PERSONALITY AND MEASUREMENT

Background
Definition of Personality was proposed by Gordon Allport nearly 70 years ago. The word personality
is derived from a Greek word “persona” which means “to speak through.” Personality is the
combination of characteristics or qualities that forms a person's unique identity. It signifies the
role which a person plays in public.

Definition
The sum of total ways in which an individual reacts and interacts with others, the measurable traits a
person exhibits.

Every individual has unique, personal and major determinants of his behavior that defines
his/her personality. Personality plays a key role in organizational behavior because the way that people
think, feel, and behave affects many aspects of the workplace. People's personalities influence their
behavior in groups, their attitudes, and the way they make decisions. Interpersonal skills hugely affect
the way that people act and react to things during work. In the workplace, personality also affects such
things as motivation, leadership, performance, and conflict. The more that manager understands how
personality in organizational behavior works, the better equipped they are to be effective and
accomplish their goals.

Measurement of Personality
The most popular way of measuring traits is by administering personality tests on which people
self-report about their own characteristics. Psychologists have investigated hundreds of traits
using the self-report approach, and this research has found many personality traits that have
important implications for behavior. For measuring personality we focus on traits, such as
extraversion, to test if scores on a test of that trait either relate to or predict aspects of
organizational behavior such as work commitment, job satisfaction, and employee honesty.
Organizations identify such personality traits while recruiting and matching the profile of
prospective employees. Second, judgmental processes are important in the measured validity
of a personality scale, since most assessments of behavior are based on judgments made by a
supervisor or another colleague .Third; statistical influences on criterion-related validity include
the reliability of scales, the variance of scores, and so on. One statistical impact arises from the
pattern of correlations between a focal personality trait and other traits, which are themselves
associated with the behavior under investigation; the focal trait sometimes predicts behavior
indirectly through other personality features.
THE BIG FIVE PERSONALITY MODEL
History of big five traits
Several independent set of researchers discovered and defined the five broad

Factors based on empirical, data-driven research. Ernest Tupes and Raymond

Cristal advanced the initial model, based on work done at the U.S. Air

force personal laboratory in the late 1950's. J.M. Didman proposed

big five factors model of personality in 1990 and Goldman extended

it to the highest level of organization in 1993. In a personality test, the

five factor

model; and the global factors of personality may also be used to reference the Big

Five traits

Explanation
Human resources
professionals often use the
Big Five personality
dimensions to help place
employees. That is because
these dimensions are
considered to be the
underlying traits that make
up an individual’s overall
personality. The Big Five
traits are Openness,
Conscientiousness,
Extroversion,
Agreeableness, and Neuroticism or OCEAN:

 Openness - People who like to learn new things and enjoy new experiences usually score high in
openness. Openness includes traits like being insightful and imaginative and having a wide variety of
interests.
 Conscientiousness - People that have a high degree of conscientiousness are reliable and
prompt. Traits include being organized, methodic, and thorough.
 Extraversion - Extraverts get their energy from interacting with others, while introverts
get their energy from within themselves. Extraversion includes the traits of energetic,
talkative, and assertive.
 Agreeableness - These individuals are friendly, cooperative, and compassionate. People
with low agreeableness may be more distant. Traits include being kind, affectionate, and
sympathetic.
 Neuroticism - Neuroticism is also sometimes called Emotional Stability. This dimension
relates to one’s emotional stability and degree of negative emotions. People that score high
on neuroticism often experience emotional instability and negative emotions. Traits include
being moody and tense.

Human resources professionals often use the Big Five personality dimensions to help place
employees. That is because these dimensions are considered to be the underlying traits
that make up an individual's overall personality.

Influence of 5 BIG TRAITS ON OB

The researchers looked at the relationship between personality traits and three work performance
criteria: whether an employee is able to complete their work to satisfaction, how often an
employee goes above and beyond at work, and how often they engage in negative behaviors.
Again, conscientiousness and agreeableness came out on top. In the analysis, conscientiousness
was the trait most closely associated with overall job performance, with agreeableness coming in
second. The researchers also analyzed data indicating the specific skills and qualities needed to
be successful at over a thousand different jobs, drawn from a Department of Labor database
called O*NET. They wanted to find out which of the Big Five personality traits are most often
cited as important qualities for success across the entire American workforce. The researchers
found that overall attributes related to conscientiousness, agreeableness, and emotional stability
were considered important for a wide variety of jobs from construction to health care. “In
conclusion, our findings provide robust evidence that attributes related to Conscientiousness and
Agreeableness are highly important for workforce readiness across a variety of occupations that
require a variety of training and experience qualifications,” write Sackett and Wellesley.
Although conscientiousness is, on average, the most highly valued attribute, the researchers
caution that specific occupations may have different rankings for personality traits. However,
Sackett and Walmsley also advise that knowing which traits are highly valued generally could be
helpful information for students or people who haven’t yet decided on specific career goals
VALUES AND ITS IMPRTANCE

Values
Values are one of the major forces which shape the behavior of individuals.

The concept of values was given by Rokeach.

Definition
Basic conviction that specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally or
socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-state of existence.

Values are usually shaped by many different internal and external influences, including family,
traditions, culture, and, more recently, media and the Internet. A person will filter all of these
influences and meld them into a unique value set that may differ from the value sets of others in
the same culture. Values are thought to develop in various stages during a person's upbringing,
and they remain relatively consistent as children mature into adults. Sociologist Morris Massey
outlines three critical development periods for an individual's value system:

 Imprint period (birth to age seven): Individuals begin establishing the template for what
will become their own values.
 Modeling period (ages eight to thirteen): The individual's value template is sculpted and
shaped by parents, teachers, and other people and experiences in the person's life
 Socialization period (ages thirteen to twenty-one): An individual fine-tunes values
through personal exploration and comparing and contrasting with other people's behavior.

Importance of values
 Values generally influence attitudes and behavior.
 Values are the part of culture.
 It is important to study the organization behavior because they lay foundation of
people attitudes and motivation.
 Represent the interpretation of right and wrong.
 They imply that certain behavior or outcomes are preferred over others.

holland typology of personality and congruent occupation

The Holland Codes or the Holland Occupational Themes (RIASEC)

refers to a theory of careers and vocational choice

(based upon personality types) that was initially developed by American

Psychologist John L. Holland (1919-2008), Professor Emeritus of Sociology at

Johns Hopkins University.

John Holland created a hexagonal model that shows the relationship between the personality
types and environments.

 . Realistic [R]: A realistic person

prefers concrete tasks. He or she
likes working alone or with other
realistic people.
 Investigative [I]: Someone who is
investigative likes to use his or her
abstract or analytical skills to figure
things out. He or she is a “thinker”
who strives to complete tasks and
often prefers to do so
independently.
 Artistic [A]: The artistic members of
our society like to create things.
They are imaginative and usually
extroverted.
 Social [S]: A social person prefers
interacting with people. He or she
tends to be concerned with social
problems and wants to help others.
 Enterprising [E]: Those who are enterprising lean toward leadership roles. They are
willing to take on challenges and are extroverted. They can be aggressive as well.
 Conventional [C]: Someone who is conventional prefers structured tasks and tending to
details. He or she is often conservative.

Summary of Holland's theory: 1 In our culture, most people are one of

six personality types: Realistic, investigative, artistic, social enterprising, conventional.
Some refer to these as HOLLAND codes or RIASEC

2 People of the same personality type working together create a work

environment that fits their type. For example, when Artistic persons are together
 on a job, they create a work environment that rewards creative thinking and
behavior -- an Artistic environment.
3 There are six basic types of work environments: Realistic, investigative, artistic,
social, enterprising, conventional. "Work" includes doing things to achieve a
purpose, like paid and unpaid jobs, volunteering, sports, or hobbies.
4 People search for environments where they can use their skills and abilities and
express their values and attitudes. For example, Investigative types search for
Investigative environments; Artistic types look for Artistic environments, and so
forth.
People who choose to work in an environment similar to their personality type are
more likely to be successful and satisfied. For example, Artistic people are more likely
to be successful and satisfied if they choose a job that has an Artistic environment, like
choosing to be a dance teacher in a dancing.

I
 ASSIGNMENT TOPIC:
PERSONALITY AND
VALUES

SUBMITTED TO: ………………MAM FAIZA ………………………………

SUBMITTED BY: ……………………YASMIN FAIZ………………………

SUBJECT: …..…ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR ………

DEPARTMENT: ……………………MBA……………………………………

SEMESTER: …………………………2ND …………………………………

DATE …………….…25/11/2016……………………………