
disciplines or fires workers.
Warehouse Worker: Uploads trucks and carry shipments to
shelves for storage. They also pull orders for customers from
shelves and take products for packing. The job requires that
workers follow orders precisely; there is little room for autonomy
or interaction with others during work.
27. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
Organizational Behavior
27
Most widely used instrument in the world.
Participants are classified on four axes to determine
one of 16 possible personality types, such as
Extroverted
(E)
Introverted
(I)
Sensing
(S)
Intuitive
(N)
Thinking
(T)
Feeling
(F)
Judging (J)
Perceiving
(P)
Sociable and
Assertive
Quiet and
Shy
Practical
and
Orderly
Unconscious
Processes
Use Reason
and Logic
Uses Values &
Emotions
Want Order
& Structure
Flexible and
Spontaneous
