This document discusses personality and different models for understanding it. It describes the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) which sorts people into four dichotomous dimensions. It also discusses the Big Five model of personality which looks at extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness. While these frameworks provide insight, no single model can fully capture a person's personality. Situational factors also influence behavior.

1. What Makes Me… Be Me?
Personality
&
Emotions

2. What is Personality?

3. What is Personality?
• Combination of psychological traits we use to
classify a person.
• What is a trait?
– Traits refer to broad, relatively regular dimensions
of individual behavior
• Pervin, L.A., (2002), Current Controversies and Issues
in Personality, 3rd ed., Wiley, New York

4. EE
• MBTI
• Strengths
• Big 5 Model

5. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
(MBTI)
• Most widely used personality assessment
• 100 question personality test
• Classified in 4 dichotomous dimensions

6. Dimensions of MBTI
• Extroverted (E) or Introverted (I)
– How the individual interacts socially
• Sensing (S) or Intuitive (N)
– How people prefer to collect information
• Thinking (T) or Feeling (F)
– How people evaluate information
• Judging (J) or Perceiving (P)
– How people like to make decisions

7. • Extroverted: outgoing, social, assertive
• Introverted: quiet, shy
• Sensing: practical, prefer routine and order
• iNtuitive: unconscious processes, big picture
• Thinking: reason, logic
• Feeling: rely on personal values and emotions
• Judging: want control, order, structure
• Perceiving: flexible, spontaneous

8. So, does MBTI work?

9. So, does MBTI work?
• Used a lot
• We combine the variables and describe what
they are like

10. Is MBTI a valid measure of personality?

11. Is MBTI a valid measure of personality?
• Evidence is mixed
• Valuable tool for self awareness
• Useful in career guidance
• MBTI results tend to be UNRELATED to job
performance
• Should not be used as a selection tool

12. Strengths
• Marcus Buckhaming
• Gallup
• An Inventory
– To Find Your 5 greatest strengths
– Will not tell you any others
• A year
• Some training

13. What can be used ?
• 5 Factor Model of Personality
– Impressive body of research supports 5
dimensions
• Extroversion:
– Comfort level with relationships

14. • Extroversion: Comfort level with relationships
• Extroverts: gregarious, assertive, sociable
• Introverts: reserved, timid, quiet
• Agreeableness: propensity to defer to others
• High agreeable: cooperative, warm, trusting
• Low agreeable: cold, disagreeable antagonistic
• Conscientiousness: measure of reliability
• High conscientious: responsible, organized dependable, persistent
• Low conscientious: easily distracted, disorganized, unreliable
• Emotional Stability: ability to withstand stress
• Positive scores: calm, self-confident, secure
• Negative scores: nervous, anxious, depressed, insecure
• Openness to Experience: range of interests & fascination
with novelty
• Open People: creative, curious, artistically sensitive
• Closed People: conventional, comfort in the familiar

15. Quick Results
• Conscientiousness
– Only one that was predictive of job performance
• All others predictive ability is dependent upon
– Performance criterion
– Occupational group

16. Other important Personality
Dimensions
• Locus of Control?
• Machiavellianism?
• Self-Esteem?
• Self-Monitoring?
• Risk Propensity?
• Type “A” Personality?

17. Do these frameworks transfer to other
cultures?

18. Do these frameworks transfer to other
cultures?
• Yes
• No common personality types for a given
country
• Country’s history and attitudes impact the
percentages of certain personality types
• Where materialism is less revered – less proportion of
type “A”s

19. Can you match jobs and personality
types?

21. Are Traits a good OB?
• Many relationships between traits and
behavior are moderate, at best
• Labeling people according to their personality
profile or type can result in self-fulfilling
prophecy
• Knowing a person’s score on a test can impact
how others’ perceive that individual

22. Interactionist Models
• Hypothesize personality is important factor in
behavior
• Argue situational factors can powerfully shape
behavior

23. Conditional Reasoning Approach
• Individuals interpret what happens in
environment based on their mental maps
• How they
– Frame the world
– Motives
– Assumptions they make regarding events
• Create different justification mechanisms to adjust to
environment

24. Cognitive-Affective Processing System
(CAPS)
• Personality -- mental representations of:
• people and situations,
• goals,
• expectancies,
• memories,
• feelings
• Difference in content --how accessible they are
• How they related to one another
• Affected by array of factors
• Genetic,
• cultural,
• societal,
• developmental

25. Why is this important?
• Because the mix of people in an organization
make a difference. (Read Tipping Point by
Malcomb Gladwell to view the difference one
or two of the right people can make.)
• Having some insight into others – provides us
with opportunities to influence.
• If we understand ourselves we can make
better decisions for ourselves.