Personality & Identity
Chapter 3: 104-118
Organizational Behavior 261
Gabrielle Durepos
Reminders for Today
 Attendance
 Group project outlines
 Will be marked by Monday Nov 7th
Outline
 Toward an understanding of Personality
 Personality Test:
 The Five Factor Model
 Vocational Choice Theory
 Myers-Briggs Type Indicator





Criticisms of Personality Tests
Toward an understanding of Identity
Social Identity Theory
Social Identity & The Organization
Conclusions
Toward an Understanding of:
Personality
 Refers to all the mental and behavioral characteristics
that make up and define the uniqueness of an
individual
 These characteristics are called personality traits
 Examples include: shy, kind, anxious, trustworthy, extraverted,
introverted, conscientious
 Personality is shaped by:
 genetic (nature)
 environment (nurture)
 Personality traits remain stable over time
 This is unlike identity which is fluid
Personality Test:
The Five Factor Model 1/3
 A framework developed to characterize personality
 Used by organizations for hiring and assessing leadership styles
 The model represents five basic dimensions of personality:
 Extraversion – outgoing, assertive, active, excitement seeking
 Agreeableness – the degree to which someone is warm, likeable, kind,
gentle, trusting
 Conscientiousness – dependability, conformity
 Emotional stability – opposite includes anxious, neurotic, fearful,
depressed, moody
 Openness to experience – creative, imaginative, perceptive, thoughtful
Personality Test:
The Five Factor Model 2/3
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Conscientiousness
Emotional stability
Openness to experience
Each dimension represents a continuum
Personality Test:
The Five Factor Model 3/3
 Different test instruments (NEO) are used to measure where
individuals fall on each continuum
 The only good predictor of job performance  conscientiousness
 Interviews are sometimes used to assess personality traits
 Studies show that interviewers can not assess traits that are good
predictors of job performance
 Example: Conscientiousness
 Reliability of The Five Factor Model is high
Personality Test:
Vocational Choice Theory 1/3
 Holland’s Vocational Choice looks at the individual’s:
 Distinct personality traits
 Choices of occupation
 Their level of satisfaction & productivity level within the occupation
 The premise of Vocational Choice Theory:
 People select occupations based on their personality traits
 Best-fit between an individual and occupation leads to:
 high performance, high satisfaction, low stress
 Lack of fit between an individual and occupation leads to:
 High stress, high absenteeism, low moral, low productivity
Personality Test:
Vocational Choice Theory 2/3
• Holland’s occupational classification system: personalities &
occupations are grouped in 6 categories:
 realistic
 investigative
 artistic
 social
 enterprising
 conventional
 Each category represents an interaction of:
 Cultural forces
 Personal forces
 example: biological heredity, parents, peers, social class
Personality Test:
Vocational Choice Theory 3/3
• Individuals match:
• Their personality characterization  with an
occupation’s characterization
• Example: Someone is characterized as enterprising
• This means they are ambitious, extroverted, selfconfident, energetic
• They will seek out occupations that have been
categorized in the enterprising category
• i.e. they will seek out occupations that are consistent
with these traits, such as business executive
• Vocational choice theory is less reliable
Personality Test:
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
1/2

The Myers-Briggs test is a personality type indicator

Myers-Briggs Test was designed to:
 Help individuals understand their & others personality type
 Enables:
 Finding your proper niche of work
 Productivity at work
 Good person-organization fit

Myers and Briggs develop a typology of 16 psychological types
 Individuals are classified into the typology

The instrument:
 Self-report questionnaire
 Individuals report their personal preference on certain situations
 Answers are used to classify individuals into 1 of 16 personality types
Personality Test:
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
Extraversion
Sensing
EI
2/2
Introversion
SN
Intuition
Thinking
TF
Feeling
Judgment
JP
Perception
• Each personality type is designated by 4 letters of personality preference
designated
• Each of the 16 combinations or personality types has a description
associated with it
Criticisms of Personality Test 1/2
• REVIEW: Personality tests are used to assess the
personality of individuals to see if they fit a:
– Job
– Workgroup
– Organization
1. Is there a relationship between personality traits & job
performance?
– Two meta-analyses were conducted
– Only some aspects of personality tests are found to
be “good predictors” of job performance
Criticisms of Personality Test 2/2
2. High costs of administering personality test
3. Assumes that jobs remain stable over time
4. Rely on self-reportage: people can lie on tests
5. Scores on personality tests can lead to individuals being classified
rigidly and can lead to stereotypes or discrimination
• ** Hiring decisions, promotion or termination should never be based
solely on results of personality tests – they should accompany other
methods
Toward an Understanding of:
Identity
 Is the ‘sense of self’ that we experience in different situations, that
we develop over time, as we are socialized through various
experiences
 Fluid, it changes based on situation and role within a situation
 Ex: At work I have a different ‘identity’ than at the pub on Friday
 Shaped by the various groups (musical band; soccer team;
Amnesty International) and social categories (sex, gender, race,
occupation) to which we belong
 Is what we use to tell others ‘who we are’
 Is subject to many different interpretations
Social Identity Theory 1/4
 Social Identity theory states that:
 People develop and attach meaning to an ‘identity’as a result of their
membership with various social groups or categories
 The premise is that:
 All individuals have multiple identities: some of which are social identities
 which is defined by their self identification with a social category: race,
age, gender, sex
 Through time and experience, we come to associate meaning and values
with certain social categories:
 “oh yeah… you know how irresponsible they are at that age…”
 “…and he didn’t apologize? typical man...”
 “well he is one of us, strong, determined and pays attention to detail.
He will do well in the reserves…”
 The meaning we attach to the social categories to which we belong shapes
our identity
Social Identity Theory 2/4
 The downside: stereotyping
 Making generalizations of a person based on the social group or
category to which they are associated
 Example:
 “I don’t know her but she is a feminist and you know how
they are…”
Social Identity & the Organization 3/4
 The organization influences identity through:
 The establishment of norms that affect individuals
 such as professional codes of conduct, dress codes
 Categorizing and classifying individuals through:







the use of titles
allocation of physical space
location in the hierarchy
roles / sets of tasks and their ascribed importance
occupation
department
workgroup
Social Identity & The Organization 4/4
Silos
 Members of silos:
 Silos in organizations:
 Groups who become
closely knit and do not
interact with other groups
 often to their detriment
 Silos can be due to:
 hierarchal structures
 social identity of
members
 perceive themselves to be
different and unique from
members of other groups
 may want to maintain that
sense of uniqueness
 Downside includes:
 lack of communication &
coordination
 duplication of work
 stereotyping
 discrimination
Conclusions
 What are the downsides of hiring practices based on
personality tests?
 What does assimilation mean in terms of identity?
 To what degree should or can an organization shape an
individuals identity?