ABAARSO TECH UNIVERSITY
(Berbera Campus)
Course: Organizational Behaviour
Senior Lecturer:
Mohamed Mohamoud Duale (Akram)
Chapter Two
Personality And Perception
MEANING AND DEFINITION OF PERSONALITY
The word personality has been derived from the Latin word 'per sona'
which are translated as " to speak through”. Personality is the
combination of characteristics or qualities that forms a person’s unique
identity
NB: Every individual has a unique, personal and major determinant of
his behavior that defines his/her personality.
Personality trait is basically influenced by two major features:
1) Inherited characteristics
2) Learned characteristics
Inherited Characteristics
The features an individual acquires from their parents or forefathers,
in other words the gifted features an individual possesses by birth is
considered as inherited characteristics. It consists of the following
features −
➢ Color of a person’s eye
➢ Religion/Race of a person
➢ Shape of the nose
➢ Shape of earlobes
Learned Characteristics
Nobody learns everything by birth. First, our school is our home,
then our society, followed by educational institutes.
The characteristics an individual acquires by observing, practicing,
and learning from others and the surroundings is known as
learned characteristics.
Cont.…
Learned characteristics
includes the following features:
❑ Perception − Result of different senses like feeling, hearing etc.
❑ Values − Influences perception of a situation, decision making
process.
❑ Personality − Patterns of thinking, feeling, understanding and
behaving.
❑ Attitude − Positive or negative attitude like expressing one’s
thought.
" According to Gordon Allport, personality is " the dynamic
organization within the individual of those psychological systems that
determine his unique adjustments to his environment."
On the basis of these definitions it may be said there are two main
approaches to the study of personality:
(1) The psychological
(2) The sociological.
DETERMINANTS OF PERSONALITY
The following factors determine the personality of an individual:
Biological
Cultural Factors
Factors Family Factors
Situational
Social Factors
Factors
Personality is divided into different levels of awareness
Conscious: Thoughts a person is currently aware of
Preconscious: Retrievable information
Unconscious: Thoughts that cannot be easily brought into
awareness
Except under extreme situations
THEORIES OF PERSONALITY
Freud’s Theory
Sigmund Freud is considered the founder of modern psychology
(1853-1932). He is the author of the most important theories in
psychology at all. The most famous of these theories is the
psychological theory of personality, The id, ego, and superego are
the three elements of personality described by Sigmund Freud in his
theory of personality. According to Freud, the interaction of these
three parts of the personality influences how people think and
behave.
What Is the Id?
The id controls all of a person’s instinctual behaviors. Since the id is
primitive and instinctual, it operates on an unconscious level.
Also, it is guided by what Freud referred to as the PLEASURE
PRINCIPLE. The pleasure principle works to pursue the immediate
gratification of any need or desire that a person has. For example,
feelings of hunger produce an immediate desire for food. When these
needs are not met, people may experience feelings of anxiety, tension,
or unease.
What Is the Ego?
Freud described the ego as a part of personality that allows the id’s
desires to be expressed in a realistic and acceptable way. The ego
develops from the id, but has been modified by the influence of the
real world.
It operates on what Freud described as the REALITY PRINCIPLE. Where the
id’s demands are unconscious, unrealistic, or unacceptable, the ego’s goal is
to fulfill those desires in a way that accounts for reality. This means assessing
the situation and weighing the pros and cons of taking action.
Freud compared the relationship of the ego
and id to that of a rider and horse. The horse is
the powerful force that propels the two forward,
but the rider controls the direction and
course that they follow.
Cont.…
Ego
For example, if you are tired, the ego would keep you from taking a
nap until you are home in a bed instead of drifting off in the middle
of the work day.
What Is the Superego?
The superego is part of personality that strives for moral behavior. It
is made up of all the internalized beliefs, values, and morals that
people learn from their parents and their society. Freud described as
the MORAL PRINCIPLE It is the last component of personality to form
and usually begins to emerge sometime between the ages of three
and five.
The superego plays a vital role in decision-making and
judgments.
The superego operates on the morality principle and
motivates us to behave in a socially responsible and
acceptable manner.
Freud suggested that the superego is made up of two
components:
The conscience: This part of the superego is concerned with things
considered bad, inappropriate, or immoral. Doing things that go
against the conscience can trigger negative consequences, such as
being punished or experiencing a sense of guilt.
The ego ideal: This is the idealized self that an individual aspires to.
In other words, it is what we believe we should be doing, how we feel
we should behave, and how we think we should treat others.
Cont.…
The goal of the superego is to suppress the primitive urges of the
id. If the superego had its way, you would live up to the high
idealistic standards without ever giving into the urges and demands
of the primal id.
How the Id, Ego, and Superego Interact
The id, ego, and superego don’t function separately and
independently. Instead, they overlap and interact in various ways to
influence how people think, feel, and behave.
These forces are dynamic and always shifting. Sometimes the
demands of the id might take precedence. In other cases, it might be
the superego that takes the lead. In every situation, the ego
serves as the mediator trying to strike a balance between the
demands of the id, the superego, and reality.
Examples of the Id, Ego, and Superego
Here are some common examples of the id, ego, and superego in
action:
Eating a piece of cake:
❑ The id: I want to eat the cake because it looks delicious and I feel
hungry.
❑ The superego: I shouldn’t eat the cake because it’s unhealthy
and goes against my diet.
❑ The ego: I can eat a small piece of cake as a treat, but I will
balance it out by eating healthy for the rest of the day.
Self Theory
If we stop thinking about other people’s behaviour, we become
conscious of our own person, our feelings, our attitudes and perhaps
of feeling or responsibility of our actions in relation to oneself and
others. This phenomenon has led to “Self Theory”. Self, according to
Clifford T. Morgan has two distinct sets of meanings:
1) People’s attitude about themselves, their traits and abilities, the
impact they could make on others, their plus and minus points. This
includes what may be stated as self concept or self image. Self
concept or self image relates definitely to one’s attitudes, feelings,
perceptions and evaluation of self.
(ii) The other relates to psychological processes through which an
individual thinks, remembers, perceives, manages and plans.
There are four factors of self concept:
1)Self Image: Self image is the way one sees oneself. Every person
has certain beliefs about who or what he is, taken together, these
beliefs are a person’s self image or identity.
2)Ideal Self: The ideal self denotes the way one would like to be,
There may be a gap between these two images because self image
indicates the reality of a person as perceived by him and ideal self
indicates the ideal position as perceived by him.
3)Looking Glass Self: Looking glass self is the perception of other’s
perception. It is the way one thinks people perceive about him and the
way people actually see him.
4)Real Self: The real self is what one really is. The first three
aspects of self concept are the perceptions and they may be same or
different, as the real self.
PERSONALITY
The term ‘personality’ is derived from the Latin word ‘persona’
which means a mask.
According to K. Young, “Personality is a patterned body of habits,
traits, attitudes and ideas of an individual.”
G. W. Allport defined it as “a person’s pattern of habits, attitudes,
and traits which determine his adjustment to his environment.”
NATURE OF PERSONALITY
Personality is a dynamic whole
Personality measures behavior
Outcome interaction
Motive Force
Factors Influencing development of Personality
Factors influencing development of
personality
Biological or
Environmental Psychological Situational
Hereditary
Social, Cultural, Mental
Physique,
Intelligence, Geographical, Development,
Family will power,
Gender
Environment attitude,
Relationship between Personality and Organizational
Behavior
The study of personality has a significant impact on Organizational
behavior. If an entrepreneur wants to run his business organization
successfully and smoothly, then it is very essential to understand
the key components of personality traits. To understand the concept
of human behavior, one needs to understand the different concepts
of personality. And study of human behavior itself included in the
study of Organizational behavior. Many decisions are taken in an
organization in which personality and their traits play a significant
role, it can be shown in the following diagram:
Matching Job with people
Determining Control System
Determining Motivation System
DETERMINANTS OF PERSONALITY
Biological Factors
Heredity
Brain
Physical features
Environment Personality
Family Factors
Socialization Process
Identification Process
Cultural Factors
Situational Factors
PERCEPTUAL PROCESS
Selecting
Receiving
Organizing Interpreting
PERCEPTUAL ERRORS
Halo Selective
effect Perception
Stereotyping Primacy
effect
Ways of overcoming or strategies for improving perceptual
skills
1) Knowing oneself accurately
Cont.…
2)Empathize with others
3) Have a positive attitude
4)Communicating openly
Thank You
CHAPTER TWO
END
MMD