Organisational Behaviour_7

Personality

Personality: “Characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling and acting."


The pattern of relatively enduring ways in which a person feels, thinks and behaves.

- Develops over a person's life time.
- Generally stable in the context of work.
- Can influence career choice, job satisfaction, stress, leadership and even performance.


Trait: A specific component of personality that describes particular tendencies a person has to feel, think and act in certain ways.

The Big Five Models of Personality

Emotional Stability:

•- Calm/Anxious

•- Secure/Insecure

The tendency to experience negative emotional states and view oneself and the world around negatively.

Extroversion:

•- Sociable/Retiring

•- Fun Loving/Sober

The tendency to experience positive emotional states and feel good about oneself and the world around.

Openness to experience:

•- Imaginative/Practical

•- Independent/Conforming

The extent to which a person is original, has broad interests, and is willing to take risks.

Agreeableness:

•- Soft-Hearted/Ruthless

•- Trusting/Suspicious

The tendency to get along well with others.

Conscientiousness:

•- Organized/Disorganized

•- Careful/Careless

Defense Mechanisms:

•Repression - banishes certain thoughts/feelings from consciousness (underlies all other defense

mechanisms)

•Regression - retreating to earlier stage of fixated

development

•Reaction Formation - ego makes unacceptable impulses appear as their opposites

•Projection - attributes threatening impulses to others

•Rationalization - generate self-justifying explanations to hide the real reasons for our actions

•Displacement - divert impulses toward a more

acceptable object

•Sublimation - transform unacceptable impulse into

something socially valued