5

THE SELF, PERSONALITY, AND OTHER INDIVIDUAL ATTRIBUTES

The Self

In modern psychology, the self is the study of a person’s cognitive, affective, and conative factors, explained in the chapter on fundamentals of behaviour. The root of the self in modern psychology is based on distinction between ‘I’ and ‘me’. ‘I’ is the subjective knower and ‘me’ is the object that is known.¹ The self is related to human motivation, cognition, affect, and social identity. It explains the conative factors such as drive, impulse, leaning, and direction of effort. The cognitive component of the self is a neural process and is not an abstract phenomenon. Although difficult to change, it is not unchangeable. Self-awareness, self-concept, and self-perception are some of the derivatives from the basic idea of self.² In the Indian philosophy, the self or the atman is a non-material entity, though it is considered to be of substantial importance. The Upanishads explain the concept of atman (see Box 5.1).³

Self-Concept and its Application ⁴

Let us recall the initiating case of Western Bakers. The manager perceives himself as a person who follows rules and the assistant manager perceives himself as a customer-friendly person. The way a person perceives oneself is called self-perception. Most of us have self-perception on many aspects of our lives. These are certain beliefs we have about ourselves. For instance, we may have a belief that we get angry too fast, we are cool, we are intelligent, we are sociable, we are customer friendly, we are rule-abiding, and so on. The collection of self-perceptions is called self-concept. Formally, self-concept can be defined as ‘a collection of beliefs about one’s own nature, unique qualities and typical behaviour’.⁵

 

Self-perception is certain beliefs about ourselves

 

Several thinkers suggest that self-concept develops in childhood and is significantly influenced by the experience of love; usually love from parents with whom the child spends its childhood. Parents provide two types of love—conditional or unconditional love. Conditional love is usually given to the child, provided the child fulfils some conditions such as exhibiting good self-hygiene habits or getting good grades, whereas unconditional love is given irrespective of these criteria.

 

Conditional and unconditional love nurture self-concept, whereas culture influences it.

 

Children block out those experiences that would make them unworthy of the parental love. Therefore, when the parent’s love is conditional, the children block out those experiences. Let us say child ‘A’ would get only conditional love, subject to getting one of the highest marks in the class and child ‘B’ would be loved irrespective of the marks. Now, let us take a situation where both of them get average marks. Child ‘A’ is likely to block out the experience of getting only average marks and perceive itself as intelligent and a high performer because it is its way of trying to get conditional love. In doing so, a gap arises between reality and perception. This is called incongruence.⁶ While incongruence takes place with everyone at times, excessive incongruence becomes dysfunctional.⁷

One of the major problems with incongruence is that it makes it difficult for a person to develop himself/herself. Can child ‘A’ who believes that it is intelligent and good in studies make a plan to improve its grades? The answer is ‘no’. Child ‘B’, on the other hand, has no such incongruence. Therefore, it has a better chance to develop itself.

Most people tend to ‘act out’ their self-perception.⁸ Thus, Child ‘A’ is likely to act as if it is intelligent and good in studies. You might have seen some children who perceive themselves as toughies, act it out on the playground. This phenomenon is called self-fulfilling prophesies. ‘Acting out’ self-perception tends to reinforce behaviour. For instance, a bully begins to bully more or an angry person acting out anger tends to get angrier. Research indicates that self-concept is influenced by culture.⁹ It evolves through adolescence and then stabilises.¹⁰

Let us examine if this phenomenon can be applied in our opening case. The manager, most probably would perceive himself as ‘even tempered’ and ‘process follower’. If Renu asks him to control his anger, he is not likely to do so because his self-concept as ‘even tempered’ would create incongruence. On the other hand, if she tells him that he is a ‘process following’ person, he is likely to accept it with ease, as it fits his self-concept. Therefore, if Renu tells him that more employees would follow the process if he patiently explained its importance to them, the manager is likely to show patience, because ‘process following’ fits his self-concept. When he does so, it would also make him more patient.

The aforementioned example illustrates how understanding of self-concept can be used to smoothen work place conflicts.

Self-Awareness and Self-Consciousness

‘Self-awareness is defined as a psychological state in which people are aware of their traits, feelings, and behaviour. Alternately, it can be defined as the realisation of oneself as an individual entity.’¹¹ It is an element of self-concept, and one of the first to emerge.

 

Self-awareness helps us to behave in a socially acceptable way, but excess of it makes us self-conscious and makes us dysfunctional.

 

Self-awareness is divided into public self-awareness and private self-awareness. The former occurs when we are in a public place and because of this awareness, we behave in a socially acceptable manner. For example, the way you dress and speak while giving a presentation in the class is the result of public self-awareness. Private self-awareness is an internal and a personal way of behaving. The joy you feel when you meet someone you are in love with or the discomfort you feel if you forget to study for an examination are examples of this. Moreover, it is not as if people are self-aware at every moment of their lives. It takes place off and on.

It is interesting to note that the frontal lobe of the brain is responsible for self-awareness. Hence, there is little self-awareness at birth, but by 18 months, most children begin to develop self-awareness because the brain would have developed sufficiently by then, to handle self-awareness. Self-awareness and emotions are linked, as the latter emerges because of the former.¹²

Self-consciousness is a situation of excessive self-awareness. For example, during a presentation you may have an excessive consciousness of being in the spotlight. Feeling of self-consciousness is usually temporary. However, for some, it can reach chronic levels. Corresponding to public and private self-awareness, there is also public and private self-consciousness.

In the strict sense, self-awareness is different from self-knowledge, but these terms are often used interchangeably.

Self-Knowledge

Self-knowledge is the understanding that we have about our own self and is a vital part of self-concept. It gives us knowledge of our attributes and how much we link ourselves to the attributes. All of us tend to search for self-knowledge. When you ask someone to tell you your strengths, you are trying to gain self-knowledge and not self-awareness. The reason for trying to gain self-knowledge could be for self-enhancement, that is, to increase our self-worth and self-esteem, (both of which are discussed later in this section) gaining accurate information about ourselves to achieve our goals, and consistency (verifying the degree of incongruence that we have).

Self-knowledge depends, to a great extent, on the way our memory is coded¹³ and how our memory selectively retrieves information for processing.¹⁴

People usually use three methods to gain self-knowledge:

• The first method is through physical means such as one’s weight, strength, height, blood pressure, and so on.
• The second method is by social means such as comparing oneself with others. We may compare our intelligence or personality with others in general terms or through formal tests such as an aptitude or intelligence test, which helps us to compare our score with others.

   

  Psychological methods of gaining self-knowledge are extremely powerful to change behaviour.

   

• The third method is psychological such as introspection or direct examination of our attitudes, feelings, and motives. For example, you may introspect and find that you feel anxious often because you are not a positive thinker.

Self-knowledge is fundamental to self-improvement, and hence a vital idea in OB.

Self-Esteem

Self-esteem can be defined as emotional evaluation of one’s self worth.¹⁵ It is, therefore, an attitude towards oneself and a judgement of oneself.¹⁶ While self-concept is what we think of ourselves or the image we have of ourselves, self-esteem is the positive or negative evaluation of that image. For example, in the case we discussed, the assistant manager most probably has the self-concept ‘I am customer-friendly’. He might have attributed high value to it and this could have compelled him to leave the outlet as he could not attain his desired level of self-esteem there.

 

Self-esteem is a concept with far-reaching implications in OB. Esteem needs drawn from self-esteem is one of the key drivers of motivation.

 

Self-worth, self-regard, self-respect, and self-integrity are other terms used, which are synonymous/nearly synonymous with self-esteem. The term ‘self-love’ is also used at times to refer to self-esteem. Self-love refers to the desire to promote one’s well-being and being honest about one’s strengths and weaknesses, though often we wrongly use the term to suggest that someone is in excessive love of himself/herself.¹⁷

Self-esteem is shaped by the environment and culture. For example, the assistant manager’s self-esteem of being customer-friendly, most probably, could have been shaped by the culture created by Renu in Western Bakers.

Self-esteem can be specific to a particular dimension. For example, I am a good speaker and feel good about being so, or I am customer-friendly and feel good about it. It can also be global . For example, I feel good about life because I am a good speaker and can convince people, or I feel good about life because I am able to serve people and make them happy.

Self-esteem is another important concept in OB. It is often considered a personality trait by psychologists although it is not included in the trait based personality tests. It is also considered a strong motivator for our actions. People often go to great lengths to preserve self-esteem. One of the reasons why the assistant manager left the organisation could be that the manager was denying him the opportunity to reinforce his self-esteem through customer-friendly service.

Self-Efficacy¹⁸

Self-efficacy is the measure of one’s own ability to complete tasks and reach goals. It is developed from external experiences and learning from those experiences (see Box 5.2)¹⁹. People tend to avoid tasks, which do not contribute to self-efficacy and undertake those which can contribute to it.²⁰

Both high and low self-efficacy people may take up challenging tasks. The former do it because they feel that they can actually do it, whereas the latter do it to learn. However, low self-efficacy often makes us believe that the tasks are harder than they actually are and therefore, those with low self-efficacy tend to give up faster. Hence, when you give such person a challenging task, you should also provide adequate support, resources, and coaching. On the other hand, those with high self-efficacy will often attribute failure to external factors with the danger that they may not learn from a failure. This is where a manager’s role comes in. The manager should help such a person to introspect and learn.

 

Understanding self-efficacy is the key to managing performance and stretch goals.

 

Research has shown that high self-efficacy is a predictor of performance.²¹ Factors that affect self-efficacy are experience, modelling, or vicarious learning and social persuasion (encouragement). Physiological and psychological factors such as aches, fatigue, fear, and so on can also affect
self-efficacy.

Locus of Control

You might have observed that when the examination results come, some students take responsibility for their performance on themselves, whether the result is good or bad. Some tend to attribute the result to external factors such as the teacher or the difficulty of examination. In personality psychology, locus on control refers to the degree to which people believe that they have control over the outcome of events in their lives. Those who believe that they have the control are called people with ‘internal locus on control’ and those who tend to attribute their success or failure to external factors are called people with ‘external locus of control’. Those with internal locus of control believe that they can influence the outcome, whereas those with external locus of control believe that the outcome rests on external factors.²² Because those with internal locus of control believe that they control the outcomes, they tend to reattempt when faced with a failure. Therefore, they may show more resilience than those with external locus of control. Locus of control can be measured. Managers should have high internal locus of control.

Johari Window, The Window to Self and Application in Organisations

Johari Window²³ is a tool to enhance self-knowledge, which is the first step towards modifying our behaviour. Its basic proposition is that we have some, but not all, knowledge about ourselves. Similarly, other people have some, but not all, knowledge about us. If we can combine these, we can enhance our self-knowledge. It follows that there are some things that both we and others know about us and some things that neither we nor others know. Figure 5.1 represents this proposition.

Let us look at the components of this framework in more detail. Although the framework can be used for self-development in all areas, we shall discuss in the context of a workplace.

Arena is an ideal condition and refers to those things that both we and others know about us. In an organisational context, it means that we can be tasked based on our knowledge of our strengths and weaknesses, which we and the supervisor know. This can lead to congruence between task requirement and strength, and lead to high productivity.

Façade creates a piquant situation because we know about our strengths and weaknesses, but others (say, supervisor), do not know. Therefore, we might not get tasks, which fit us; worse, we might get tasks for which we have no strength as the supervisor would not know that we do not have the strengths required for the task. Hence, it can actually lead to poor performance. We must reduce the facade by expressing freely about our strengths and weaknesses to superiors who might be tasking us. Organisations should also facilitate this by having discussions with employees before goals
are set.

 

360-degree performance assessment is an application of the Johari Window.

 

Blind spot is a peculiar situation where we do not know some of our strengths, but others know them. Therefore, we may get jobs, which will make us wonder why the superior has given them to us. Superiors may not explain the reason because they may take it for granted that you are aware of your strengths to perform the task. Also, you may be denied a job without any explanation because your superior knows your weakness, which you are not aware of, and you might wonder why you were ignored. Effective performance management in which tasking is done after discussion with the employees is the key to address this problem.

Unknown (neither we nor others know) implies losing opportunities to contribute. Here, both the organisation and the individual lose. Periodic reflection, training, and coaching could be an answer to decrease the unknown area.

While there are many ways to use the framework, the formal system in an organisation for application of this framework is the 360-degree performance management. This method takes annual input on job-related and interpersonal strengths and weaknesses of a person from the employee, bosses, subordinates, customers, and suppliers. When these inputs are combined, it is possible to decrease a person’s blind spot. It also increases façade because the superior may come to know more about you through input from you as well as others.

The Johari Window can also be used as a tool for self-development. Psychometric tests, meditation, reflection, guided coaching, and introspection are the methods to decrease blind spots and the unknown. When these decrease, the arena increases. If the employee shares these with his/her supervisor, it will increase the façade thus increasing productivity and performance.²⁴

What is Personality?

Look at Salman Khan or Aishwarya Bachchan. They are great personalities. This is the usual refrain, and of course, the layman’s idea of personality. The word ‘personality’ is derived from the Latin word persona. It refers to the masks worn by theatrical players in ancient Greek dramas and corresponds well with the layman’s idea. In the psychological context and in OB, personality is quite different. It has a well-defined construct.

Concept

In the initiating case, we saw that the manager often lost his temper, was not open-minded, and did not like interacting with people. The assistant manager was quite different. Personality is unique to an individual, and it represents the consistent way a person behaves. Thus, uniqueness and consistency are basic concepts in personality.

Definitions

Personality is a complex and hypothetical construct. It can be defined in several ways:

• Christopher F. Monte defines it as an individual’s unique constellation of consistent behavioural traits.²⁵
• Ryckman defines it as a dynamic and organised set of characteristics possessed by a person that uniquely influences his/her knowledge, motivation, and behaviour in various situations²⁶.
• Pervin defines it as a set of organised and relatively enduring psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that are organised and relatively enduring. It influences the individual’s interactions with and adaptations to physical and social environments and the individual’s own psyche.²⁷

 

Personality is an individual’s unique constellation of consistent behavioural traits.

 

We can combine the idea of uniqueness and consistency and adopt Monte’s definition as a practical one to understand personality. In this chapter, we will follow this notion—personality is an individual’s unique constellation of consistent behavioural traits.

Nature of Personality

We are individuals because we have a mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional uniqueness that separate us from each other.²⁸ Despite this uniqueness, there are similarities. For example, many people are introverted and many people get angry quickly. It is, therefore, possible to create some models along which each person is patterned. This is called ‘archetypes’. The term means people with similar uniqueness.

The ancient wisdom in archetypes argues that the harmonic balance of our planet has become perfected through its cycle in evolution. Harmony among space, energy, and matter has given us four elements—air, earth, fire, and water. There are 12 archetypes based on these four elements. Although this is not a popular method of describing personality in the world of psychology, which is strongly rooted in western scientific methods, this oriental method is worth acknowledging.

Modern psychology adopts traits as a means to define the nature of personality. Allport²⁹ made a long list of traits. Catell later refined them into 16 factors³⁰. Similarly, Robert McGrae and Paul Costa³¹ have arrived at an even simpler classification based on five dimensions often called the ‘big five’. There are other ways to create the archetypes or describe personality that we will discuss later in the section covering personality theories.

Why Does Personality Matter?

Every job role has some specific needs. For instance, while open mindedness would be preferred for a person doing research work, politeness and patience would be preferred for service staff in a hotel. If your consistent behaviour or personality fits the needs of the job, the person would enjoy doing the job, and the job will be done well. If we know that our personality does not fit the job, we can change the job or make an effort to change the way we tend to behave. Hence, personality-job fit is an important factor for high performance.

 

Selecting based on personality and modifying own personality for a job harmonises a person and a job, and enhances performance.

 

Determinants of Personality

Heredity

We say ‘he behaves just like his father’, or ‘she is just like her grandfather, always calm and patient’, and so on. Although these are views of a lay man, it implies our acceptance of the genetic theory that personality is inherited and is based on genes. Sigmund Freud³², an eminent psychologist,³³ speaks of psychological needs which are inherited and so do a host of others such as Skinner³⁴, Dollard and Miller³⁵, Jung³⁶, Rogers³⁷, Adler,³⁸ and so on. The field of evolutionary psychology also stresses the role of genetics and ‘evolved adaptations’ in its explanation of personality. In simple words, heredity or genetic impact is one of the factors, though not the sole one, that affects personality.

Environment

Environment is the other major factor and consists of the following sub-factors:

Culture Every culture is unique and it establishes norms of behaviour, attitudes, and values. These are passed down the generations. For example, while entrepreneurship is valued in American culture, family security is valued in Indian culture. This results in unique and consistent behaviour which, in turn, influences personality factors such as ‘openness’.³⁹

Family One of the most important determinants of the personality is the immediate family because it scripts a person’s way of doing things early in life. Suppose your father tells you to be modest, not venture out in the evening, not to speak when there are guests in the house, and so on, it scripts your personality towards introversion. Although it may not have a conclusive effect, the immediate family seems to have a strong impact on the personality.⁴⁰

 

Heredity and environment together shape personality; hence organisational environment matters.

 

Situation Every individual goes through different types of experiences and events in his/her life and these become important determinants of personality. For example, a traumatic situation suffered by a person during childhood can often change the structure of personality through scripting or rewriting a script in the mind.⁴¹

Social factors Socialisation starts with the initial contact of the new born with its mother and is followed by other members of the immediate family, close relatives or friends, social groups, school friends, and members of the work group. This is called the socialisation process. It is strongly influenced by people who matter, such as an uncle or an important neighbour. Groups and especially organisations, also influence an individual’s personality.⁴² For example, working in Western Bakery for long could have influenced the personality of the assistant manager.

Nature–Nurture Controversy

The argument whether heredity or environment determines personality is called the ‘nature-nurture controversy’. The ‘heredity view’ argues that attributes such as intelligence and personality are largely genetically determined and the environment’s role is only to augment or mitigate the genetic effect. In other words, an appropriate environment can make the genetic gift fruitful, whereas an inappropriate environment can prevent the genetic gift from blooming. For example, an open mind may be a gift of nature, which can bloom in an environment that supports innovation but can fade in an environment that supports conservatism. Similarly, an aggressive personality can fade if the person is living in a peaceful environment and aggravate if living in a hostile environment.

 

Nature-nurture controversy is an artificial one. Both have their role in shaping personality.

 

Twin studies of identical twins separated at birth often suggest that the role of environment is only minor.⁴³ However, because the numbers involved in such studies are so few that it is difficult to make such a conclusion.⁴⁴

Revisiting the opening case, we can question whether we should have selected a more calm and composed personality as the manager or should we try to train the person now. The difficulty in answering these organisationally relevant questions lies in the lack of conclusive evidence on whether heredity or environment determines personality. However, we can be reasonably sure that if we select someone with the appropriate personality and provide the appropriate environment and work culture, the person is likely to shine in the job; else there will be continuous struggle to excel in the job.

Other Determinants

In addition to nature and nurture, self-awareness, learning and traits also affect personality (See Figure 5.2)

Self-awareness By enhancing Self-awareness, we can train ourselves to change the way we behave and consequently, our personality, However, this is a difficult exercise.⁴⁵

Learning The contention of learning theorists is that ‘we are what we have been rewarded or punished for’. Hence, our history of reward and punishment, and not genes, shapes our personality. It follows that personality can be modified through reward and punishment. Theories in learning by Skinner, Miller, and Bandura strongly support this view.⁴⁶ This is intuitively very attractive, and we are usually willing to spend money on training to modify our personality.

Traits Many personality theorists believe that traits distinguish people.⁴⁷ Some traits such as food preferences are learned. Others, such as emotional make up and intelligence, are genetically determined. Those who support traits believe that these remain constant throughout one’s life, and therefore one’s personality will tend to remain consistent across time and in similar situations.

Structure of Personality

Freud’s Three Construct Structure⁴⁸

Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist born in 1856. He later became a noted psychoanalyst. He divided personality structure into three—id, ego, and superego. He argued that a person’s behaviour is an outcome of the interaction between these. Id, ego, and superego are abstract concepts and represent components that create personality. See Figure 5.3 in which these are explained using iceberg metaphor.

Id ‘Id’ is the primitive and instinctive component of the personality. The case of the manager getting angry frequently or your hitting someone who insults you in the workplace is an example. It works on the pleasure principle. Id is often referred to as a reservoir of psychic energy and creates the basic urges such as sleeping, eating, and copulating. It looks for immediate gratification, is illogical, irrational, and fantasy-oriented. It is akin to the personality or mind of a child, which looks for immediate gratification without logic.

 

Id is the instinctive component in a person.

 

Ego If someone insults you in the workplace, you may not hit him/her back, but may opt to make an official complaint about it. This is explained by ‘ego’. It represents the decision-making component and operates on the principle of reality and reason. It mediates between the id (the immediate gratification needs) and the social reality outside or the expectations and demands of society. Ego delays gratification and the impact of the energy of id is delayed, so that, alternative and more logical actions can be taken. In the long run, the ego wants to increase self-gratification much like the id and wants to punish the person who insulted you. However, it engages in secondary thinking, while being oriented towards problem-solving and longtime gratification unlike the id which shows undue urgency for the gratification. That is why you may have opted to make a complaint. Thus, ego protects you from negative consequences that the society may impose on you due to the urgency of id.

 

Ego is the rational component in a person.

 

Superego Imagine you are sitting in the bus, exhausted after the day’s work. An old and weak person enters and you get up and offer your seat. Why? Superego explains this. It is the moral component of personality and it captures the social standards about what represents right or wrong. We should distinguish this clearly from ego. Ego implies accepting the societal pressure or logic of avoiding the undesirable consequences of surrendering to the id. For example, by law, there might be seats reserved for the aged and if you were occupying it, you are obliged to get up and offer the seat, in which case it is ego in operation. However, if you were sitting on a seat that is not reserved for the aged, it is the higher purpose in life gained through norms of the society and training that operates. This is superego.

 

Superego is the moral component in a person.

 

‘Superego’ emerges out of the ‘ego’ at around three to five years of age. In some people, superego becomes irrationally demanding on moral perfection. Such people may be affected by a feeling of guilt. For instance, you might not get up and give place to the infirm person because you were too tired and sick but you might still feel very guilty about it.

Awareness

Awareness is yet another abstract concept proposed by Freud. There are three levels of awareness, namely conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. Id, ego, and superego are distributed differently across the three levels of awareness.

• The conscious consists of what one is aware of at a particular time. At any point of time, you may be having a train of thoughts, your eyes may be feeling tired as you are gazing at the computer, or listening to what your teacher is saying. Out of these, the conscious is only a small portion. It is comparable to an iceberg. The tip is seen, whereas most of it remains submerged.
• The next stage is preconscious awareness. This is just below conscious awareness. Although strictly a part of the unconscious, it is usually classified separately because it can be easily retrieved, and operates in a way different from the unconscious. For instance, you will be able to recall things like what you had last Diwali, who came home during your wedding, the argument you had with your friend a few days ago, and so on.
• Unconscious level of awareness indicates a state from where it is difficult to retrieve information. Examples could be a forgotten trauma of childhood, a hidden feeling of hostility to a parent, which occurred either due to excessive punishment, ignoring the child, not meeting some of key needs of a person, or repressed sexual urge.

Let us now merge id, ego, and superego and the states of awareness to get a better picture. Id exists largely in the unconscious awareness. Ego and superego exist in all three levels of awareness, but superego exists to a lesser extent than ego. The implications of this are as follows:

• Id operates in the unconscious paradigm and so, people may do irrational things.
• As the extent of superego is relatively low, society cannot run only on values, norms, and good behaviour dictated by it.
• Since ego leads to following societal rules, enforceable rules and laws are important to control behaviour.

Carl Roger’s Single Construct Structure

Unlike Freud who proposed a three construct structure, Roger believed in a single construct, namely ‘the self’. Roger, wrote on several issues between 1951 and 1980,⁴⁹ the most important being ‘human potential’.

Impact of Structure on Personality

Structure enables us to understand behaviour in organisations in the following ways:

• As id is in the unconscious state and some behaviours of people in an organisation may emanate from the unconscious, they may be completely unaware of the causation of behaviour. Some counterproductive workplace behaviours and workplace deviances were discussed in chapter on fundamentals of OB. These can be attributed to id. The frequent anger of the manager mentioned in the opening case is also an example.
• You might have observed people reacting sharply when they are not able to do something that they value. The assistant manager in the opening case displays such behaviour. This is super ego.
• The manager in the opening case tends to adhere to the rule book strictly, and this is a case of ego in operation.

There are several theories that dominate personality. We will classify them into four perspectives:

• Psychodynamic perspective
• Behavioural perspective
• Humanistic perspective
• Biological perspective

In addition, there are two more popular theories, namely the trait theories and type theories. We will now have an overview of these theories.

Psychodynamic Perspective⁵⁰

Psychodynamic perspective refers to a series of theories, which has its roots in the work of Freud. We have already seen the structure of personality as per Freud, that is, id, ego, and superego, and how levels of awareness and structure interact. Carl Jung and Adler are the other key proponents of this perspective.

Psychoanalytic Theory

It is a subset of the psychodynamic theory and attributed predominantly to Freud. According to this theory, id, ego, and superego are in perpetual conflict. The manager in our case study is irritated because someone does not follow the rule book and, therefore, he raises his voice. This is the handiwork of id (childlike tendency) and the id wins in this case. However, he might also realise that it was not the right thing to do and might call the assistant manager and resolve the conflict. This is ego (rationality). In this case, the id seemed to have its way often and this led to problems.

These types of conflicts happen often in our daily lives. Let us say that a close friend called you as you were reading this chapter and preparing for an important presentation on Freud. You immediately picked up the call and began chatting with him unmindful of the presentation; then id wins. However, after nearly an hour, you realise about the presentation, hang up, and return to the book; then ego wins. It could happen that you feel that the presentation is so important that you do not even pick the call; then superego wins by subjugating your ego. However, had you picked up and explained your compulsion and offered to call back later, your ego would have prevailed through your superego. You showed courtesy (superego) of picking up the call despite not wanting to, but explained the situation and got back to work which is logical (ego).

Freud concluded that most conflicts arise from tyranny of sex and aggression, which are deeply buried or is ‘unconscious’. From these conflicts, anxiety arises. Anxiety is the result of the ego worrying that the id will get out of control and do something that would have severe negative consequences. It is also about the ego worrying about the superego getting out of control and making one feel guilty (real or imagined).

 

Defence mechanisms

Repression – ‘A’ met with a major accident and lost all memory about it.

Projection – ‘A’ dislikes his boss but feels that his boss dislikes him too.

Displacement – ‘A’ gets scolded by boss and then takes it out on subordinates.

Reaction formation-‘A’ beats up his child and then returns next day with a bundle of gifts.

 

These conflicts are resolved by defense mechanisms. Freud then identified some stages of psychosexual development, which are related to one’s age. This text being on OB and not psychology, we will skip the discussion on these stages. On a different note, it might interest you to know that Freud depended on dreams to interpret the psychology of people.

 

More defence mechanisms

Regression – Every time I cannot get my way, I throw a temper tantrum.

Rationalisation – Anyway, my boss will give me low grade in performance evaluation, so why work?

Identification – I am insecure, so join a bully’s gang.

 

Carl Jung, another proponent of the psychodynamic perspective, was born in 1875 and created a new approach to psychology, namely analytical psychology. Like Freud, Jung also depended on dreams. However, he argued that the ‘unconscious’ has two layers—personal unconscious, which is akin to Freud’s unconscious and collective unconscious, which lies deeper than the personal unconscious. The latter does not depend on any personal experience, but is passed on from one generation to another. It is embedded in culture giving meaning to the symbols. For example, a horseshoe indicates ‘luck’ in many cultures or the number ‘13’ is considered unlucky. These symbols are often perpetuated through art, drama, stories, and anecdotes used by people of a particular culture. Jung argued that these are emotionally charged symbols and affect personality.⁵¹ Jung is also credited with identifying outer directed and inner directed personalities, which are later termed ‘extroverted’ and ‘introverted’ by other psychologists.⁵²

Adler, yet another psychodynamic theorist, was a Vienna-based psychologist born in 1917. He struggled with sickness in the initial years and later became an ophthalmologist and then converted into a psychiatrist. After working with Freud, he broke away to propose individual psychology. He argued that striving for superiority is a universal drive. To fulfil this drive, people adapt, improve themselves, and master challenges. According to him, inferiority complex leads to these efforts, and he called this phenomenon ‘compensation’ meaning ‘efforts to compensate for lacking something’. While this is normal, problems come up when people overcompensate and thus conceal their feeling of inferiority, even from themselves. He argued that birth order has an impact on personality because the first born, the second, the third, etc., come into different environment. When the first one is born, there are no other children around. When the second is born, there is already one in the family environment and the first one may be upset by the fear of losing superiority. The second one already finds someone around and may keep challenging it all the time to ensure its superiority. His basic argument is that even if born in the same family, the environment is not identical⁵³, and therefore, there is a drive for superiority that explains personality.

Summary of Psychodynamic Perspective

Psychodynamic perspective brought out three important aspects of personality, namely role of unconscious factors, role of internal conflicts, and role of early childhood experiences. Psychodynamic perspective is criticised for being too vague and unobservable, obsessed with psychosexual aspects, empirically unsupported, male-centric, and animalistic with focus of id. Considering the era in which these were propagated, they surely need appreciation though much of these premises were challenged in later years.

Behavioural Perspective

Behavioural psychology did not pay attention to personality for many decades. In the post-1950s, John Dollard and Neal Miller attempted to interpret selected Freudian ideas in behavioural terms.⁵⁴ If you recall, id, ego, and superego are abstract concepts. They cannot be observed. Behavioural perspective believes that we should study observed behaviour rather than unobservable and abstract concepts such as id, ego, and superego. Later, B. F. Skinner⁵⁵, Albert Bandura,⁵⁶ and Walter Mischel⁵⁷ strengthened this perspective. These authors interpreted that people learn from the environment, and this shapes their personality. In other words, personality is the unique and consistent behaviour created through learning.

Learning itself happens through conditioning, social learning methods, and situation.⁵⁸,⁵⁹ Let us have a look at these in brief here (for more details, refer to the chapter on learning).

 

Behavioural perspective focuses on

-Observable behaviour

-Creating situation

-Conditioning

 

Conditioning

Although many theorists propounded this, B. F. Skinner was its thought leader. Much of his work on learning is through experiments on animals. He developed the concept of operant conditioning or a process of reward or punishment.⁶⁰ The theory postulates that relative consistency in behaving is acquired through experience, and newer experience can modify and create a new set of consistent behaviour. In simple terms, the proposal is that personality development is a product of conditioning. The concept is important in OB because this makes it possible to train a person for desired personality (read behaviour). In fact, most personality development programs draw their authenticity from this theory.⁶¹

Social Learning

We all know that children observe their parents, teachers, and other children to learn new things and change their behaviour. Using this intuitive wisdom, Albert Bandura, a modern theorist on learning introduced the idea of ‘cognition’ into the conditioning theory of Skinner. He argued that conditioning based on reward and punishment is not necessary for a person to learn. One can learn by merely observing another person. This is called social learning theory.⁶² Setting an example is a highly regarded concept in OB, especially in leadership. If you recall the initiating case, you can see that the behaviour of the assistant manager and the older workers were modelled on Renu’s behaviour.

Situation

Mischel, another psychologist, brought in the radical idea of ‘situation’ and its role in personality. According to him, people behave in a particular way in a situation expecting reinforcement and in due course, this behaviour becomes consistent.⁶³ If one connects the opening case, one can see that the assistant manager expected appreciation from the clients (reinforcement), and therefore, chose to ignore the procedure. The manager expected reward for adhering to rules (also reinforcement), and therefore, behaved in the manner he did.

Summary of Behavioural Perspective

Behavioural perspective lays emphasis on observed behaviour as the basis for personality rather than abstract explanations. The fact is that behaviour or personality can be conditioned through reward and punishment, and a situation can be created in which a person responds expecting reinforcement or reward. This view too had its share of criticism. The first criticism is that the research depended too much on animal behaviour since many findings were drawn from experiments using animals. The second criticism is that little effort has been made to include biological factors into human behaviour. The third criticism is that in carving personality into stimulus and response bonds (e.g., reward/punishment for an action), a fragmented view is created. Most of these criticisms come from those who support the humanistic perspective. Therefore, let us now study the humanistic perspective.

Humanistic Perspective

This perspective also emerged in the post-1950s almost concurrent to the behavioural perspective. Humanism emphasises the unique qualities of humans, especially their freedom and their potential for personal growth. It assumes that people can rise above their animal instinct and people are largely conscious and rational and not dominated by unconscious, irrational needs or conflicts. It argues that human behaviour is not shaped by some stimulus of punishment or reward, but rather by the inherent human desire for freedom and growth. Thus, humanism moves away from the psychodynamic and behavioural perspectives. Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow are the principal contributors to this perspective. (Refer the to chapter on fundamentals of OB, in which human behaviour/relationship perspective of management thought and Hawthorne experiments are discussed).

 

Humanism focuses on human goodness and self-actualisation.

 

Carl Roger developed the ‘person-centered’ theory⁶⁴ and created the idea of the ‘self’, which is often referred to as ‘self-concept’ discussed earlier in this chapter. He anchored his theory on the idea of incongruence and argued that some go to great length to overcome incongruence. A wealthy person undertaking charity even though he/she cheats on tax or gives and takes bribes illustrates this case. In this case, the charity is intended to justify that he/she is a good and fair person to himself/herself, and thus reduce the incongruence.⁶⁵

Abraham Maslow,⁶⁶ who is well known for his theory of motivation about which we will learn in detail in the chapter on ‘motivation’, proposed the idea of self-actualisation.⁶⁷ A person with self-actualisation has a number of characteristics⁶⁸ (see Box 5.3). The proposition is that self-actualisation shapes one’s personality.

Summary of Humanistic Theories

Humanistic theories brought freshness to the study of personality. It gave importance to the subjective view of a person rather than confine to the objective. It created self-concept as a basic construct in personality, and brought focus on healthy personality unlike Freud whose discussions centered on conflict due to sexual and aggressive behaviour. Moving away from conditioning by reward and punishment of behavioural perspective, humanism speaks of self and self-actualisation, the good part of human beings, as the fundamental concept of personality. The critics of humanism argue that many aspects proposed by the humanists are difficult to put to scientific test, it is unrealistically optimistic about the goodness of human beings, and more experimentation and research is required before one can accept the perspective.

Biological Perspective

Perhaps the earliest thoughts on about possible biological bases of personality grew out of the case of Phineas Gage⁶⁹ in 1848. Gage was a rail road worker.
In an accident, a large iron rod went through his head. Although he survived, his personality changed quite drastically. This gave the first hint of linkage between the brain and personality.

In 1967, Hans Eysenck⁷⁰ observed that some people can be conditioned more easily than others; he explained that this is because of heredity. While not rejecting the ‘conditioning’ proposed by Skinner (refer to behavioural perspective), he argued that ‘conditionability’ is dependent on genetics. Eysenck suggested that all personalities are drawn from three roots—extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism. Extraversion involves being sociable, assertive, active, and lively. Neuroticism involves being anxious, tense, moody, and low in self-esteem. Psychoticism is related to being egocentric, impulsive, cold, and antisocial.

 

Eysenck suggested that all personalities are drawn from three roots—extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism.

 

Strong support for biological perspective came from the Minnesota twin studies (see Box 5.4) started in 1979.⁷¹,⁷²,⁷³ In 1990, Plomin and others⁷⁴ conducted a study on 573 pairs of twins. The sample included both identical twins and fraternal twins reared together and apart. They studied three basic dimensions of personality, namely positive emotionality (extroverted, achievement-orientated, and having a sense of well-being), negative emotionality (anxious, angry, and alienated), and constrained emotionality (inhibited, cautious, deferential, and conventional).

The study found that the correlation of personality was the strongest in the case of identical twins reared together. This was quite natural and expected. However, the correlation in identical twins reared apart was far greater than that of the fraternal twins reared apart. This is an important finding because the correlation could be attributed to heredity. (Refer to chapter on fundamentals of behaviour also for twin studies).

Summary of Biological Perspective

With the advent of evolutionary psychology and biology, the biological perspective has been receiving more importance. Genetic connection of personality is slowly gaining ground. The criticisms on studies that suggest the genetic connection are: one, sampling is not scientific enough and the result would vary depending on the sample; two, there is no comprehensive theory to explain the relationship between personality factors, and three, justification that factors other than those which cause the similarities in personality is hard to come by. Despite these criticisms, the role of heredity is now recognised as an important determinant. It is pertinent to mention that the studies and their criticism took place largely in the US. American public opinion, with the support of the courts and the attention of the national media, sought to maintain a benevolent civil approach to the raising of children and discouraged profiling and prejudice. Therefore, genetic and psychological research of this type tends to get rejected by the social system.

Trait Theories

Trait theories⁷⁶ imply that human beings have some traits, and the personality is based on the traits of a person. The American Psychiatric Association define personality traits as ‘enduring patterns of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and oneself that are exhibited in a wide range of social and personal contexts’. The assumptions in trait theory are as follows:

• Traits are relatively stable over time.
• Traits differ among individuals; for example, some people are more extroverted, whereas others more introverted.
• Traits influence behaviour.
• Traits are also bipolar and can be described that way; for example, extroverted versus introverted or open-minded versus close-minded.
• Traits exist in all people though the degree could vary (this is often strongly disputed).

There are two approaches to study traits—idiographic and nomothetic.

• Idiographic implies that people have unique personality structures and each person can be understood based only on his/her cardinal trait. It assumes that certain traits/combination of traits is possessed by only one person. This makes a person unique. Idiographic view closes the option of comparability between people.⁷⁷

   

  Nomothetic approach makes it possible to compare people’s personalities.

   

• Nomothetic implies that all people have all the traits, but the amount of each trait differs from person to person. In other words, there is some unique permutation/combination of the traits, and this makes one’s personality unique. This view facilitates comparability between individuals. Most contemporary psychologists embrace this approach.⁷⁸

While different researchers have identified different sets of traits, three traits are common to all—extroversion, introversion, and neuroticism. There have been several thinkers in trait theory. Let us now have a look at the views of some of them.

• Gordon Allport identified several different kinds of traits or dispositions of people and grouped them into four categories: central traits, which are basic to an individual’s personality; secondary traits, which are more peripheral; common traits which are recognised within a culture and thus may vary from one culture to another; and cardinal traits, which distinguish an individual.⁷⁹
• Raymond Cattell researched on the long list of traits that Allport generated and delineated a two-tiered personality structure with 16 primary factors and five secondary factors. He defined personality as ‘that which permits a prediction of what a person will do in a given situation.’ Cattell is well known in personality psychology for his 50 books, 500 journal articles, and 30 different types of standardised tests and above all, for ‘16 PF’ (personality factors given in Box 5.5). Each of these factors is described in words that indicate ‘low’ or ‘high’. For instance, take Cattell’s first factor, ‘warmth’. The low range for warmth is described as cool, impersonal, or distant, whereas the high range as participating, attentive to others, and likes people.⁸⁰
• John Gittinger’s theory proposes that behaviour is determined by heredity, environment, and an interacting system of traits. He supports the view that traits can be modified even to the extent of being diametrically opposite to the original trait determined by genes. The dimensions proposed by him are given in Table 5.1.

  This framework is used in personality assessment system (PAS).⁸¹

 

• Hans Eysenck believed that three traits that matter are psychoticism, extroversion, and neuroticism.⁸² It is also called the P-E-N model. Psychoticism refers to personality pattern typified by aggressiveness and interpersonal hostility. Extroversion implies being energised by external stimuli and neuroticism to emotional stability. He also believed that blood relatives of psychotics would show high levels of this trait, suggesting a genetic basis to the trait. Others who have worked in the area are critical of the term ‘psychoticism’ as a trait and prefer to use terms such as ‘impulsive, unsocialised, or sensation seeking’.

   

  Extroversion, emotion, and agreeableness/aggression themes are common to most trait theories.

   

• Lewis Goldberg proposed a five-dimension personality model nicknamed ‘Big Five’.⁸³ The five dimensions are openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism with the acronym OCEAN (a detailed description is given in the personality assessment section). Although a well-accepted model, some personality researchers argue that this list of major traits is not exhaustive. Some have suggested that ‘excellent/ordinary’ and ‘evil/decent’ should also be added; but with no definitive research conclusions.
• Michael Ashton and Kibeom Lee, proposed a six-dimensional HEXACO model of personality in 2008.⁸⁴ In this model the traits are honesty-humility (H), emotionality (E), extraversion (X), agreeableness (A), conscientiousness (C), and openness to experience (O). Extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness to experience are considered basically the same as their counterpart dimensions in the Big Five Model. However, the authors argue that honesty-humility, emotionality and agreeableness differ from neuroticism and agreeableness factors of the Big Five Model. They also emphasise that honesty-humility (H) factor differentiates the model from other trait models.

Summary of Trait Theories

Trait theories give us a new way to look at personality. They make it possible to compare people’s personality. Trait theories also have their share of criticism. The criticisms are that they are purely descriptive, offer little explanation of the underlying causes of personality, lead to oversimplification of the classification, appear to be based on superficial analysis of personality, underestimate the effect of specific situations on people’s behaviour, and are not theories, but a classification based on description.

From the perspective of OB, trait approach is very useful. It enables to grade various dimensions of personality and compare them, which automatically finds application in selection and development of personnel. The Big Five is a well-established personality test used for selection by several organisations.

Type Theories

Personality type refers to the psychological classification of different types of people. It is distinguished from traits, based on measurability. A trait can be seen as something that exists along a continuum. In other words, a person can be low or high in a trait and using this, people can be compared with each other or to a benchmark score of a personality trait desired for a job. Type is a categorisation and, therefore, everyone who belongs to a type is assumed to have the same level of that personality attribute, which makes comparison difficult, though not impossible. Let us now look at the dominant thoughts in type theories.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator The idea of psychological types originated in the theoretical work of Carl Jung and William Marston. Later, Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother, Katharine C. Briggs delineated personality types by constructing the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).⁸⁵ MBTI is a well-recognised personality type identifying tool, which we will discuss in the section on ‘measuring personality’.⁸⁶

Type ‘A’ and Type ‘B’ Personality Theory⁸⁷ During the 1950s, Meyer Friedman and his co-workers (cardiologists) defined what they called Type ‘A’ and Type ‘B’ behaviour patterns. Type ‘A’ are ambitious, rigidly organised, highly status conscious, often sensitive, caring for other people, truthful, impatient, and ready to help others. They take on more than they can handle, want other people to get to the point and are obsessed with time. People with Type ‘A’ personalities are often high-achieving ‘workaholics’ who multi-task, push themselves with deadlines, and hate both delays and ambivalence. The contrast is Type ‘B’ individuals. They live at lower stress level and typically work steadily as well as systematically and enjoy achievements. They do not get stressed when they do not achieve. They do not mind losing in a competition and either enjoy the game or back off. They tend to be creative, enjoy exploring ideas and concepts, are reflective, think about the outer and inner worlds, and often show poor sense of time and are right-brained thinkers (we use the term right-brained thinker in its popular sense though in strict psychological sense, right and left brain classification may not be appropriate as discussed in the chapter on fundamentals of behaviour). This classification was created to identify cardiac risk, with Type ‘A’ being usually related to high cardiac risk. Somehow, the term stuck and it finds popular use
in organisations.

 

Type ‘A’

• Ambitious
• Organised
• Status conscious
• Sensitive
• Cares for others
• Truthful
• Impatient
• Ready to help others
• Takes stretch goals
• Proactive
• Obsession for brevity

 

John L. Holland’s Theory Holland evolved the RIASEC vocational model of personality types. It is often referred to as ‘Holland Hexagon’⁸⁸ (see Figure 5.4). In this model, six types are represented as a hexagon, with adjacent types more closely related than those more distant; for instance, realistic is closer to investigative than, to social. See Table 5.2 for an explanation of the six factors.

Holland believed that one’s career choice is a reflection of personality and so, conversely, once the type of personality is identified, a person can be guided to select an appropriate career that matches his/her personality. The model is widely used in vocational counselling.

 

The Spranger’s Six Eduard Spranger had proposed six types of personality based on value attitudes in his book Types of Men⁸⁹. These are as follows:

• The Theoretical Passion to discover, systemises, analyses, and searches for knowledge.
• The Economic Interested in what is useful, passion to gain a return on all investments involving time, money, and resources; at times called utilitarian.
• The Aesthetic With the highest value for form and harmony, their passion is experiencing harmony and are self-actualising in nature.
• The Social Their highest value is love for people. They invest their time and resources in helping others.
• The Political Their interest is primarily in power. They are individualistic and try to influence others.
• The Religious Their focus is on unity. Their passion is to seek out higher meaning in life and follow divine pursuits.

Other Typologies

Some consider Machiavellianism, narcissism, risk-taking, proactiveness, and self-monitoring also as personality types. Strictly, such types are reference to some of the dominant typology aforementioned or are derived from the traits discussed earlier. These typologies are not rooted in strong theoretical basis from a psychological perspective, but they explain some of the workplace realities and are often used in the workplace. Let us briefly look at these types.

Machiavellian These are people who have high interpersonal ability to manipulate.⁹⁰ The word comes from Italian diplomat and writer Niccolo Machiavelli who propounded the idea of manipulating behaviour for successfully ruling a state. Usually, such people hold their cards close to their chest and never give the real reason for an action. There is always an agenda in their actions. While all of us may be secretive at times to protect the business needs, the typology is distinguished by an obsession to be secretive. It militates against trust building and can often create severe strain in interpersonal relationship and team work in the long run, though they may be successful in the short run.

Narcissist This type refers to self-obsession and a belief that they are very superior people with no one to match them though the reality may be different. They tend to ignore the advice of others, are usually arrogant, do not listen much, and usually become poor leaders in the long run.⁹¹

Risk Taker Some people, by nature, take risks.⁹² While entrepreneurs usually belong to this category, we find that employees also do that. Hence, a new term ‘intrapreneurs’ has crept in organisations. Enron was a company which did a commendable job in oil exploration and was known for the risk-taking nature of its employees. Eventually, the company failed because the managers were found cooking accounts. Could it be that the company institutionalised a heady concoction of Machiavellianism and risk-taking?

Proactive Some take action anticipating a situation. They are called proactive. They seem to have an insight into the impending situation and do not need orders. By taking preventive action, they make their companies strong and sustainable.⁹³

Summary of Type Theories

Type theories had an early start, with the work of Carl Jung. It allocates people into neat baskets; that is, a person belongs to one type or the other. From the organisational perspective, if we can identify the typology and employ them appropriately, the chance of success of that person in that job category would be high. However, it does not give much insight into how strong the personality of a person is. Therefore, we cannot compare between one person and another. In other words, if there are two potential employees with the same personality type, one cannot say whether the first or the second one is a better fit for a job, from a personality perspective. We can only say that both are fit. Despite this limitation, MBTI a type based test, and is a popular selection tool.

Kelly’s Theory of Personal Constructs

Kelly’s theory suggests that people attribute meanings to events and this interpretation later becomes the basis for their behaviour.⁹⁴ In other words, the basic postulate is that people look at the world in templates. It assumes that human behaviour is shaped by the way people anticipate the future. He called it ‘personal construct’. In addition to the basic postulate, he defined 11 corollaries, out of which three are important—one, though no two events are identical, we construe similar events as if they are same, two, as people have different experiences, they can construe the same event in different ways, and three, people tend to order/sequence their personal construct in a hierarchy. It is also criticised because it fails to consider motivation, development, and cultural influences, which have a major bearing in attributing meaning to events. Although not popular, it seems to be resurging.

The Personality Cauldron: What Do All These Mean for Organisational Behaviour?

From an OB perspective, the concept of personality has significant meaning if it really predicts the way an individual is likely to behave most of the time in the workplace. The uniqueness component of personality enables us to create teams and groups that fit better from a cohesiveness perspective for a routine job or from a diversity perspective for an innovative job. For example, it would help to induct people with high openness in a team tasked to innovate something. It also facilitates in creating a job-fit, which influences a number of OB variables such as job satisfaction. It is applicable in selection and development as well.

The next factor in consideration is trainability of personality. Although we have several personality development programmes to cover from the cradle to the grave, we are still not too sure whether the changes take place due to these programs and if so, how much. In the days to come, research into evolutionary psychology may throw more light on this. However, there is strong popular support that personality can be trained. The views of Skinner and John Gittenger support this popular view though the genetic view tends to challenge it.

Many organisations tend to have a personality test as the first elimination round in a selection. This is fraught with the danger of eliminating someone with appropriate competency, but inappropriate personality. If environment and training can influence personality, and evidence suggests so, this strategy needs careful consideration. Missing the right competency versus accumulating appropriate personality is the challenge here.

Personality is a useful concept in other areas of business such as marketing and behavioural finance. The use of products, selection of products, willingness to try new brands, and investment are some of the important aspects influenced by personality. Hence, it would be useful that students of management understand personality in depth.

Personality tests have been used in:

• Selection of people for a job
• Development of people
• Leadership development and coaching
• Psychological research (e.g., relationship of introversion and child rearing, openness and managerial effectiveness and so on.)
• Counselling
• Clinical diagnosis to find out if there are any psychological aberrations

From the aforementioned list, it is evident that personality tests are used in general functions such as selection and specialised context such as counselling. We should not take a personality test at face value and must use adequate corroborations because there is some danger of misinterpreting a personality test, especially if the interpreter is not trained adequately.⁹⁵

Types of Personality Tests

Personality assessment can be divided into the following:

• Self reporting
• Projective tests

Self-reporting tests are based on the answers that a person gives to a questionnaire. It is susceptible to deliberate deception, social desirability bias, that is, giving answers that are socially desirable, and set response or the tendency to answer all the statements in the same way such as saying ‘yes’ to all questions or ‘yes’ to the first few questions and ‘no’ to others, and so on. Although those who create these tests have learnt to minimise such effects, the danger still looms large. Let us now look at some of the important self-reporting tests.

We will not be considering the instrument itself in detail, but will discuss how the outcome is assessed. You can get a paid or a free instrument through the Internet by using search terms such as ‘free 16PF test’ or ‘paid Big Five personality test’.

Self-reporting Tests

MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory)

This is perhaps one of the earliest tests and was designed by Hathaway and McKinley in 1943. Revised and updated, it consists of 567 statements. It has been translated to at least 125 languages. It is a clinical test intended to gain insight into defective personality, and so, we limit our discussion in this book.⁹⁶

The 16 PF

Raymond Cattell’s 16PF is a trait test. It started with 4504 personality traits. However, it is now reduced to 16 through factor analysis, a statistical method to club statements measuring the same dimension to make the test shorter and more effective. The sixteen traits are warmth, reasoning, emotional stability, dominance, liveliness, rule-consciousness, social boldness, sensitivity, vigilance, privateness, apprehension, openness to change, self-reliance, and tension. For each of these, there is a description of lower range and higher range. In other words, they are bipolar. For example, the lower range of warmth is reserved/impersonal/distant and the higher range is warm-hearted/caring. Similarly, other factors also have lower and higher ranges. (see Figure 5.5)⁹⁷, ⁹⁸

Big Five Personality Test

This is an important trait-based test and postulates that there are five broad dimensions of personality, namely openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism or emotional stability (OCEAN).⁹⁹,¹⁰⁰ The acronym OCEAS (‘S’ represents emotional stability) is used in OB since the term neuroticism is often socially unacceptable outside clinical circles. Let us have a look at these dimensions from Table 5.3.

Big 5 is one of the most popular workplace personality tests today due to the following reasons:

• Traits closely resemble the workplace requirements. For example, openness can be linked to innovation and change and conscientiousness to meticulous work (see Value Added Knowledge 2 also).
• It is comprehensive, empirical, and data-driven. The five broad factors were discovered and defined by several researchers.
• There are different types of instruments such as very short one of 20 questions, short one of 50, and a long one of 100/150 questions. Irrespective of the number of questions, it measures the five dimensions.
• It is a self-reporting test and hence easy to administer.
• It does not require any special qualification to interpret the results and a manager who reads the background material of the test can interpret it.
• Being a trait test, which can be designed on a Likert scale (a statistical scale that measures the trait along a continuum), one can easily compare the scores of different people.
• There is no rule on what a high or a low score is. As a convention, we say that scores up to 40 are low, 40–60 are medium, and above that is high. This convention really depends on the purpose of the test.
• The idea that low scores are bad and high scores are good is a misnomer. It is just that the scores fit a type of behaviour. A person high in openness will tend to be more creative and receptive to ideas, but that may create a problem in conventional process-oriented job.
• It is also important to know how to interpret the combinations of scores. For example, a person who is high in openness and low in extroversion may become an excellent researcher since he/she would be open to ideas and is simulated from internal sources; yet comfortable to work alone in a reflective manner which would enhance creative thinking.
• This test is invaluable in organisations as it can be used for selection, individual—job fit, mentoring, and coaching.

 

Myers Briggs Type Indicator

The root of MBTI is the work of Carl Jung. The original developers of this personality inventory were Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Brigs Myers. They studied the work of Jung extensively and put it into practical use. The work started during Second World War on the belief that knowledge of personality preferences would help women who were entering industrial production, pick up the most comfortable job for themselves. Robert Kaplan and Dennis Saccuzzo clarify that ‘the underlying assumption of the MBTI is that each person has specific preferences in the way he/she construes experiences, and these preferences underlie their interests, needs, values, and motivation’.¹⁰¹,¹⁰²

Understanding the theory behind MBTI is very important. According to Jung, cognitive functions have two dichotomies/preferences and one orientation/attitude as discussed below:

• Dichotomy 1 is preference for rationality and is called Judging (J) in MBTI language.
• Dichotomy 2 is preference for irrational and known as Perceiving (P) in MBTI language. Consider the term ‘irrational’ as less preference for rationality rather than interpret it as irrational as a layman does.
• Manifestation of dichotomy 1 is either Thinking (T) or Feeling (F) behaviour.
• Manifestation of dichotomy 2 is either Sensing (S) or Intuition (I) behaviour.
• Orientation/Attitude is either Extraversion (E) or Introversion (I). The term ‘attitude’ should not be construed in a layman’s sense. It is a technical term referring to extraversion/introversion.

You can now combine one of the orientations (E or I) with one of the manifestation of dichotomy 2 (S or I), one of the manifestation of dichotomy 1 (T or F), and one of the dichotomies (J or P). This will give you 16 combinations such as ISTJ, ESFJ, etc. By convention, the sequence of writing this in MBTI is orientation followed by manifestation of dichotomy 2, manifestation of dichotomy 1, and then dichotomy. Please have a look at the 16 combinations in Value Added Reading 3. Out of four functions, one (it could be any) tends to be dominant which is likely to be evident early in life.¹⁰³ A secondary or auxiliary one becomes more evident during teenage years and provides balance to the dominant function and is called differentiated function. The third or tertiary function comes up during midlife and the fourth or the inferior may not manifest and may be in the unconscious. It may manifest in situations such as high stress.

MBTI is a Class ‘B’ psychometric test and you should be certified to interpret its results. However, let us see one case to understand the concept of interpretation using example of a person who is ISTJ.

• ‘I’, implies that the person prefers an introverted attitude than an extroverted one. Such people prefer interacting with a few close friends rather than a wide circle of acquaintances. They tend to expend energy in social situations unlike extroverts who tend to gain energy in the same situation. Hence, such a person may not be a good fit for jobs such as sales, which demands high level of social interactions.
• The ‘S’ factor makes the person more comfortable with the abstract and the big picture at the peril of ignoring the details.
• The ‘T’ factor would make such a person value objective criteria rather than personal preference while making decisions. For example, if such a person wants to buy a car, the comparison of various factors may be more important than liking the car.
• Preference for ‘J’ tends to make the person plan the activities and make decision early and prefer predictability. He/She may be uncomfortable with ambiguity.

Although the scores of each of these four preferences for two people with the same typology may widely vary, the authors believed that it was not worth calibrating it. This is because the instrument was intended only for finding the direction of one’s preference and not the degree of preference. This is an important aspect to keep in mind while using MBTI for decision-making.

Much like Big Five, it helps to create job fits. It is also widely used for job selection.

Projective Tests

In projective tests, a picture or an ink blot of no particular pattern is shown and the individual is asked to describe it. This may be done by asking the person to write a sentence on it or write a story within a time limit. The meaning of the sentence or the story content is interpreted by experts to identify the personality. It is a complex method and usually not used in the workplace, though it is a popular test for selection of officers in the defence services where expert psychologists are employed for administering and interpreting data. Its merits are that it is less susceptible to deception and the images/ink blots being abstract; the test can capture the unconscious aspects better. This method is widely used for clinical purposes also.¹⁰⁴,¹⁰⁵

 

Projective tests minimise deliberate deception, social desirability, and response set errors.

 

Optimism Versus Pessimism

The term ‘optimism’ embraces two closely correlated concepts—inclination to hope and a feeling that we live in the best possible world.¹⁰⁶ Over the last few years, a significant body of research has examined the effectiveness of optimism as a psychological phenomenon leading to various theoretical formulations.¹⁰⁷ Optimism and its opposite pessimism have been studied as a disposition, attribution, cognitive bias, illusion, and so on. Scheier and Carver considered it a disposition or a trait, which makes a person think of the past, present, and future in a positive way. Optimistic individuals are positive about events in daily life. They tend to be less stressed and are able to cope with disappointments. Optimists believe that positive events are more stable and frequent than negative ones. They think that they can avoid problems in daily life and prevent them from happening. Therefore, they cope with stressful situations more successfully than pessimists. Another view is that it is a social cognition or our biased way of seeing ourselves. Due to the bias, though we recognise that negative events take place, we believe that only positive things will happen to us.

From a managerial perspective, optimists tend to take more risk as they believe that only good things will happen to them. The opposite is true for pessimism. Pessimists also may be action-oriented, but they do so to reduce risks and losses. Efficient management needs a wise combination of the two; for example, optimism to invest and pessimism to ensure that risks are well covered.

Ability

Ability¹⁰⁸,¹⁰⁹ is a popular term used in everyday life in relation to study, games, activities of life, and workplace. It can be defined as the acquired or natural capacity that enables an individual to perform a particular job or task well. Ability is a well-structured term, and there are at least three traditionally accepted categories of abilities, namely general ability, cognitive ability, and psychomotor ability.

• General ability refers to the capacity to solve day-to-day problems and is often referred to as ‘g’ factor¹¹⁰ (refer to chapter on intelligence also). If you pick up a general ability test of Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), you will find that the test asks you to improve sentences, spot errors, fill blanks, and answer questions related to comprehension. This is about the ‘g’ factor. General Ability Test Battery (GATB) is a popular test of cognitive, perceptual, and motor skills used by the USA Job Service offices since 1947. Although psychologists have warned that these tests cannot be considered as a single measure of ability to do a job, those with high scores have been found to be more productive.

   

  Ability is the capacity to execute a job well—whether natural or through learning.

   

• Cognitive abilities¹¹¹ usually refer to the capacity of the brain to do tasks such as abstract reasoning (e.g., falling apple being connected to gravity or perceiving the movement of electrons around the nucleus), verbal reasoning (e.g., reasoning such as only Indians are brown, he is brown, and therefore he is an Indian as against all Indians are brown, he is brown, and therefore he is an Indian, wherein, the latter may not be a sound reasoning), and numerical reasoning (e.g., knowing that in the numerical series of 2,4,6,–, the blank being 8).
• Psychomotor abilities¹¹² refer to the ability to coordinate between the cognitive function and physical movement such as coordination of hands and eyes during a surgery or manipulation of the hands and body in a dance. These are abilities related to the link between the body and mind of an individual. They are often tested through simple, on the job tasks.

There are several tests for measuring ability. The threshold level of ability is considered a minimum requirement to do a job. For example, if a person does not have a minimum level of cognitive ability, he/she may not be able to make logical arguments supported by data required of a manager. If a person does not have threshold psychomotor ability, he/she may not become a good mechanic, a surgeon, or a pilot even though he/she may have high cognitive ability. From these examples, it is evident that ability affects job performance. This is the reason why it is an important concept in OB.

Aptitude

Aptitude is a term familiar to all of us. Those of us who are in an MBA programme would have taken an aptitude test such as GMAT, CAT, MAT, or other such examinations. Encyclopedia Britannica defines aptitude as ‘a person’s ability to acquire, through future training, some specific set of skills (intellectual, motor, and so on)’.¹¹³ In other words, it is the potential to acquire capacity for a task or job. While ability actually measures the actual existence of the capacity, aptitude measures the potential for acquiring it. This is the reason why aptitude tests precede training.¹¹⁴

 

Aptitude is the potential to acquire an ability.

 

Aptitude tests assume that people differ in their special abilities and that these differences can be useful in predicting future achievements. For example, pilot aptitude and battery test (PABT) predicts whether a person can acquire the ability for flying successfully¹¹⁵ and should not be confused with a person’s ability to fly. Similarly, the GMAT, CAT, or MAT predicts the capacity to acquire managerial skill and does not measure the management skill itself. There are several types of aptitude tests. SAT or scholastic aptitude test is a measure of a broad spectrum of abilities such as verbal comprehension, general reasoning, numerical operation, perceptual speed, and mechanical knowledge. This means that the individual has the ability to do each of these tasks and together would predict the performance in acquisition of scholarly abilities.

Simply put, aptitude is about the potential for acquiring a capacity, whereas ability is the existence of a capacity.

Talent

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, talent refers to a native aptitude for some special kind of work and implies a relatively quick and easy acquisition of a particular skill within a domain (sphere of activity or knowledge)¹¹⁶. Talent¹¹⁷,¹¹⁸ refers to a specific natural gift or potential to do a job with excellence in an area or discipline. The term ‘natural’ is the key here. The term ‘talent’ does not preclude practice. However, the real differentiation is that some are able to do a job quite naturally and with practice, they achieve a degree of excellence; while those without that talent cannot achieve the same level of proficiency, with similar effort.

 

While talent may be fine-tuned by practice, giftedness underlies the concept of talent.

 

Whether talent is genetically gifted or not, is a hot topic of discussion. While there is no conclusive proof, there is growing evidence that genes explain, to some extent, the existence of talent. For example, leadership-seeking behaviour has been traced to rs4950 genotype¹¹⁹.

Talent is often considered the same as giftedness. Francoy Cagnen, in his theory, Differential Model of Giftedness and Talent (DMGT)¹²⁰ attempts to differentiate these. It postulates that one cannot become talented without being gifted. Giftedness develops into specific expert skills and these expert skills are known as talent. In other words, systematic development is involved in becoming talented. DMGT theory identifies six components that can interact in various permutations-combinations to create talent. These are the gift itself, chance, environmental catalyst, intrapersonal catalyst, learning/practice, and the outcome of talent. In other words, the outcome from one event enables more opportunities. Chance, environmental catalyst, and interpersonal catalyst can both facilitate and hinder talent. Learning and practice are the moderators in grooming one’s talent. The theory suggests that natural abilities are transformed into talent.

When we use the terms ‘talent’ and ‘talent management’ in the OB context, what we mean is that we make an effort to identify the gift and provide chance, environment, interpersonal component, and provide opportunity for learning and practice. If we want to create a talented organisational manager or leader, we should identify a person with giftedness and then provide opportunity to lead.

Taking an Integrated View

A job requires an ability or capacity to do some tasks/activities. In addition, it requires unique and consistent behaviour or personality, as required by the activities related to the job. For example, if the activity involves innovation, an ability test should predict the ability to do so. Equally it needs open mindedness, which a personality test should identify. The person should know that she/he has these strengths, which can probably be done through the Johari window.

Complex activities need a complex set of abilities. For example, leading a project would need ability in decision making. Due to the complexity of decision-making, the person would need to learn decision-making using data, analysis, and communication of the decisions. To learn this, he/she needs the aptitude for data handling, language, and so on. Additionally, the person should also be talented for the job. This creates a complex milieu, and we need to look at all these aspects while selecting a project leader.

If we take someone with the aptitude, but not the talent or giftedness, though she/he may learn decision-making because of the aptitude, she/he may never excel. Let us now superimpose personality. Let us say that the job demands innovative decisions as against conventional ones. In addition to talent and aptitude, we have to consider how open-minded the person is. Even if a person has all these features, it does not mean that she/he will do the job well because the person may lack self-efficacy, self-esteem, internal locus of control, or optimism.

A deep understanding of the interplay between various aspects discussed in this chapter and other chapters is the key to understanding OB.

Summary

This chapter discusses ‘self’ and personality. Self is related to human motivation, cognition, affect, and social identity, and explains the conative factors such as drive, impulse, leaning, and direction of effort. Various derivatives of ‘self’ are self-concept, self-awareness/self-consciousness, self-knowledge, self-esteem, self-efficacy, and locus of control. Johari window, is a tool to understand ‘self’ better.

We all have perceptions about ourselves on various issues such as our appearance, intelligence, and so on. When these perceptions are put together, we arrive at our self-concept. Self-awareness can be defined as a psychological state in which people are aware of their traits, feelings, and behaviour or in other words, it is the realisation of oneself as an individual entity. Self-knowledge is similar to self-awareness but is not the same. Self-knowledge depends on the ability of our memory to retrieve information about self. Self-knowledge allows us to improve ourselves and therefore is an important concept in OB. Self-esteem can be defined as emotional evaluation of one’s self worth, and self-efficacy is the measure of one’s own ability to complete tasks and reach goals.

The next important concept included in the chapter is personality. It is an individual’s unique constellation of consistent behavioural traits. According to Sigmund Freud, the structure of our personality can be defined in terms of id, ego, and superego. Id is the primitive or instinctive side of our personality and is responsible for the kind of behaviour that children often demonstrate. Ego, on the other hand, operates on the principle of reason and leads to behaviour that adults often demonstrate. Superego captures the moral component of our personality. Freud further explains that awareness of ourselves can be at three levels—conscious or readily retrievable, pre-conscious (less easy to retrieve), and unconscious (retrieved only through special processes). Our preferred behaviour or personality is influenced by all these levels of consciousness. Hence, a person may not be conscious about one’s behaviour always.

The debate whether personality is determined by heredity and environment has been going on since long. The current thinking is that while heredity is a major determinant, environmental factors such as culture, family, situation, and social factors also influence personality substantially.

Personality can be studied from different perspectives, namely psychodynamic perspective, behavioural perspective, humanistic perspective, biological perspective, and through trait theory, type theory, and Kelly’s theory of personal constructs. Freud, Carl Jung, and Alder are the proponents of psychodynamic theory and its focus is on role of unconscious factors, internal conflicts, and role of early childhood experiences. Behavioural perspective lays emphasis on observed behaviour as the basis for personality, rather than on abstract explanations and proposes that personality can be conditioned through reward/punishment. Humanistic perspective gives importance to the subjective, rather than the objective view of a person, and focuses on self-concept and healthy personality unlike the ideas of Freud, which is based on sexual drives and aggression. Biological perspective is driven by studies in evolutionary psychology and gives predominance to heredity. Trait theories propose that personality is driven by traits of an individual, which makes it possible to compare personality of two people, whereas personality types suggests that all human beings can be grouped into certain categories of personality. Kelly’s theory of personal construct suggests that people attribute meanings to events and this interpretation later becomes the basis for their behaviour.

Since personality and personality testing are important, the chapter describes several personality tests such as Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), 16 Personality Factor (16PF), Big 5, and Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).

Other important factors related to our ‘self’ are optimism or the hope that we live in the best possible world and its opposite is pessimism. The chapter delves on ability, which refers to the acquired or natural capacity that enables an individual to perform a particular job or task well, aptitude or the potential to acquire capacity for a task or job, and talent which refers to a natural gift or potential to do a job with excellence in an area or discipline.

This chapter addresses the most basic unit in OB, i.e., ‘self’ and personality. It is important for a student of OB to understand it holistically so that we can gain basic insight into the behaviour of people. Personality is difficult, though not impossible, to change. Hence, one should focus on the personality of potential employees during talent acquisition. However, we may not get the ideal personality to do a job due to the demand and supply gap in the market. Therefore, we should focus also on modifying behaviour, if not personality, so that we can achieve competitive advantage through performance.

Test Your Understanding

1. Fill the blank using the most appropriate term from the choices given.

   Personality is unique to an individual and represents the ______ way an individual behaves.

   1. Special
   2. Normal
   3. Consistent
   4. Frequent
2. Fill the blank using the most appropriate term from the choices given.

   Eastern thinking on nature of personality identifies _____ archetypes.

   1. 10
   2. 12
   3. 8
   4. 9
3. State if the following statement is true or false.

   Nature versus nurture argument of personality is a settled matter after the detailed twin studies have been completed.

4. Choose the most appropriate answer from the choices given.

   The term ‘environment in personality’ includes factors related to,

   1. Culture, family, genetic influence, and situation.
   2. Family, social, genetic influence, and culture.
   3. Individual, family, culture, and situation.
   4. Culture, family, social, and situation.
5. Choose the most appropriate answer from the choices given.

   Freud, a noted psychologist, identifies three constructs of personality, namely id, ego, and superego. These are:

   1. Areas found in the brain.
   2. Abstract concepts.
   3. Areas demarcated in the mind.
   4. None of the above.
6. Choose the most appropriate answer from the choices given.

   Three awareness levels mentioned in Freudian psychology are:

   1. Unconscious, preconscious, and conscious.
   2. Unconscious, subconscious, and conscious.
   3. Unconscious, quasi-conscious, and subconscious.
   4. None of the above.
7. Choose the most appropriate answer from the choices given.

   Carl Jung, the supporter of psychodynamic theory, enabled evolution of the famous personality assessment test called,

   1. Big five
   2. MBTI
   3. Big 5 and MBTI
   4. Jung personality inventory
8. Choose the most appropriate answer from the choices given.

   Psychodynamic perspective brought out important aspects of personality such as,

   1. Role of unconscious factors.
   2. Role of internal conflicts.
   3. Role of early childhood experiences.
   4. Roles mentioned in (a), (b), and (c).
9. Choose the most appropriate answer from the choices given.

   Behavioural perspective of personality explains

   1. Observed behaviour as the basis for personality.
   2. Responding to reinforcement and rewards.
   3. Abstract response to reinforcement.
   4. Both (a) and (b).
10. Choose the most appropriate answer from the choices given.

    Humanism emphasises the unique qualities of humans, especially their freedom and their potential for personal growth. It assumes that,

    1. People can rise above their animal instinct.
    2. It is natural for people to be emotional and irrational.
    3. Behaviour can be shaped by reward and punishment.
    4. None of the above.
11. Choose the most appropriate answer from the choices given.

    The biological perspective of personality got a boost in 1990 with the noted twin study involving 573 pairs of twins by Plomin, Chipuer, and Loehlin. The reason for this was that,

    1. They studied positive emotionality (extroverted, achievement orientation, having a sense of well-being), negative emotionality (anxious, angry, alienated), and constraint (inhibited, cautious, deferential, and conventional).
    2. They found strong correlation of these between identical twins reared together.
    3. They found that correlation in identical twins reared apart was far greater than the fraternal twins reared apart.
    4. Both (a) and (b) together is the most appropriate answer.
12. Choose the LEAST appropriate answer from the choices given.

    Trait theories are criticised because they,

    1. Are purely descriptive.
    2. Offer little explanation of the underlying causes of personality.
    3. Oversimplify the classification.
    4. They make it possible to compare people’s personality, which is not desirable.
13. Choose the most appropriate answer from the choices given.

    Which of the below mentioned MBTI profile could be a better suited for a highly interactive sales job?

    1. ISTJ
    2. ESTJ
    3. INTJ
    4. INFJ
14. Choose the most appropriate answer from the choices given.

    The gap between perceived self and real self is called _________.

    1. Unconscious awareness.
    2. Conscious awareness.
    3. Semi-congruence.
    4. Incongruence.
15. Choose the most appropriate answer from the choices given.

    A person may consider that he/she is very efficient in project management yet believe that external environment rather than his/her knowledge or ability controls the results and thus may not take risky projects, whereas another person with similar consideration may take it up. This can be best explained by the concept of _________

    1. Self-concept.
    2. Self-knowledge.
    3. Locus of control.
    4. Self-efficacy.
16. Choose the most appropriate answer from the choices given.

    Ability can be best defined as,

    1. Acquired capacity to perform a task.
    2. Natural capacity to perform a task.
    3. Acquired or natural capacity to perform a task.
    4. Genetic gift to perform a task.

Need some help with this? Go to Answers to Test Your Understanding given at the end of the book.

Assimilation Questions

1. What do you understand by ‘nature versus nurture’ controversy? What is your position on this?
2. Human life would be very different if we did not have superego. Do you agree with this statement? Justify.
3. Comment on the strength and weakness of the psychodynamic perspective to personality.
4. Do you think that argument of ‘nature versus nurture’ would suffer if genetic influence of personality becomes confirmed? Justify your answer.
5. Ms Sethna claims to be a renowned personality trainer and boasts of her gurus in the US. Which perspective of personality theory do you think she is likely to support the most? Why?
6. Mr Ram is high in openness and extroversion. Suggest some job roles, which can fit him well. Justify.
7. You are one of the ‘parents’ representative’ in your daughter’s school. The headmistress heard that you are an MBA and sought your advice on career counselling tests. What test would you recommend to her and why?
8. An MBA institute is planning to introduce MBTI as the major criterion for admission to the institute. Would you agree with this proposal? Justify your answer.
9. Assume that you are the chief people selection officer of a company. You are coordinating the selection process, which includes the Big five personality test. Prioritise the personality factors and the minimum level that you would look for in a person for the following jobs. Justify your answer.
   • Business development officer.
   • Product development team leader.
   • Assistant corporate social responsibility officer.
10. You are a business development manager. One of the business development executives disagrees totally with the annual feedback you give him, though it is based on evidence of performance. What do you think is a psychological explanation for this?
11. While interviewing a person for the role of a business development officer, the interviewee made a few claims of his success in previous jobs. Some of them appeared to be a bit exaggerated. Is the person deliberately misleading you or is there an alternative explanation for this?
12. An aptitude test like GMAT or MAT predicts how well a person will perform as a business manager. Do you agree with this statement? Why?
13. Irrespective of the job, a pessimist is best avoided. Critique the statement.
14. Your boss advised you to select someone with a high internal locus of control for helping you with the new product launch. Why do you think he gave that advice?
15. In an interview for the post of setting up a music franchise, you found a person who loves music and is very extroverted. He seems to believe that he can do the job better than anyone else because of his love for music. However, he did not have selling experience unlike other candidates. You wanted to recruit him but need the permission of your superior. What strong arguments would you put forward to your superior?

Need some help with this? Go to Clues to Answer Assimilation Questions given at the end of the book.

Application Challenges

1. Recall the story of the rabbit and the tortoise, which you would have heard/studied in your childhood and describe the personality of the rabbit and the tortoise using the Big five framework with justification (assume that they are humans).
2. Read the initiating case carefully and answer the following questions:
   1. What personality type do you think the manager is?
   2. What personality typology do you think the assistant manager is?
   3. Make a short and integrated brief about the personality of Renu connecting her personality, ability, aptitude, talent, and locus of control.

Approach to Teaching/Learning

For Lecture-driven Teaching Those institutions which use lecture method can follow the standard pattern of lecture and quizzes. Thereafter, they can go to the experiential learning mode by attempting the application challenges. They may also conduct Big 5 personality test using instrument provided by IPIP (refer http://ipip.ori.org/New_IPIP-50-item-scale.htm) or any other source. Another option is to use MBTI. However, remember that MBTI is a Class ‘B’ psychometric test and the facilitator has to be certified. Moreover, it is not a free instrument.

For Case-driven Teaching Institutions that follow case method (participant-centred learning) may first conduct Big 5 personality test provided by IPIP (refer http://ipip.ori.org/New_IPIP-50-item-scale.htm) or any other source. Discuss the results in the class and link personality theories during the discussion. Another option is to use MBTI. However, remember that MBTI is a Class ‘B’ psychometric test and the facilitator has to be certified. Moreover, it is not a free instrument.