Assignment

On
Personality & Values
Course Title: Organizational Behavior
Course code: BUS-231

Submitted to:
Anwar Ahmed Arif
Assistant Professor
Department of Business Administration

Submitted by
Name ID
Atiya Afifa Zahira 1911010058

Batch: 51st Semester: 6th Section: B

Department of Business Administration

Leading University, Sylhet

Date of Submission: 3.12.2020

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 Table of Content

Serial No. Topic Page No.

1 Introduction 2
2 Definition of Personality 2
3 Determinants of Personality 2-3
4 Personality Frameworks 4-5
5 The Big Five Traits and Workplace Behavior 5-6
6 Situational Influences on Personality 6
7 Definition of Values 7
8 Characteristics of Value 7
9 Types of Values 7-8
10 Linking an Individual’s Personality and Values 8
to the Workplace
11 Importance of Values in an Organization 8-9
12 Conclusion 9
13 References 9

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 Personality & Values

Introduction
When we talk of personality, we don’t mean a person has charm, a positiveattitude toward
life, or a constantly smiling face. When psychologists talk of personality, they mean a
dynamic concept describing the growth and development of a person’s whole psychological
system. The word personality is derived from a Greek word “persona” which means “to
speak through.” Personality is the combination of characteristics or qualities that forms a
person’s unique identity. It signifies the role which a person plays in public. Every individual
has a unique, personal and major determinant of his behavior that defines his/her personality.

Definition of Personality
Personality is the fundamental and foremost determinant of individual behavior. It seeks to
integrate the physiological and psychological facets of an individual to put them into action.
Personality consists of an individual’s characteristics and distinctive ways of behavior.
Personality means how a person affects others and how he understands and views himself as
well as the pattern of inner and outer measurable traits and the person-situation interactions.
According to Stephen P. Robbins, “personality is the sum total ways in which an individual
reacts and interacts with others”. It may be defined as those inner psychological
characteristics that both determine and reflect how a person responds to his environment.

Determinants of Personality
The determinants of personality can perhaps best be grouped in five broad categories:
biological, cultural, family, social and situational.

1. Biological Factors: The study of the biological contributions to personality may be

studied under three heads:

 Heredity: Heredity refers to those factors that were determined at conception.

Physical stature, facial attractiveness, sex, temperament, muscle composition
and reflexes, energy level, and biological rhythms are characteristics that are
considered to be inherent from one’s parents.
 Brain: The second biological approach is to concentrate on the role that the
brain plays in personality. Preliminary results from the electrical stimulation
of the brain (ESB) research give an indication that a better understanding of
human personality and behavior might come from the study of the brain.
 Physical features: A vital ingredient of the personality, an individual’s external
appearance, is biologically determined. The fact that a person is tall or short,
fat or skinny, black or white will influence the person’s effect on others and
this in turn, will affect the self-concept.
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2. Cultural Factors: Among the factors that influence personality formation is the
culture in which we are raised, early conditioning, norms prevailing within the family,
friends and social groups and other miscellaneous experiences that impact us. The
culture largely determines attitudes towards independence, aggression, competition,
cooperation and a host of other human responses. According to Paul H Mussen, “each
culture expects, and trains, its members to behave in ways that are acceptable to the
group. To a marked degree, the child’s cultural group defines the range of experiences
and situations he is likely to encounter and the values and personality characteristics
that will be reinforced and hence learned.”

3. Family Factors: Whereas the culture generally prescribes and limits what a person
can be taught, it is the family, and later the social group, which selects, interprets and
dispenses the culture. Thus, the family probably has the most significant impact on
early personality development. A substantial amount of empirical evidence indicates
that the overall home environment created by the parents, in addition to their direct
influence, is critical to personality development. The parents play an especially
important part in the identification process, which is important to the person’s early
development.

4. Social Factors: Socialization involves the process by which a person acquires, from

the enormously wide range of behavioral potentialities that are open to him or her,
those that are ultimately synthesized and absorbed. Socialization starts with the initial
contact between a mother and her new infant. After infancy, other members of the
immediate family – father, brothers, sisters and close relatives or friends, then the
social group: peers, school friends and members of the work group – play influential
roles. Socialization process is especially relevant to organizational behavior because
the process is not confined to early childhood, taking place rather throughout one’s
life. In particular, the evidence is accumulating that socialization may be one of the
best explanations for why employees behave the way they do in today’s
organizations.

5. Situational Factors: Human personality is also influenced by situational factors. The

effect of the environment is quite strong. Knowledge, skill and language are obviously
acquired and represent important modifications of behavior. An individual’s
personality, while generally stable and consistent, does change in different situations.
The varying demands of different situations call forth different aspects of one’s
personality. According to Milgram, “Situation exerts an important press on the
individual. It exercises constraints and may provide a push. In certain circumstances,
it is not so much the kind of person a man is, as the kind of situation in which he is
placed that determines his actions”. We should therefore not look at personality
patterns in isolation.

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Personality Frameworks
Many of our behaviors stem from our personalities, so understanding the components of
personality helps us predict behavior. Important theoretical frameworks and assessment tools
help us categorize the dimensions of personality. The most widely used and best known
personality frameworks are: “The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)” and “The Big Five
Personality Model. Both of the frameworks describe a person’s total personality through
exploration of the facets of personality.

1. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator: “The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)” is

the most widely used personality assessment instrument in the world. The MBTI
describes personality types by identifying one trait from each the four pairs. It is a
100-question personality test that asks people how they usually feel or act in
situations. Respondents are classified as extraverted or introverted (E or I), sensing or
intuitive (S or N), thinking or feeling (T or F), and judging or perceiving (J or P):

 Extraverted (E) versus Introverted (I): Extraverted individuals are outgoing,

sociable, and assertive. Introverts are quiet and shy.
 Sensing (S) versus Intuitive (N): Sensing types are practical and prefer routine
and order, and they focus on details. Intuitive types rely on unconscious
processes and look at the “Big Picture”.
 Thinking (T) versus Feeling (F): Thinking types use reason and logic to handle
problems. Feeling types rely on their personal values and emotions.
 Judging (J) versus Perceiving (P): Judging types want control and prefer order
and structure. Perceiving types are flexible and spontaneous.

2. The Big Five Personality Model: “The Big Five Model” proposes that five basic
dimensions underlie all others and encompass most of the significant variation in
human personality. Test scores of these traits do a very good job of predicting how
people behave in a variety of real-life situations and remain relatively stable for an
individual over time, with some daily variations. These traits are discussed below:

 Conscientiousness: The conscientiousness dimension is a measure of

reliability. A highly conscientious person is responsible, organized,
dependable, and persistent. Those who score low on this dimension are
easily distracted, disorganized, and unreliable.
 Emotional Stability: The emotional stability dimension taps a person’s
ability to withstand stress. People with emotional stability tend to be
calm, self-confident and secure. High scorers are more likely to be
positive and optimistic and they are generally happier than low scorers.
Low scorers are vulnerable to the physical and psychological effects of
stress. They are tended to be nervous, anxious and insecure.
 Extraversion: The extraversion dimension captures our comfort level
with relationships. Extraverts tend to be assertive and sociable. They

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 experience more positive emotions than do introverts, and they more
freely express these feelings. On the other hand, introverts ten to be
more thoughtful, reserved, timid and quiet.
 Openness to Experience: The openness to experience dimension address
the range of interests and fascination with novelty. Open people are
creative, curious, and artistically sensitive. Those at the low end of the
category are conventional and find comfort in the familiar.
 Agreeableness: The agreeableness dimension refers to an individual’s
propensity to defer to others. Agreeable people are cooperative, warm,
and trusting. When people choose organizational team members,
agreeable individuals are usually their first choice. In contrast, people
who score low on agreeableness are cold.

The Big Five Traits and Workplace behavior

There are many relationships between the big five personality dimensions and job
performance. They are discussed below:

 Conscientiousness at Work: Conscientiousness is important to overall organizational

success. Recently the researchers stated that “Personal attributes related to
conscientiousness and agreeableness are important for success across many jobs,
spanning across low to high levels of job complexity, training, and experience.”
Employees who score higher in conscientiousness develop higher level of job
knowledge, they learn more. Many people also think that conscientiousness is may be
related to CGPA. Conscientious people are also able to maintain their job
performance when faced with abusive supervision.
 Agreeableness at work: Agreeable individuals are better liked than disagreeable
people. So, they tend to do better in interpersonally-oriented jobs such as customer
service. They are more compliant and rule abiding and they are less likely to get into
accidents. Most importantly they are satisfied with their job. On the other hand,
disagreeable people are more likely to get involve in work accidents.
 Extraversion at work: Extraverts perform better in jobs with significant inter-
personal interaction. They are socially dominant, “take charge” people who are
usually more assertive. Extraversion is a relatively strong predictor of leadership
emergence in groups.
 Openness at work: Open people are likely to be effective leaders and more
comfortable with ambiguity. They cope better with organizational change and are
more adaptable. While openness is not related to initial performance on a job,
individuals higher in openness are less susceptible to a decline in experience over a
longer time period.
 Emotional Stability at work: Emotional stability is most strongly related to life
satisfaction, job satisfaction and low stress levels. People with high emotional
stability can adapt to unexpected or changing demands in the workplace. On the other

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 hand neurotic individuals, who may be unable to cope with these demands, may
experience burnout. These people also tend to experience work-family conflict, which
can affect work outcomes.

Situational Influences on Personality

According to Researchers, heredity is more important than the environment in developing our
personality. But the environment is not irreverent. Some personality traits, such as big five,
tend to be effective in almost any environment or situation. However, we are a learning that
the effect of particular traits on organizational behavior depends on situation. There are two
theories that show how situation influences personality.

 Situation Strength Theory: This theory proposes that the way personality translates
into behavior depends on the strength of the situation. By situation strength, we mean
the degree to which norms, cues, or standard dictate appropriate behavior.
Researchers have analyzed situation strength in organization in terms of four element:

1. Clarity: Jobs high in clarity produce strong situation because individuals can
readily determine what to do.
2. Consistency: It means the extent to which cues regarding work duties and
responsibilities are compatible with one another. Jobs with high consistency
represent strong situations because all cues point toward the same desired
behavior.
3. Constraints: Jobs with high constraints represent strong situations because an
individual has limited individual discretion.
4. Consequences: Jobs with important consequences represent strong situations
because the environment is probably heavily structured to guard against the
mistakes.

 Trait Activation Theory: Trait Activation theory (TAT) predicts that some
situations, events, or interventions “activate” a trait more than others. Using TAT, we
can foresee which jobs suit certain personalities. TAT also applies to personality
tendencies. For example, a recent study found people learning online responded
differently when their behavior was being electronically monitored. Those who have a
higher fear of failure had higher apprehension from the monitoring than others and
learned significantly less. In this case, a feature of environment which is the electronic
monitor activated a trait that is fear of failing, and the combination of the two lowered
job performance.

Definition of Values
Values defined in Organizational Behavior as the collective conceptions of what is
considered good, desirable, and proper or bad, undesirable, and improper in a culture. A

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value is a shared idea about how something is ranked in terms of desirability, worth or
goodness. Sometimes, it has been interpreted to mean “such standards by means of which the
ends of action are selected”. Familiar examples of values are wealth, loyalty, independence,
equality, justice, fraternity and friendliness. These are generalized ends consciously pursued
by or held up to individuals as being worthwhile in them. It is not easy to clarify the
fundamental values of a given society because of their sheer breadth.

Characteristics of Value
Values are different for each person. The characteristics of values are:
 These are extremely practical, and valuation requires not just techniques but also an
understanding of the strategic context.
 These can provide standards of competence and morality.
 These can go beyond specific situations or persons.
 Personal values can be influenced by culture, tradition, and a combination of internal
and external factors.
 These are relatively permanent.
 These are more central to the core of a person.
 Most of our core values are learned early in life from family, friends, neighborhood
school, the mass print, visual media and other sources within the society.
 Values are loaded with effective thoughts about ideas, objects, behavior, etc.
 They contain a judgmental element in that they carry an individual’s ideas as to what
is right, good, or desirable.
 Values can differ from culture to culture and even person to person.
 Values play a significant role in the integration and fulfillment of man’s basic
impulses and desire stably and consistently appropriate for his living.
 They are generic experiences in social action made up of both individual and social
responses and attitudes.
 They build up societies, integrate social relations.
 They mold the ideal dimensions of personality and depth of culture.
 They influence people’s behavior and serve as criteria for evaluating the actions of
others.
 They have a great role to play in the conduct of social life. They help in creating
norms to guide day-to-day behavior.

Types of Values
There are two types of Value, Terminal value and instrumental value. They are explained
below:
Terminal Values: These are values that we think are most important or most desirable.
These refer to desirable end-states of existence, the goals a person would like to achieve
during his or her lifetime. They include happiness, self-respect, recognition, inner harmony,
leading a prosperous life, and professional excellence.

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Instrumental Values: Instrumental values deal with views on acceptable modes of
conductor means of achieving the terminal values.
These include being honest, sincere, ethical, and being ambitious. These values are more
focused on personality traits and character.

Linking an Individual’s Personality and Values to the Workplace

There is a kind of relationship exists between individual’s personality with value and their job
performance in the workplace. High personality on values has high performance in the job. It
means there is positive relationship exists between them. The relationship between
personality and job is first explain by John Holland offering Personality-Job Fit Theory and is
the Person-Organization Fit Theory. 

1. Personality Job Fit Theory: John Holland present six personality types and proposes that
satisfaction and propensity to leave a job depend on how well individuals match their
personalities to a job. According to the theory of Holland, satisfaction is highest and turnover
is lowest when personality and occupation are on agreement. A realistic person in a realistic
job is in a more congruent situation than a realistic person in an investigative job. A realistic
person in a social job is in the most in-congruent situation possible. The key points of this
model are that
 There do appear to be intrinsic differences in personality among individuals.
 There are different types of jobs, and
 People in jobs congruent with their personality should be more satisfied and less
likely to voluntarily resign than people in in-congruent jobs.

2. Person-Organization Fit Theory: According to this theory, if an organization faces a

dynamic and changing environment and requires employees who are able to do readily
change tasks and move easily between teams, it’s more important that employees’
personalities fit with the overall organization’s culture than with the characteristics of any
specific job. The person-organization fit essentially argues that people are attracted to and
selected by organizations that match their values, and they leave organizations that are not
compatible with their personalities.

Importance of Values in an Organization

The importance of Values is discussed below:

 Value laid the foundation for understanding attitudes and motivation, and they
influence our perceptions. We enter an organization with preconceived notions of
what “ought” and “ought not” to be. These notions contain our interpretations of right
and wrong and our preferences for certain behavior or outcomes. Regardless of

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 whether they clarify or bias our judgment, our values influence our attitudes and
behaviors at work.
 While values can sometimes augment decision making, at times they could cloud
objectivity and rationality. For example, an employee enters into an organization with
the view that allocating pay on the basis of performance is right, while allocating on
the basis of seniority is wrong. The employee will most likely to be disappointed and
this could lead to job satisfaction.

Conclusion
Personality traits and values are two dimensions on which people differ. Personality is the
unique, relatively stable pattern of feelings, thoughts, and behavior that each individual
displays. Big Five personality dimensions are important traits; others that are particularly
relevant for work behavior include self-efficacy, self-esteem, social monitoring, and
proactive personality. While personality is a stronger influence over job attitudes, its relation
to job performance is weaker. Some companies use personality testing to screen out
candidates. Companies using personality tests are advised to validate their tests and use them
to supplement other techniques with greater validity, such as tests of cognitive ability.
Companies must also ensure that a test does not discriminate against any protected group.
Values express a person’s life goals; they are similar to personality traits in that they are
relatively stable over time. In the workplace, a person is more likely to accept a job that
provides opportunities for value attainment. People are also more likely to remain in a job
and career that satisfy their values.

References
1. The book “Organizational Behavior” written by Stephen P. Robbins/ Timothy A.
Judge (17th Edition)
2. https://open.lib.umn.edu/principlesmanagement/chapter/2-3-personality-and-values-
3/#:~:text=Values%20express%20a%20person's%20life,career%20that%20satisfy
%20their%20values.
3. https://www.iedunote.com/values
4. https://www.geektonight.com/personality-in-organisational-behavior-definition-
determinants-nature/
5. https://www.iedunote.com/types-of-values

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