Blog Seven - Personality

Personality – blog 7

Personality is the sum of a person’s characteristics including features in which make their identity unique to another person. Personality theorists are interested in the structure of the individual, how are people "put together;" how do they "work;" how do they "fall apart" (Boeree, 2006).Personality differs from one person to the next and can shape someone’s background, beliefs and their attitudes in daily life.

There are two main ideas as to where a person’s personality stems from including the Nature approach and the Nurture theory. The Nature theory explains that a person’s personality is heredity and therefore personal traits are obtained through genes and DNA which shapes a person’s personality (Powell, 2010) . However the Nurture theory explains that personality is shaped through environmental influences and therefore personality can change according to a person’s lifestyle. Therefore it can be debated as to whether either approach has a greater influence on personality than the other or whether a combination of both factors act towards the shaping of a person’s personality. There are two different approaches to personality where the nomothetic approach looks at personalities on a generalised scale stating that groups of people have similar personalities whereas the idiographic approach shows a personality of an individual as being unique to that person.

Nature Theory

The nature theory explains that personality follows a Nomothetic approach explaining that personality is relatively fixed and therefore is consistent throughout lifetime with very few changes. Psychologists such as Cattell and Eysenck follow this theory explaining their own concepts of how a person’s personality develops. Cattell’s theory explains that personality can be identified by 16 different traits known from carrying out the 16PF questionnaire. Such personality factors include Abstractedness, liveliness and perfectionism which Cattell proposed as measuring a person’s personality. These traits are set on a continuum and how far along this continuum a specific trait lays will give a description of an individual’s personality. Therefore Cattell follows the belief that people have each of these specific traits however it depends to what extent these traits are evident.

When looking at an employee’s personality when recruiting for a job role, a person following nomothetic traits would benefit a company as the employer would know the traits of its employee and these traits would remain similar for the remainder of the contract. Therefore the employer would know that what they see from the employee during the interview, they can expect when giving out different tasks for completion. However it may not be beneficial when an employer would benefit more from differentiating personalities for different tasks as jobs may not be completed to the best ability with consistent traits and little change.

Nurture Theory

The nurture theory explains that a person’s personality can alter according to the environment and changes can occur throughout lifetime. The idiographic approach can be linked to this theory as an individualistic personality will be adaptable to change according to environmental influences. Skinner’s theory of Radical Behaviourism supports the idea of personality altering through environmental influences. ‘Radical behaviourism assumed that behaviour is determined by a desire to gain positive reinforcement and to avoid negative reinforcement’ (Grice, 2010). This shows that an individual may alter their personality due to rewards being received through specific behaviours. In relation to a job role, an employee may act differently to their own personality if they have learned that positive reinforcement is gained from certain behaviours. This may be beneficial to employers as employees can adapt to working in different situations and learning new working practices of the business. However it may hinder some employer’s views during the recruitment and selection process as candidate’s personality traits may be hidden if they are acting in a way in which the interviewer would like to see them in order to be selected.

The extent to which either theory of personality is more dominant than the other is dependent on a person’s opinion however it may be that both theories contribute to the overall rounding of a person’s personality. ‘Both a body and experience are probably essential to being a person, and it is very difficult to separate their effects’ (Boeree, 2006).

In my opinion, I believe that both theories of how personality is formed have evident explanations however I believe the nature approach to personality has a more dominant influence than the environment on shaping an individual’s personality. This is because I believe a personality is mostly gained from traits that are innate and therefore inherited from parents and although personality can be altered a little by the environment, many of the innate traits will still be underlying and these traits help to shape a person’s beliefs and attitudes which they carry with them throughout life. However there are some drawbacks with personality testing on future applicants including a negative view of an employer on a potential applicant due to their personality not matching the typical personality an employer would want for the job in line. There are doubts about an overreliance on personality tests with respect to their use in predicting future performance (Bratton and Gold, 2007). Therefore even if personality testing has a large benefit on looking at potential employees’ attitudes and beliefs, it can distort an employee’s skill of adaptability to different skills if employed by a company.

Personality questionnaire

Through completing the personality questionnaire I found that I excel mostly within a work situation when I am interacting and presenting information during work tasks. The questionnaire also highlighted that I am moderately likely to organise and execute through decision making and assigning colleagues to different tasks within a team working situation. However I would be less effective carrying out a role which requires analysis and interpretation of information which could incur faults within a team working situation. Also when working with others, I may be less likely to be able to support and cooperate with others needs and therefore I would be more suited to working alone when developing a work plan.

Overall, the questionnaire shows that I would be more effective to a business in a more leading role giving guidance and delegation to others but also discussing and presenting new information to help others understand the job role in place. Therefore a business would benefit more if I could take information already retrieved and present it to others rather than creating ideas to be put into action in the future running of the task.

Conclusion

Personality is an important factor when considering candidates for job roles within a business. Managers would be most interested in finding an employee with a personality which would fit the job title given and for this personality to maintain throughout the working role of the business. For example an employee working with customers would need a vibrant personality which would be friendly towards customers ensuring their needs and wants are met by the company to give effective customer service. However different methods to a personality questionnaire are used more regularly to establish employees working skills. Organisations now prefer to use reliable and valid psychometric instruments as a way of helping employees to diagnose strengths and weaknesses for a development plan (Bratton and Gold, 2003). Both Cattell and Eysenck’s theories of personality are effective in explaining in detail the differences in personality of an employee and these theories can be used to look into personality differences of employees from a business perspective.

References

Boeree, C. (2006) Personality theories [online]. Webspace. Available from: http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/persintro.html [Accessed: 27 April 2012].

Bratton, J. and Gold, J. (2003) Human resource management, Theory and practice. 3rd ed. Bath: Palgrave Macmillan.

Bratton, J. and Gold, J. (2007) Human resource management. 4th ed. China: Palgrave Macmillan.

Grice, R. (2010) Overview of Skinner's theory of personality [online]. Helium. Available from: http://www.helium.com/items/1753679-skinners-theory-of-personality [Accessed: 17 April 2012].

Powell, K. (2010) Nature vs. nurture [online]. About.com. Available from: http://genealogy.about.com/cs/geneticgenealogy/a/nature_nurture.htm [Accessed: 17 April 2012].