Personality and Values
Dr. Burcu Tosun
PERSONALITY
What is Personality?
• Personality is a dynamic concept describing the
growth and development of a person’s whole
psychological system;
• It looks at some aggregate whole that is greater
than the sum of the parts.
• Personality is the sum total of ways in which an
individual reacts to and interacts with others.
Personality
• The combination of characteristics or qualities
that form an individual's distinctive character.
• Totality of an individual's behavioral and
emotional characteristics.
How is Personality Measured?
• Managers can use personality tests because they are useful
in hiring decisions and help managers forecast who is best
for a job.
• Two commons forms used to measure personality are:
Self Reporting and Observer Rating
• The most common means of measuring personality is
through self-report surveys.
• Observer-ratings surveys provide an independent assessment
of personality.
How Can We Measure Personality?
Self Reporting
Surveys where individuals evaluate themselves on a series of
factors.
Works well when the survey questions are well constructed
Respondents lie, Manage Impressions in hiring tests and
tend to share more accurate responses for self awareness
Observer Rating
An observer or a co-worker does the rating (with or without
the subject’s knowledge)
Better Predictor of success on the job
Observers can be biased
Using both observer ratings and self report ratings of personality for important
employment decisions is the best approach
Assessing the Unconscious -- Rorschach
Rorschach Inkblot Test
– the most widely used projective test
– a set of 10 inkblots designed
by Hermann Rorschach
Rorschach
Assessing the Unconscious -- Rorschach
used to identify people’s inner feelings by analyzing
their interpretations of the blots
Assessing the Unconscious -- TAT
Thematic Apperception
Test (TAT)
People express their inner
motives through the stories
they make up about
ambiguous scenes.
Personality Tests Can help in;
1. Division
2. Selection
3. Succession Planning
4. Career Planning
5. Team Building
6. Management Development
Personality Determinants
• 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
– There is some personality change over long time
periods
Personality Determinants
• Environment:
Culture establishes the norms, attitudes and values that
plays an important role in shaping our personality.
• Situation:
Situation influences the effects of heredity and
environment.
Testing Personality
• Two Frameworks are dominantly used at the
workplace to measure Personality:
• The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
• The Big Five Model
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
MBTI is a 100 question personality test, a self report that asks
an individual how they feel in a particular situation.
Most widely used instrument in the world.
Extraverted (E) vs Sensing (S) vs
Introverted (I) Intuitive (N)
Thinking (T) vs Judging (J) vs
Feeling (F) Perceiving (P)
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
• Respondents are classified under any of the 4 terms.
• These classifications together describe 16 personality
types, identifying every individual by one trait from each of
the 4 pairs.
• For example, an Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking and
Judging (INTJ) person is a visionary with an original mind
and great drive.
• Extraverted, Sensing, Thinking & Judging (ESTJ) are
organizers, realistic, analytical, logical and often are a
natural for business or mechanics
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
Weakness
• Research and empirical evidence is clearly against using
MBTI as a measuring tool to make hiring decisions at the
workplace
• It forces every individual into one type or another.
• In reality, people can be both extraverted or introverted to
some degree.
• Hence MBTI is a reliable tool only for self awareness and
providing career guidance and not for making crucial hiring
decisions or to predict individual effectiveness in a job.
The Big Five Personality Model
Big Five Personality Model
• Extroversion
• Sociable, friendly, and assertive (quite, shy and timid)
• Agreeableness
• Good-natured, cooperative, and trusting. (cold, disagreeable, antagonist)
• Conscientiousness
• Responsible, dependable, persistent, and organized. (distracted, disorganized)
• Emotional Stability
• Calm, self-confident, secure (nervous, anxious, depressive and insecure)
• Openness to Experience
• Imaginative,, sensitive, creative and curious
(Conventional, comfortable only with familiar environment)
Big Five Personality Model
How the Big Five traits predict behavior at work?
Major
Major Personality
Personality Attributes
Attributes Influencing
Influencing OB
OB
Core Self-evaluation
Machiavellianism
Narcissism
Self-monitoring
Risk taking
Proactive Personality
Core Self-Evaluation
Other personality traits influence OB
The degree to which people like or dislike themselves.
• People who have positive core self-evaluations like themselves and see
themselves as effective, capable, and in control of their environment.
• Those with negative core self-evaluations tend to dislike themselves,
question their capabilities, and view themselves as powerless over their
environment.
• Core self-evaluations relate to job satisfaction because people positive on
this trait see more challenge in their job and actually attain more complex jobs.
Machiavellianism
Machiavellianism
Machiavellianism (Mach)
Degree to which an individual is pragmatic,
maintains emotional distance, and believes that
ends can justify means.
“If it works, use it” is consistent with a high-Mach
perspective.
Unethical behaviors are acceptable, even
necessary, if it helps attain goals or protect political
position.
Narcissism
Other personality traits influence OB
• An arrogant, entitled, self-important person who needs
excessive admiration. Less effective in their jobs.
• Narcissists are more charismatic and thus more likely to emerge
as leaders, and they may even display better psychological health.
• Narcissists also tend to be selfish and exploitive and believe others
exist for their benefit.
Other personality traits influence OB
Self-Monitoring
• An individual’s ability to adjust his or her behavior to
external, situational factors.
• Individuals high in self-monitoring show considerable
adaptability in adjusting their behavior to external
situational factors.
• Low self-monitors tend to display their true dispositions
and attitudes in every situation
Other personality
Risk traits
Takinginfluence OB
• People differ in their willingness to take chances, a quality
that affects how much time and information they need to
make a decision.
• High risk-taking managers make more rapid decisions,
use less information than the low risk takers and operate
in smaller and more entrepreneurial organizations.
• Low risk-taking managers are slower to make decisions,
use more information than the high risk takers and exist in
larger organizations with stable environments.
Proactivetraits
Other personality Personality
influence OB
• Proactive people actively take the initiative to improve
their current circumstances or create new ones.
• They identify opportunities, show initiative, take action,
and persevere until meaningful change occurs, compared
to others who passively react to situations.
• Proactives are more likely than others to achieve career
• success.
• They select, create, and influence work situations in their
favors.