Personality in organisational Behaviour

                PERSONALITY 

Meaning and Definition of Personality

The term personality has been derived from Latin word 'personare', which means 'to speak through'. Personality means how people affect others and how they understand and view themselves, as well as their pattern of inner and outer measurable traits and the person-situation interaction. Personality is used in terms of influencing others through external appearance.

Sum total of ways in which an individual reacts and interacts with others.

Personality is an internalized system which includes all those aspects of a person that are inherited as well as those that are learned. These two internal aspects are interdependent and cannot be isolated.

According to Schiffman and Kanuk, "Personality can be defined as those inner psychological characteristics that both determine and reflect how a person responds to his or her environment".

According to Gordon Allport, "Personality is the dynamic organisation within the individual and consists of those psychophysical systems that determine his unique adjustments to his environment".

According to Ruch, Personality should include: 

1) External appearance and behaviour or social stimulus value;

2) Inner awareness of self as a permanent organizing force; and 

3) The particular pattern or organisation of measurable traits, both inner and outer.

Characteristics of Personality

Personality has some basic characteristics which are as follows:

1) Personality Reflects Individual Differences: Because the inner characteristics that constitute an individual's personality are a unique combination of factors, no two individuals are exactly alike. Nevertheless, many individuals tend to be similar in terms of a single personality characteristic. For instance, many people can be described as "high"; sociability (the degree of interest they display in social or group activities, while others can be described as "low" in sociability. Personality is a useful concept because it enables us to categorize consumers into different groups on the basis of a single trait or a few traits.

2) Personality is Consistent and Enduring: An individual's personality is commonly thought to be both consistent and enduring. The stable personality suggests that it is unreasonable for marketers to attempt to change of consumers' personalities to conform to certain products. At best, they may leam which personality characteristics influence specific consumer responses and attempt to appeal to relevant traits inherent in their target group of consumer. 

Even though an individual's personality may be consistent, consumption nature behaviour often varies considerable because of psychological, socio-cultural and environmental factors that affect behaviour. 

3) Personality Can Change: Although personality tends to be consistent and enduring, it may still change under certain circumstances. For instance, an individual's personality may be altered by major life events, such as the birth of a child, the death of a loved one, a divorce, or a major career promotion.

Significance of Personality

Personality factors are extremely important in organisational settings. Often the wrong kind of personality causes undesirable tensions and worries in organisations. The costs of such tensions and worries are enormous when we interpret them from the point of view of employee-employer relations, peer relations and superior-subordinate relations. Sometimes, personality difficulties are the root cause of strikes, and often lead to turnover and job dissatisfaction. A consideration of personality differences of focal persons is important for at least three reasons:

1) Some people arouse hostility and aggression in their associates while others invoke sympathy and supportive responses because of their personality features. Likewise, some people encourage while others discourage, free and open communication in view of their personality traits as perceived by their subordinates and associates. 

2) Personality characteristics tend to produce differential emotional reactions to stress. Some people tolerate severely stressful situations while others are overwhelmed with tensions and anxieties under similar circumstances.

3) Individual personalities lead to individual differences in styles of coping with stress. When exposed to tension-producing situations, some people tend to be problem oriented, that is, to deal with the objective situations in order to eliminate their stressful characteristics. Others happen to deal with the emotional experiences, which arouses stress in them, rather than with the determinants of experience. Still others tend to deal with derivative problems, which may be created by their efforts, to cope with the stress. This may happen to project hostility on to others and thus, make easier guilt-free aggression against them. The dangers inherent in such a hostile counter attack are obvious.

Determinants of Personality 

The study of determinants of personality forms an empirical approach to personality development. Various determinants of personality have been Categorized in several ways. Various determinants can be classified into heredity. oups, and cultural factors, both physiological and psychological, which play mportant role in human personality. These factors are interrelated and interdependent. However, for the purpose of analysis, these can be classified into four broad categories; biological, family, cultural, and situational. Such ication is extremely helpful in understanding personality of people and heir behaviour in the organisations. 

1) Biological Factors: The general biological characteristics of human biological system influence the way in which human being tends to sense external event data interpretation and respond to them. The study of the biological contribution to personality can be divided into three major categories which are:

i) Heredity: It is the transmission of the qualities from ancestor to descendant through a mechanism lying primarily in the chromosomes of the germ cells. Heredity predisposes to certain physical, mental, and emotional states. It has been established through research on animals that physical and psychological characteristics can be transmitted through heredity. Such a conclusive proof is not available for human beings. Heredity plays an important role in personality. 

ii) Brain: It is the second factor, which is supposed to play role in personality. The structure of brain determines personality though role of brain in personality formation is also their. 

iii) Physical Features: Third factor of determining personality foundation is physical characteristics and rate of maturation. A person's physical features have some influence on his personality because it will influence on others and, in turn, affect his self-concept as well. In a narrow sense, personality is referred to physical features of a person. However, it is not true if take a comprehensive view of the personality.

2) Cultural Factors: Culture is traditionally considered as the major determinant of an individual's personality. The culture largely determines what a person is and what a person will learn. The culture within which a person is brought up is very important determinant of behaviour of a person.

It generally determines attitudes towards independence, aggression, competition, and co-operation. Each culture expects and trains its members to behave in the ways that are acceptable to the group.

Culture is the underlying determinant in decision-making. It generally determines attitudes towards independence, aggression, competition, and cooperation. The personality of an individual to a marked extent is determined by the culture in which he is brought up.

Culture plays an important role in deciding and developing the human personality. Many cultural factors have a direct impact on the personality of an individual. This is because one has to develop his personality within the cultural framework to which it is subjected. Culture may be defined as the sum total of knowledge, beliefs, values traditions, customs, habits and moral values acquired by the people from society. Many of our personality trails and characteristics are shaped and influenced by these cultural factors. The culture of a person may have many segments which are known as sub cultures. The personality of an individual develops according to the accepted norms of that culture to which they belong. It is, therefore, the cultural background of an individual which must be taken into account for describing his personality.

3) Family and Social Factors: Development of the individual proceeded under the influence of many socializing forces and agencies, from nuclear family to more distant or global groupings. Family and social groups have most significant impact on personality development In order to understand the effects of a family on individual's personality, we have to understand the socialization process and identification process.

i) Socialization Process: The contribution of family and combination with the culture is known as socialization.

Socialization initially starts with the contact with mother and later on the other members of the family (father, sisters, and close relatives) and the social group play influential role in shaping an individual's personality. 

ii) Identification Process: Identification starts when a person begins to identify himself with some other members of the family. Normally a child tries to imitate certain actions of his parents.

4) Situational Factors: Apart from the biological, sociological, and cultural factors, situational factors also determine personality development. An individual's personality may change in different situations. The demands of different situations may call for different aspects of one's personality. Therefore, we should not look at the personality factor in isolation. Although certain generalizations can be made about personality, there existence serves significant individual differences which are further influenced by situational factors.

A situation exerts an important press on the individual. It exercises constraints and may provide push. In certain circumstances, it is not so much the kind of person a man is, as the kind not situation in which individual is placed, that determines the particular actions. For example, a worker whose personality history suggests that he had need for power and achievement may become frustrated and react apathetically and aggressively if he is put in a bureaucratized work situation. Thus he may appear lazy and troublemaker though his personality history may suggest that he is very hard working and striving to get ahead. Thus, because of this changed situation, his personality composition changes. This aspect is very important for organisational behaviour because a manager has control over the organisational situation. „Mamara Apna nawee

5) Other Factors: The other determinants which affect personality include: 

i) Temperament: Temperament and other non-intellectual personality traits are distributed according to the normal distribution. Temperament is the degree to which one responds emotionally.

ii) Interest: The individual normally has many interests in various areas. The top executives in any organisation do not have interests in common. The organisation should provide opportunities like job rotation and special training program to satisfy the interests of executives.

iii) Character: Character primarily means honesty. It is resistance to stealing and cheating others. Character is a very important requirement for responsible jobs. It is likely that an individual may not steal under normal circumstances. The situation needs to be considered to verify this part of the character of the individual.

iv) Schema: It is an individual's belief, frame of reference, perception, and attitude which the individual possesses towards the management, the job, working conditions, pay, fringe benefits, incentive system, and development programs in the organisation. It depends upon the individual's belief towards religion, government and the satisfaction derived from environment and cultural influences of his community. 

v) Motives: Motives are the inner drives of the individual. They represen goal directed behaviour of the individual. A motive is a cognitive factor which operates in determining one's behaviour towards good! Individuals differ in variables which determine the inner drives. The behaviour of an individual to accomplish the goal varies because of his inner drives. 

Assessment of Personality 

In order to take the advantage of personality characteristics of organisational members, either existing or prospective, it is desirable to assess their personality. There are many methods for assessing personality; some of the major methods in are as follows: 

1) Projective Method: There are different projective methods for measuring practice a personality. Projection method was first used by Sigmund Freud. According to him, "Projection is a defence system or process in which impulses, wishes, and ideas are externalized because their conscious recognition would be too painful to the ego." However, contemporary psychologists do not agree with this view. According to them, projections as elicited by a projective technique can actually be unpressed, conscious, acceptable, or even admirable and need not include defensive or anxiety avoidant components. A projective method of personality measurement consists of different procedures that claim to disclose the basic (underlying, hidden) personality structure and motivation of a subject by having him organize, respond to, or deal with materials or stimuli in a free, unlimited way without reference to a preconceived system of correct or incorrect answers. There are a number of projective methods for measuring personality, however, the following two methods are widely used: 

i) Rorschach Ink Blot Test: This test was developed by Herman Rorschach. A similar test has also been developed by Holtzman. Ink blot test measures the cognitive, conative, and affective aspects of personality structure. Repressed desires, feelings, motives, and ideas of unconscious mind can also be studied by the help of this test. This test contains ten standardized cards in which five cards have black and white blots and five cards have coloured blots. Every person according to his personality structure perceives various things man, animal, or any other objects in these blots. Based on this perception, the personality characteristics of the person concerned are identified. This test is quite useful in diagnosis of personality-related problems, occupation selection, etc. The reliability of this test is very high though some psychologists question the usefulness of this test.

ii) Thematic Apperception Test: Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) was designed by Murray and Morgan. According to them, TAT is based on the fact that an individual confronted with an ambiguous situation and required to make up an imaginative story is likely to project and reveal his personality in this process. There are 31 cards in this test. Out of which, semi-structured pictures are made on 30 cards while one card is left blank which contains the type of subjects whose personality is measured. On the basis of the description of various pictures, the appraiser appraises the personality characteristics of subjects. The test may be administered individually or in group. Its Indian version containing 14 pictures has also been developed. The reliability coefficien of this test is 0.91. TAT is intended to reveal the needs, conflicts, and traits that underlie the behaviour of individuals. Persona to Behaviour of individuals.

2) Personality Inventories: Inventory is a term which is normally used to counting of tangible objects like raw materials or finished products. However, when personality inventories are used as measurement techniques, they take both external and internal features of the individuals. While external features can be measured by observations, for measuring internal features, various questionnaires and other techniques are used. Some of the major personality inventories are as follows:

i) Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI): Developed by Hathway Makinly, MMPI contains 550 items with each item having three alternative answers true, false, and not known. Scoring is done on the basis of answers provided by the individuals. Based on scores, personality features are ascertained.

ii) Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaires (16PFQ): Developed by Cattell, this test measures 16 personality traits which are relatively free to each other. The scores obtained are analyzed by using factor analysis and personality traits are determined accordingly. Based on various personality inventories, Indian psychologists have developed their Indian version especially to measure personality traits like adjustment, anxiety, emotional maturity, id power, self-enlightenment, self-concept, selfrespect, and other aspects.

3) Interview Method: Interview is a formal, in-depth conversation conducted to evaluate the personality characteristics of persons. There are two types of interview for measuring personality-exhaustive and stress. Exhaustive interview is semi-structured and involves questions on various dimensions of L personality. The basic idea behind this interview is to get maximum possible 3 information about the individual concerned so as to assess his personality completely. Stress interview aims at finding out how the individual behaves in stressful situations. In stress interview, the interviewer creates stressful situation. This situation may be created in a number of ways-by asking questions too frequently, criticizing the individual, interrupting him frequen dropping some object on the floor and asking him to pick it up, and so on. The basic idea is to annoy, embarrass, and frustrate the individual deliberately and observing his behaviour under the situation. Based on this, his personality is assessed. Interview is a better method of measuring personality as it provides opportunity for face-to-face interaction between personality assessor and the individual whose personality is being assessed. However, it requires high skilled person to conduct the interview.

4) Case History Method: In the case history method, the personality appraiser appraises the personality characteristics of an individual based on the collected from different sources. These sources include individual's personal letters, diaries, other documents, his family members information and relatives, friendship and work groups, institutions, etc. The information so collected is analyzed and the personality of the individual is assessed. This method of personality assessment is used generally by psychiatrists for the treatment of abnormal persons. Though this method is not very scientific and lacks control in information collection, this can be very effective if the psychiatrists concerned are properly trained.

5) Observation Method: In the observation method of personality assessment, personality characteristics of an individual are assessed by observing his behaviour in different situations. The basic idea behind this method is that the behavioural pattern of any person reflects his personality and the assessment of this overt behavioural pattern will provide clue about his personality. This method is very effective when the observers are fully trained to relate behavioural pattern with personality. In fact, many personality traits have been established on the basis of observations alone.