“Personality may be viewed as consisting of stable characteristics that explain why a person behaves in a particular way.” (Mullins, 2010, pg.130) So for example, indecisiveness, openness and agreeableness are all examples of personality characteristics.
A big debate in personality studies is: nature vs. nurture. Is an individual born with their personality or do they learn it with the way they were brought up and the environment they live in.
Personality can be divided into two main approaches, these are: nomothetic and idiographic.
“The nomothetic approach is a measureable and specific perspective that looks at the identification of traits and personality as a collection of characteristics.” (Mullins, 2010, pg.130) It is often concerned with statistical studies of groups of individuals to identify similarities in personality characteristics.
The idiographic approach looks at each person and individualises them. Each person is branded as unique but adaptable and open to change. “This approach is a holistic and dynamic perspective which insists that managers take into account a ‘whole’ understanding of the individual.” (Mullins, 2010, pg.131)
In my opinion both nature and nurture plays a part in who we are. To an extent the way we are brought up can either have a positive or negative impact on our personality and the life path we choose. The area that people live in, the size of the family, the rewards and punishments used by parents, all have an impact on who we become. However I do not think all personality characteristics are learnt, some people were born with many of their personality characteristics and often these can’t be changed. The environment they are brought up in may teach them to adapt these characteristics to different situations, but in truth they were born with these traits.
After a lot of research on personality it has been proposed there are five basic dimensions of personality. (About Psychology) These are: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.
"The big five form the basis of standard personality questionnaires, which determine positive or negative scores for each dimension" (Mullins, 2010, pg. 133)
There are many advantages and disadvantages of companies using personality tests to assess an individuals personality, during the interview process and throughout their career.
These personality tests do not discriminate anyone on race, gender or age, and it gives an estimate for the employer whether an individual will fit into their business, therefore it cuts out the good from the bad. They are very consistent as everyone is asked the same questions and provides useful information for an interview.
However it is difficult to predict how an individual may react in a work place from one of these questionnaires and it could potentially cut out a good employee. Another downside is that these tests are very costly and it is time consuming analysing these results.
In my opinion it is important that the right person is chosen for a job, and as recruitment is so expensive, this also matters to the employee. I think these tests give employers a useful insight into a person's personality, but they must not be dependent on them.
"The big five form the basis of standard personality questionnaires, which determine positive or negative scores for each dimension" (Mullins, 2010, pg. 133)
There are many advantages and disadvantages of companies using personality tests to assess an individuals personality, during the interview process and throughout their career.
These personality tests do not discriminate anyone on race, gender or age, and it gives an estimate for the employer whether an individual will fit into their business, therefore it cuts out the good from the bad. They are very consistent as everyone is asked the same questions and provides useful information for an interview.
However it is difficult to predict how an individual may react in a work place from one of these questionnaires and it could potentially cut out a good employee. Another downside is that these tests are very costly and it is time consuming analysing these results.
In my opinion it is important that the right person is chosen for a job, and as recruitment is so expensive, this also matters to the employee. I think these tests give employers a useful insight into a person's personality, but they must not be dependent on them.
As part of this blog, to test my own personality, I have taken the big personality test on the BBC website and my results are as follows:
I scored highly on concientiousness, extroversion and agreeableness, medium on neuroticism and low on openess. For more information on what these results show, click here.
About Psychology. The big five. [online] Available from: http://psychology.about.com/od/personalitydevelopment/a/bigfive.htm [Accessed 20/1/2010]
BBC website [online] Available from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/whatamilike/index.shtml [Accessed 20/1/2010]
Mullins, J L (2010) Management & organisational behaviour. 9th ed. Essex: Financial Times Pitman Publishing
Wilderdom. Personality traits. [online] Available from: http://wilderdom.com/personality/traits/PersonalityTraitsIdiographicNomothetic.html [Accessed 20/1/2010]
A good detailed blog with interesting analysis. What did you think of your actual results?
ReplyDelete