Personality comes from the Greek word "persona", meaning "mask„

A person’s general style of interacting with the world.

People differ from one another in ways that are relatively consistent over time and place.

Lay usage of the term "personality": “She has a wonderful personality.” “He has no personality.” “He’s a real personality.” In other words personality is the unique and

relatively stable pattern of behavior, thoughts, and emotions shown by individuals.

By Gordon allport: Personality is –

“the dynamic organisation within the individual of those of psychophysical systems that determine his/her unique adjustments to his/her environment “

“It is the sum total of ways an individual reacts to and interacts with others.”

Personality is measurable - traits

Heredity

Environment

Situation

1. Heredity:

It refers to physical stature, facial attractiveness, temperament, muscle composition  and reflexes, energy level, and biological rhythms are characteristics that are  considered to be inherent. 

It plays an important part in determining an individual's personality. 

Heredity approach argues that the ultimate explanation of an individual's personality  is the molecular structures of the genes, which are located in the chromosomes. 

Traits such as shyness, fear and aggressiveness can be traced to inherited genetic characteristics.

2.Situational Factors:

Situational factors also influence to determine of personality.

  Situational factors are very important to change the individual behaviour

in a  different circumstance at different situations, it also influence to personality of  individual person.

In general term, personality is stable and consistent and it does change in different  situations. 

Examples : personality of a person in a temple or an job interview.

personality of a person in a public park or a picnic.

3.Environment:

It refers to the factors that exerts pressure on our personality formation

through the culture in which we are raised.

Examples : Family, Friends and Social groups.

Heredity provides us with the inborn traits and abilities, but our potential will be determined by how well we adjust to the demands and requirements of the environment.

Personality Tests: A selection procedure measure the personality characteristics of applicants that are related to future job performance. Personality tests typically measure one or more of five personality dimensions: extroversion, emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience.

Advantages:

can reveal more information about applicant's abilities and interests. can identify interpersonal traits that may be needed for certain jobs.

Disadvantages:

Difficult to measure personality traits that may not be well defined. lack of diversity if all selected applicants have same personality traits. High cost to conduct such tests as well asses them to find out the results. lack of evidence to support validity of use of personality tests.

1.Objective tests: indicating on paper and pencil who we are –

Questioner and inventories designed to measure various aspects of personality.

Objective tests are more widely used method of measuring both personality and

mental abilities.

The score obtained by specific person is then compared with those obtained by hundreds or even thousands who have taken the test previously.

These tests are considered objective because they can be scored simply by counting the responses that fall into the various categories.

FORMAT FOR OBJECTIVE QUESTIONS

2.Reliability and validity: essential requirements of personality tests.

The extent to which a test yields consistent scores on various occasions.

The measure of personality must have a high degree of reliability in order to be useful in the field of Organizational behavior (OB)

Example – Different score for the same person for the two different tests.

Validity – the extend to which a test actually measures what it claims to measure.

Its very important to establish the validity of any tests of personality we use because if they are low in validity then they are useless.

Traits can be defined as habitual patterns of behaviour, thought, and emotion.

When the popular features of an human being are exhibited in large number of situations, are called personality traits.

The more the frequency it occurs in diverse situations, the more important that trait is in describing the personality of the individual.

The research has proved that these traits could help in employee selection, matching right job for the right person and guiding in carrier development.

Traits are relatively stable over time, differ among individuals (e.g. some people are outgoing whereas others are shy), and influence behaviour.

Traits are a readiness to think or act in a similar fashion in response to a variety of different stimuli or situations.

It is a 100 question personality test that asks people how they usually feel or act in a particular situation.

Classification as : Extrovert or Introvert (E or I) Sensing or Intuitive ( S or N) Thinking or Feeling (T or F) Perceiving or Judging ( P or J)

1. Extroverted vs. Introverted = Extrovert individuals are :– Outgoing.

Sociable.

Assertive.

Introverts are:- Quiet.

Shy.

2. Sensing vs. intuitive – sensing types of people are practical and prefer routine

and order.

intuitive rely on unconscious processes and look at the

“big picture”

3. Thinking vs. Feeling – Thinking types need reason and logic to handle

any problem.

Feeling types rely on their personal values and emotions.

4. Judging vs. perceiving – Judging type want control and prefer to be ordered and

structured.

perceiving types are flexible and spontaneous.

The big five factors that encompasses most of the significant variation in human personality are:-

1. Extroversion : This dimension addresses a person's preference for sociability and interactivity (high Extraversion, or E+) versus solitude and privacy (low Extraversion, or E-). 

E+ types tend to be quick to self-disclose, to process information out loud, to seek high levels of activity (to be outwardly busy), and to seek generalist work roles. 

E- types tend to be slow to self-disclosure (or selective about self-disclosure), to process information inwardly, to seek low levels of activity (to be inwardly busy), and to seek specialist work roles.

2. Agreeableness : This dimension measures good natured, trustworthy and cooperative (high Agreeableness or A+) versus competitive (low Agreeableness or A-) approaches to interactions with others.

  A+ types usually describe themselves as empathic, sensitive, harmony-seeking; 

they like tasks and situations in which "everyone wins". 

A- types usually describe themselves as impersonal, analytical, outcome-driven;  they like tasks and situations in which there are clear winners and losers. 

3. Conscientiousness : This dimension measures convergent, task oriented (high Conscientiousness or C+) versus divergent, process oriented (low Conscientiousness or C-) work styles. 

C+ types usually describe themselves as organized, structured, systematic, early starters with steady work habits;  they lose efficiency in low structure situations (needing stability), and usually adopt a "work first, play later," serious minded stance to life. 

C- types usually describe themselves as spontaneous, flexible, adaptable, "feast or famine" workers who rely on bursts of enthusiasm or energy;  they lose efficiency in high structure situations (needing autonomy), and usually adopt a "mix work and play", fun loving stance to life.

4. Emotional stability : A personality dimension that characterizes some one as clam, self confident, secure (positive) versus someone nervous, depressed, and insecure (negative).

5. Openness to experience : This dimension addresses a person's preference for abstract ideas and possibilities (high Openness, or O+) versus concrete realities and facts (low Openness, or O-). 

O+ types focus on thinking about the world as it might be, are more theory-driven, and tend to focus on the possibility or opportunity side of change (which, depending on their core values, may make them more "liberal"). 

O- types focus on acting in the world as it is now, are more application- or practice-driven, and tend to focus on the threat or risk side of change (which, depending on their core values, may make them more "conservative"). 

1. Locus of control : a person’s perception of the source of his or her fate is termed locus of control.

Some people believe that they control their destinies and such people are called

as internals.

Research shows that, people with internals exhibit more motivation and job satisfaction.

Some people believe that lives are controlled by outside forces, such people are called as externals.

where as, individuals with high in externality are less satisfied with their jobs, more absenteeism and less involvement in their jobs.

2.Machiavellianism : The degree to which an individual is pragmatic,

maintains emotional distance, and believes that ends can justify means. High mach's manipulate more, win more, are persuaded less, and persuade

others . On the other hand lower mach's can easily be persuaded by others and like to

carry on with the proper code of conduct of their job.

3. Self – esteem : Individuals degree of liking or disliking themselves.

High self-esteems believe that they possess the ability they need to succeed in at work, they take more risks. And likely to choose diverse jobs.

Low self-esteems are dependents on the receipt of positive evaluation from others.

Therefore high SE’s are more satisfied with their job than low SE’s.

4. Self-monitoring : A personality trait that measures an individual’s ability to adjust his or her behavior to external, situational factors.

people with high self-monitoring tends to pay close attention to the behavior of others, they can emerge as better leaders. Such managers are tend to be more mobile in their careers and receive promotions.

Low self-monitors try to display their true dispositions and attitude in every situation,

hence they create a difference between who they are and what they do.

5. Risk taking : It refers to that trait of any person or a manager which is concerned with decision making and how much time he/she takes to take that particular decision.

It is see in a research that managers with high risk taking attitude can take equally good decisions as per the managers who take much time and information to think much and then take a decision in order to avoid any risk