Session -3 &4
Personality and
Perception
Self -Awareness
Self -Awareness
Self-awareness involves monitoring our stress,
thoughts, emotions, and beliefs. It is important,
because it’s a major mechanism influencing
personal development.
Self –Awareness Theory
Self-awareness theory is based on the idea that you are not your
thoughts, but the entity observing your thoughts; you are the thinker,
separate and apart from your thoughts (Duval & Wicklund, 1972).
We can go about our day without giving our inner self any extra
thought, merely thinking and feeling and acting as we will; however,
we also can focus our attention on that inner self, an ability that Duval
and Wicklund (1972) termed “self-evaluation.”
When we engage in self-evaluation, we can give some thought to
whether we are thinking and feeling and acting as we “should” or
following our standards and values.
Key Areas of Self -Awareness
Personality Traits
Personal Values
Habits
Emotions
Psychological Needs
How to Create Self -Awareness
• Seeking Feedback from others
• Reflecting on one’s own feeling and
behavior
• Taking Self Scoring tests
Variables Influencing Individual Behavior
Personality
The relatively stable set of characteristics that
influences an individual’s behavior and lend it
consistency.
What Is Personality?
The dynamic organization within the individual of those
psychophysical systems that determine his unique
adjustments to his environment. - Gordon Allport
– The sum total of ways in which an individual reacts and
interacts with others.
•Measuring Personality
– Helpful in hiring decisions
– Most common method: self-reporting surveys
Personality Traits
•Two dominant frameworks used to
describe personality:
– Big Five Model
– Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
Personality and
Organizations
• The “Big Five” Personality Traits
– A set of fundamental traits that are especially relevant to organizations
Extraversion The quality of being comfortable with others (Sociable,
gregarious, and self-confident)
Agreeableness The ability to get along with others (Good-natured,
cooperative, and trusting)
Conscientiousness The number of goals on which a person focuses
(Responsible, dependable, persistent, and organized)
Neuroticism or Experiencing anger, anxiety, moodiness/insecurity
Emotional Stability (Calm, self-confident, secure under stress (positive),
versus nervous, depressed, and insecure under stress
(negative)
Openness The capacity to entertain new ideas and to change as a
result of new information (Curious, imaginative,
artistic, and sensitive)
How Do the Big Five
Traits Predict Behavior?
• Research has shown this to be a better framework.
• Certain traits have been shown to strongly relate to higher job
performance:
– Highly conscientious people develop more job knowledge,
exert greater effort, and have better performance.
– Other Big Five Traits also have implications for work.
• Emotional stability is related to job satisfaction.
• Extroverts tend to be happier in their jobs and have
good social skills.
• Open people are more creative and can be good leaders.
• Agreeable people are good in social settings.
Four Measures of Personality
Projective Test
obtain an individual’s response to abstract
stimuli
Behavioral Measures personality
assessments that involve observing an
individual’s behavior in a controlled
situation
Four Measures of Personality
Self-Report Questionnaire
assessment involving an individual’s
responses to questions
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
instrument measuring Jung’s theory
of individual differences
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
In the 1940’s, Myers and Briggs
developed the MBTI to understand
individual differences by analyzing
the combinations of preferences.
Measures of Personality
• The Myers-Briggs Framework
– Differentiation across four general dimensions
• Extroversion/ Introversion
• Sensing/Intuiting
• Thinking/ Feeling
• Judging/Perceiving
– Sixteen personality classifications result from the higher and
lower positions of the general dimensions
– Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a popular
questionnaire used to assess personality types
• Communications styles
• Interaction preferences
The Myers-Briggs Type
Indicator
• Most widely used instrument in the world.
• Participants are classified on four axes to determine one of
16 possible personality types, such as ENTJ.
Sociable & Quiet & Shy
Assertive
Practical & Unconscious
Orderly Processes
Use Reason Uses Values
& Emotions
& Logic
Flexible &
Want Order
Spontaneous
& Structure
MBTI Scales
ISTJ ISFJ INFJ INTJ
ISTP ISFP INFP INTP
ESTP ESFP ENFP ENTP
ESTJ ESFJ ENFJ ENTJ
The Types and Their Uses
• Each of the sixteen possible combinations has a name,
for instance:
– Visionaries (INTJ): original, stubborn, and driven
– Organizers (ESTJ): realistic, logical, analytical, and
business like
– Conceptualizers (ENTP): entrepreneurial, innovative,
individualistic, and resourceful
• Research results on validity mixed
– MBTI is a good tool for self-awareness and counseling.
Uses of MBTI
• Understand different viewpoints of
others in the organization.
• Team building.
• Show benefits of diversity and
differences.
Other Personality Traits
Relevant to OB
• Core Self-Evaluation
– The degree to which people like or dislike themselves
– Positive self-evaluation leads to higher job performance
• Machiavellianism
– A pragmatic, emotionally distant power-player who believes that
ends justify the means
– High Machs are manipulative, win more often, and persuade more
than they are persuaded. They flourish when:
• they have direct interaction with others
• they work with minimal rules and regulations
• Narcissism
– An arrogant, entitled, self-important person who needs excessive
admiration
– Less effective in their jobs
More Relevant Personality
Traits
• Self-Monitoring
– The ability to adjust behavior to meet external,
situational factors.
– High monitors conform more and are more likely to
become leaders.
• Risk Taking
– The willingness to take chances.
– May be best to align propensities with job
requirements.
– Risk takers make faster decisions with less information.
Even More Relevant
Personality Traits
• Type A and Type B Personality
– Type A people are aggressively involved in a chronic,
nonstop struggle to achieve more in less time
• Impatient: always moving, walking, and eating rapidly
• Strive to think or do two or more things at once
• Cannot cope with free time
• Obsessed with achievement numbers
– Quality of the work is low
– Type B people are the complete opposite of Type A’s
• Proactive Personality
– Identifies opportunities, shows initiative, takes action, and
perseveres to completion
– Creates positive change in the environment
Relevant Personality
Traits (cont’d)
• Emotional Intelligence (EQ)
– The extent to which people are self-aware, can manage their
emotions, can motivate themselves, express empathy for
others, and possess social skills
- Dimensions of EQ
– Self-awareness
– Managing emotions
– Motivating oneself
– Empathy (concern for others)
– Social skills
Relevant Personality Traits
(cont’d)
•Self-Efficacy
– Beliefs and expectations about one’s ability to accomplish a specific task effectively
•Locus of Control
– Internal: I control what happens to me
– External: People and circumstances control my fate
• Self-Esteem
– Individual’s General feeling of self-worth
– Success tends to increase self-esteem
– Failure tends to decrease self-esteem
The Role of Affect
Positive Affect – an individual’s tendency to
draw attention to the positive aspects of
oneself, other people, and the world in
general
Negative Affect – an individual’s tendency to
highlight the negative aspects of oneself, other
people, and the world in general
What is Perception?
• Perception
– Process by which people select, organize,
interpret, retrieve, and respond to information
from the world around them.
What is perception?
What do you
see?
What do you
see?
What do you
see?
The Dress
Factor Influencing Perception
• Characteristics of the Perceiver
• Characteristics of the Perceived Person,
Event and object
• The Setting – Social , Situational ,
positional and Organizational context
Processes……contd
• Interpretation
– Uncovering the reasons behind the
ways stimuli are grouped.
Organize
Processes……contd
• Retrieval
– Attention and selection, organization, and
interpretation are part of memory.
– Information stored in memory must be
retrieved in order to be used.
Perceptual Distortions or Errors
• Stereotypes
– Occur when we identify someone with a group or
category, and then use the attributes perceived to be
associated with the group or category to describe the
individual.
• Individual differences are obscured.
• Managers may not accurately understand the
needs, preferences, and abilities of others in the
workplace.
Perceptual Distortions or Errors
• Common Stereotypes
– Racial
– Ethnic
– Gender
– Ability
– Age
Perceptual Distortions or Errors
• Halo effects
– Occur when one attribute of a person or
situation is used to develop an overall
impression of the individual or situation.
Perceptual Distortions or Errors
• Selective perception
– The tendency to single out those of a
situation, person, or object that for attention
those aspects of a situation, person, or object
that are consistent with one’s needs, values,
or attitudes.
Perceptual Distortions or Errors
• Projection
– The assignment of one’s personal attributes to
other individuals.
Perceptual Distortions or Errors
Self-fulfilling prophecy
– The tendency to create or find in another
situation or individual that which one
expected to find in the first place.
More Common Decision-Making
Errors
• Escalation of Commitment
– Increasing commitment to a decision in spite of
evidence that it is wrong – especially if responsible for
the decision!
• Randomness Error
– Creating meaning out of random events –
superstition
• Risk Aversion
– The tendency to prefer a sure gain of a moderate
amount over a riskier outcome.
Individual Differences in Decision
Making
• Personality
– Conscientiousness may effect escalation of
commitment
• Achievement strivers are likely to increase
commitment
• Dutiful people are less likely to have this bias
– Self-Esteem
• High self-esteem people are susceptible to self-
serving bias
• Gender
• Mental Ability
Non-verbal
Communication
Nonverbal Communication
Studies show that over half of your
message is carried through nonverbal
elements:
• Your appearance
• Your body language
• The tone and
• the pace of your voice.
Nonverbal Communication
Before someone processes our verbal messages,
• Taken in our appearance,
• Registered our enthusiasm and sincerety
• Noted our tone of voice and processed all into
nonverbal message.
• If this message reinforce the content of verbal
one, it means we send a powerful message.
• If the two messages do not match, they may
cancel each other and that means no messages
delivered.
Nonverbal Communication
• The process of sending and
receiving wordless
messages by means of
facial expressions, gaze,
gestures, postures, and
tones of voice.
• Nonverbal cues include all
expressive signs, signals
and cues ---which are used
to send and receive
messages
Language is not the only source of communication,
there are other means also. Messages can be
communicated through.
1. Gestures: It includes movement of hands, face or
other parts of the body.
2. Posture or Body language
3. Facial expressions
4. Eye contact
5. Sign/Symbol
7. Appearance & object
Who is the Boss?
George Robert - Brain G
ames Language .mp4
Thank You !
