IAS1162 – Human Personality &
Team Building
Trait Approach
Scenario
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You’ve just been assigned a new roommate whom you don’t
know
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Both of you introduce one another
What are the questions you might ask?
How do you describe your personality?
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Do you:
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Present yourself by describing the type of person you are?
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Present yourself by describing your characteristics?
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Quiet type, Independent type, Outgoing type …
Studious? Shy? Friendly?
In essence, you would be using the trait approach to
personality in answering the questions.
The Type (Typology) Approach
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People has tried to describe personality for ages
Gordon Allport is one of the original trait theorists
counted more than 4,000 adjectives in the English
language used for this purpose
First attempt to identify and describe these
characteristics were typology systems.
The ancient Greeks divided people into four types:
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Sanguine (Happy)
Melancholic (Unhappy)
Choleric (temperamental)
Phlegmatic (apathetic) – indifferent, unconcerned, lazy, bored
… cont’d
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Another effort identified three basic personality types
based on general physique:
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Endomorphic (obese)
Mesomorphic (muscular)
Ectomorphic (fragile)
However, this approach is strict and assumptions made
are not easily justified
In this approach, a person is ‘judged’ to be strictly the
type, meaning, if you are Type A, you cannot be half A, half
B, you are all the while A.
Type approach has been replaced with the Trait Approach
Trait Approach
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A trait is a dimension of personality used to categorize
people according to the degree to which they manifest a
particular characteristic
Built on 2 assumptions
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Assume that personality characteristics are relatively stable
over time
Personality characteristics are stable across situations
Gordon Allport
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Born in Montezuma, Indiana, USA (1897)
Went to Harvard, together with his older brother Floyd
Took up psychology and mostly interested in finding the best
way to understand human behavior
Accepted that behavior is influenced by a variety of
environmental factors and recognized that traits alone cannot
predict what a single individual will do
Believed that traits have physical components in the nervous
systems
Identified two general strategies to use when investigating
personality
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Nomothetic approach
Idiographic approach
… cont’d
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Nomothetic:
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Assume that all people can be describe along a single
dimension according to level of assertiveness or anxiety
Same traits among many people = common traits
Idiographic:
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Identify the unique combination of traits that best accounts for
the personality of a single individual
Proving a point
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Choose 2 people in your team
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Have each of them take a few minutes to list 10 traits to describe
their behavior
DO IT NOW! Quietly…
Compare the traits between the two
Question:
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Are the traits the same?
Allport referred to these 5 to 10 traits that best describe an
individual’s personality as central traits
Occasionally, a single trait dominates a personality – cardinal
trait
There have been historical figures whose behavior was so
dominated by a single trait until it became synonymous with
the individual hence the coined words: Machiavellian, Homeric
or even Don Juans.
The Big Five
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Many researches have been done to describe the basic
dimensions of personality
Different teams of investigators used many different kinds
of data
In any case, mostly they found evidence for five basic
dimensions of personality, The Big Five
Different researchers sometimes used different names,
but the commonly used:
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Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness and
Conscientiousness (or if you are clever, it can be OCEAN)
The Big Five Personality Factors
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Neuroticism
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Extraversion
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Openness
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Agreeableness
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Conscientiousness
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Worried vs calm
Insecure vs secure
Self-pitying vs self-satisfied
Sociable vs retiring
Fun-loving vs sober
Affectionate vs reserved
Imaginative vs down-to-earth
Preference for variety vs preference for
routine
Independent vs conforming
Softhearted vs ruthless
Trusting vs suspicious
Helpful vs uncooperative
Well-organized vs disorganized
Careful vs careless
Self-disciplined vs weak willed
Neuroticism
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Places people along a continuum (range) according to
their emotional stability and personal adjustment
People with frequent emotional distress and wide
emotional swings scores high on this measure
Tend to become more upset over daily stressors
Many types of negative emotions – sadness, anger, anxiety,
guilt
People who score low tend to be calm, well adjusted, not
prone to extreme emotional reactions
Extraversion
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Extreme at one end – extrovert or extreme at the other
end – introvert
Extroverts are very sociable people who also tend to be
energetic, optimistic, friendly and assertive
Not to say introverts do not typically express these
characteristic, but incorrect to say they are asocial or
without energy
Introverts are just reserved, rather than unfriendly,
independent rather than followers, paced rather than
sluggish
However, extroverts usually have more friends and spend
more time in social situations
Openness
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Openness to experience rather than openness in an
interpersonal sense
They have active imagination, willing to consider new
ideas, divergent thinking and intellectual curiosity
Unconventional and independent thinkers
Low in openness tend to prefer the familiar rather than
seeking out something new
Some researchers refer to openness as intellect and not
the same as intelligence
Agreeableness
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Helpful, trusting, sympathetic
Low on agreeableness – antagonistic and skeptical, like to
fight for their interests and beliefs
Prefer cooperation over competition, have more pleasant
social interactions and fewer quarrelsome exchanges
Conscientiousness
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Controlled and self-disciplined
Organized, plan oriented and determined
Low end – apt to be careless, easily distracted from tasks,
and undependable. Might have more automobile
accidents
Big Five in a Workplace
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Team work
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Imagine each team is a company, and the team leader is the
Head of HR. The other team members are a committee to
hire a new employee. The company is in dire need of an extra
help, there are five applicants shortlisted for the job. Who will
be the BEST EMPLOYEE to hire?
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Nordin – scored low in Neuroticism
Obe-wan-Kenobi – scored high in Openness
Chai – scored high in Conscientiousness
Elsa – scored high in Extraversion
Alf – scored high in Agreeableness
Discuss which among the 5 you are going to hire
The Team Leader will present the choice in front by telling why
the team chooses the candidate
The verdict
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So, which of the five applicants is likely to make the best
employee?
A great deal of research indicates that of the Big Five
factors, CONSCIENTIOUSNESS may be the best
predictor of job performance
Why? The characteristics – careful, thorough, dependable
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They don’t rush through the job – take time to do it correctly
and completely
Highly conscientious people tend to be organized and to lay
out plans before starting a big project
Hardworking, persistent and achievement-oriented
Set higher goals for themselves
What about the other 4?
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Agreeableness
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Extraverts
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Have an edge in the business world
Openness
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Trusting, cooperative and helpful
Pleasant to have around the office and especially well in jobs
calling for teamwork
Beneficial in some job settings
Low in Neuroticism
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Calm and collected, not easily panicked
Conclusion
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Trait approach assumes we can identify individual
differences in behaviors that are relatively stable across
situations and over time
Gordon Allport was the first acknowledged trait theorist.
Among his contributions were the notion of central and
secondary traits, nomothetic versus idiographic research
The recent development of the five-factor model has
renewed interest in the relationship between personality
and job performance. Although several of the Big Five
dimensions are related to performance in the business
world, many studies indicate that Conscientiousness may
be the best predictor of performance
THE END
Continue on with Chapter 6