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ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR

UNIT – 4 PERSONALITY

⇒ History of Personality:-
- The word “personality” has been traced back by etymologists to the
Latin word “per” and “sonare”.
- The term “per sonare” means, “to sound through”.
- The word persona derives from these two words and originally
meant an actor’s mask, through which the so und of his voice was
projected.
- Later persona was used, to mean not the mask itself but the false
appearance, which the mask created.
- Still later it came to mean the characters in the play.
- It is interesting to note that the word “personality’ by derivation
should mean, “what an individual only appears to be not what he really
is”.
- This meaning is almost the exact opposite of what the word means
in modern psychology.
⇒ Definition of personality:-
1. “The dynamic organisaton within the individual of those psycho-physical
systems that determine his unique adjustments to his environment.”- Allport
2. “Personality is the organisaton of an individual’s personal pattern of
tendencies.” – R.W.White
3. “Personality is a stable set of characteristics and tendencies that determine
those commonalities and differences in the psychological behaviour of people
that have continuity in time and that may not be easily understood as the sole
result of the social and biological pressures of the moment.”- Theorist Salvatore
Maddi
⇒ Determinants of personality:
1. Biological:
- The heredity
- The brain
- Physical features
2. Cultural factors
3. Family and social factors
- Socialization process – the contribution of family and social group in
combination with the culture is known as socialization.
- Identification process – identification starts when a person begins to identify
himself with some other members of the family.
- Apart from the socialization and identification processes, the home
environment influences the personality of an individual.
→ Personality theories:-
1. Intrapsychic theory:
According to Freud the human mind is composed of three elements –
- The preconscious – the items in the mind that can be recognized only
through Freud’s association method are preconscious.
- The conscious element is concerned with thoughts, feelings, beliefs and
desire that we probe during introspection. It is guided by a “reasoned reality”
principle.
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UNIT – 4 PERSONALITY

- The unconscious is basically concerned with the ideas and wished that
cannot be learned through introspection but can be determined by
hypnotism, analysis of dreams and Freudian therapeutic techniques. It is
guided by the famous “hedonistic principle” of pleasure.
- Three structures of human mind are:
• The id:
- It is the original and the most basic system of human personality.
- It is primitive, instinctual and governed by the principles of greed and
pleasure.
- Id represents the storehouse of all instincts, containing in its dark depths
all wishes and desires that unconsciously direct and determines our
behaviours.
- Id is largely childish, irrational, never satisfied, demanding and
destructive of others.
- Id is the reservoir of the “psychic energy” which Freud calls “Libido”.
- Notable characteristic of id is that it cannot tolerate uncomfortable levels
of tension within it and seeks to release the tension as soon as it
develops.
- Methods for dealing with tension by id are primary processes and reflex
actions.
- Id is capable of resolving the tension in reality.
- Id represents and individual’s natural urges and feelings.
• The Ego:
- As an individual learns to separate the unreality from reality in childhood,
the ego develops.
- Ego is rational and logical.
- In essence, it is the conscious mediator between id’s impulsive demands
and superego’s restrictive guidance.
- Ego is rational master.
- It is executive part of the personality because it controls the gateway to
action, selects the feature of the environment to which it will respond and
decides what instincts will be satisfied.
- The most important characteristic of ego is that it has the ability to
distinguish between mental images and actual sources of tension release
and it responds to the real sources of tension reduction by observing
accurately what exists in the outside world (perceiving), recoding these
experiences carefully (remembering) and modifying the external world in
such a way as to satisfy the instinctual wishes (acting).
• The Superego:
- Superego represents noblest thoughts, ideals, feelings that are acquired
by a person from his parents, teachers, friends, religion, organisation and
colleagues, etc.
- Superego is the moralistic segment of the human personality.
- The primary concern of superego is to determine whether the action
proposed by “ego” is right or wrong s that the individual acts in
accordance with the values and standards of the society.
- If people violate the prohibitions of superego they may feel guilty.
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UNIT – 4 PERSONALITY

- The superego acts as a censor on the individual and as a censor a too

strong superego is likely to be in constant and pronounced batter wit the
id.
- Freud says, “Ego’s role is to mediate between the id and superego.
- A personality becomes disorderly when either the id or superego becomes
dominant. And when it is low it affects the personal development of the
individual.
- The superego is the antitheses of id.
- Id is pressing for satisfaction, the ego is trying to delay it and the
superego urges morality above all.
- Freud’s human being is described as “basically a battlefield”.
- This theory is criticized on methodological grounds and it is largely
untestable since his constructs are difficult to define and are ambiguous.
2. Type theories:
- Personality type theory aim to classify people onto distinct categories.
- Personality types are synonymous with “personality styles”.
3. Trait theories:
- Trait theorists view personality from the stand point of
understanding traits.
- Allport, Cattell and Sheldon are trait theorists.
- Allport is of the opinion that each individual possesses a set of
traits that are not shared by any other individuals.
- He emphasizes the uniqueness of personality.
- Cattell has developed concepts such as tender-mindedness,
somatic anxiety, dominance, etc.
- Sheldon extended physical structuring by asserting that
physique consists of three components: endomorphs (soft and spherical
structure), mesomorphs (tough and muscular) and ectomorphs (linear and
fragile).
- Corresponding to these physical aspects he assumed three
aspects of temperament: viscerotonia (love of comfort and affection),
somatotonia (love of physical adventure and risk taking) and
cerebrototnia (restraint and inhibition).
o Advantages:
- Trait theories give recognition to continuity of personalities.
o Disadvantages:
- Traits may be too abstract.
- Trait approach focuses on isolated traits without specifying
how these traits are organized within the personality.
- They are essentially descriptive rather than analytical.
4. Social learning theory:
- Learning can be defined as the process leading to
relatively permanent behavioural changes or potential behavioural
change.
- As we learn, we alter the way we perceive our
environment, the way we interpret the incoming stimuli and therefore the
way we interact or behave.
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UNIT – 4 PERSONALITY

- People sometimes exhibit behaviour without any external

regard or reinforcement.
- Internal thoughts could be regarded just as external
behaviours.
5. Self theory:
- The intrapsychic, type and trait theories represent the
traditional approaches to understanding the complex human personality.
- Self-theory by Carl Rogers and his associates rejects both
psychoanalytic and behaviouristic conception of human nature as too
mechanistic, portraying people as creatures helplessly tossed about by
internal instincts or external stimuli.
• Self-concept:
- The most important concept in Roger’s theory is the self.
- It includes “I” or “me” and what I am and what I can do.
- Definition is – an organized, consistent, conceptual gestalt
composed of perceptions of the characteristics of the I and the
perceptions of the relationships of I or me to these perceptions.
• The organism:
- The organism is essentially the locus of all experience.
- The totality of experience is the filed known to the person
himself and is frequently referred to as frame of reference.
- The individuals evaluate every experience in relation to his
self-concept. The experiences may be symbolized or unsymbolized.
• The development of self : personality
- Rogers feels that the fundamental force motivating the human
organism is self-actualization i.e. “a tendency towards fulfillment, toward
the maintenance and enhancement of the organism.
- The more completely the individual is given positive regard acceptance
that is not conditional to specific behaviours the more congruence there
will be between his self-concept and his actual experience as well as
between his self-concept and ideal self.
o Evaluation of self-theory:
- Self concept is the result of one’s perpetual process.
- It is a cognitive factor maintained through thinking related
activities.
- It is organized around the concept of the self.
- Personality and behaviour are largely determined by the
individual.
- In other theories, the individual is the medium through
which behaviour is elicited after having been acted upon by elements
over which he has no control.
- The various psychological processes may be thought of as
the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and personality as the completed puzzle
picture.
⇒ Personality and organization:
1. Heredity (Nature):

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ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR

UNIT – 4 PERSONALITY

- Deeply ingrained in many people’s notions of personality is a belief in his

genetic basis.
2. Environment (Nurture):
- Many behavioural experts still believe that the environment plays a larger
role in shaping personality than do inherited characteristics.
• Culture
• Family
• Group membership
• Life experiences
⇒ Personality structure:
- Table 4.1 of text book Page No: 70
⇒ Personality and behaviour:
1. Self esteem:
- Result of an individual’s continuing evaluation of himself and herself.
- Related initial vocational choice.
- Related to numerous social and work behaviours.
- Positively related to achievement and willingness to expand efforts to
accomplish tasks.
- It is an important individual difference in terms of effective work
behaviour.
2. Locus of control:
- Refers to the extent to which individuals believe that they can control
events affecting them.
- High LOC means determine many of the events in life.
- Low LOC means fate, chance, other people, etc.
3. Goal orientation:
- A learning goal orientation is a predisposition to develop competence by
acquiring new skills and mastering new situations.
- A performance goal orientation is a predisposition to demonstrate and
validate competence by seeking favourable judgments from others and
avoiding negative judgments.
4. Introversion and extroversion:
- An introvert is shy and retiring.
- An extrovert is socially gregarious and outgoing.
- Introversion is a tendency to be directed inward and have a greater
affinity for abstract ideas and sensitivity to personal feelings.
- Introverts are quiet, introspective and emotionally unexpressive.
- Extroversion is an orientation towards the people, events and objects.
- Extroverts are sociable, lively, impulsive and emotionally expressive.
- Introverts perform better alone and in a quiet environment.
- Extroverts perform better in an environment with greater sensory
stimulation.
5. Dogmatism:
- The highly dogmatic individual perceives the whole world as threatening
place often regards legitimate authority as absolute and accepts or

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UNIT – 4 PERSONALITY

rejects other people on the basis of their agreement with accepted

authority or doctrine.
- The high dogmatic individual is close minded.
- The low dogmatic individual is open minded.
6. Authoritarianism:
- Refer points from text book Page no: 76.
7. Organizational implications
8. the person and the situation

HETAL PATIL 6