OB CHAPTER 7 Lect.

Personality – Development of personality, Attributes of personality, Ego

state, transactional analysis, Johari window

INTRODUCTION : The term personality suggests that all the persons in the
society behave differently on different occasions. The behavior makes possible to
understand personality. Various external factors affect the personality either in
negative or positive direction. Personality traits like – face appearance, health
conditions, habits, behavior, manners change with the passage of time.

DEFINITIONS :
 “Personality is defined as the enduring personal characteristics of
individuals.”
 “It is the most ideal combination of person’s qualities and behavior in many
social groups.”
 “It’s the first impression of a person on others”. It is permutation and
combination of various variable factors.
 Maddi –
“Personality is a stable set of characteristics and tendencies that determine
those commonalities and differences in the psychological behavior of people,
have continuity in time, and may not be easily understood as the sole result of
the social and biological pressures of the moment.”
 “Personality is the complex of all the attributes--behavioral,
temperamental, emotional and mental--that characterize a unique individual.”
 “Personality is the sum of the characteristics which make up
physical and mental being, including appearance, manners, habits, tastes and moral
character.”
 “Personality is the characteristics that distinguish one person
from another (this is equivalent to individuality).”

Today, personality is considered the “Brand Image’ of an individual. In simple

terms it is made up of three aspects namely:

 Character
 Behavior
 Attitude

 Personality is the impression we make on others; the mask we present to the

world
 Personality is defined as "a unique set of traits and characteristics, relatively
stable over time." Clearly, personality is unique insofar as each of us has our
own personality, different from any other person's.
 Determinants of Personality :

Biological Factors
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.
• Recent research studies shows that young children lend strong support to the
power of heredity and finding shows that some personality traits may be built into
the same genetic code that affects factors like height and hair color.

Brain:

• Brain is the second biological approach to determine personality.

• It plays an important role in determining personality.
• The definite areas of the human brain are associated with pain and pleasure.

Physical Features:

• It is third biological approach to determine personality.

• It is vital ingredient of the personality, it focus an individual person's external
appearance which also determined the personality.
• Physical features like tall or short, fat or skinny, black or white. These physical
features will be influenced the personal effect on others and also affect self
concept of individual.
• Recent research studies shows that definitely this features influence to
individual personality in an organization. In totally, heredity would be fixed at birth
and no amount of experience can be altering
them through creation of suitable environment. Apart from this, personality
characteristics are not completely dictated by heredity. There are other factors
also influenced to determining
personality.
Cultural Factors
"Each culture expects, and trains, its members to behave in ways that are acceptable to
the group. To a marked degree, the child's cultural group defines the range of
experiences and situations he is likely to encounter and the values and personality
characteristics that will reinforced and hence learned". -Paul H Mussen
• Cultural factors are also major factors which influence to determine individual
personality.
• It refers to traditional practice, customs, procedure, norms and rules and
regulation followed by the society.
• It significantly influence to individual behavior compare to biological factors.
• Cultural factors determine attitudes towards independence, aggression,
competition, cooperation, positive thinking, team spirit, and a host of the human
being and discharge his/her duties towards valuable responsibilities to society.
• Western culture influence to Indian society. It is best example of the cultural
factors also determine the personality.

Family Factors

• Family factors are also major factors which influence to determine individual
personality.
• Family consists of husband and wife and their children's.
• Family role is very important for nurturing and personality development of their
children.
• Family either directly or indirectly influence to person for development of
individual personality.

Social Factors

• Social factors are also major factors which influence to determine individual
personality.
• It involves the reorganization of individual's in an organization or society.
• It refers to acquiring of wide range of personality by acquiring and absorbed by
themselves in the society or an organization.
• Socialization process is starting from home and extending to work environment
in an organization or society.
• It focuses on good relationships, cooperation, coordination and interaction
among the members in the society or an organization or a family.
In totally, environment factors consist of cultural factors, family factors, and social

factors.

Situational Factors

• Situational factors also influence to determine of personality.

• Situational factors are very important to change the individual behavior 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. The Interaction of Personality and Situational Factors are outlined:
• Strong situational pressures
• Personality may not predict behavior
• Example: enforcement of rules
• Weak Situational pressures
• Personality may predict behavior
• Example: Customer sales representative
• A strong situation can overwhelm the effects of individual personalities by
providing strong cues for appropriate behavior.

PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT: Basically, personality development is the

improvement of behavior, communication skills, interpersonal relationships,
attitude towards life and ethics. Character can be considered the basic factor in
determining and individual’s personality. There are several psychologists who
say that improving character and behavior alone will largely influence one’s
personality. It is a fact that all other factors behind a powerful personality will
become useless if the person lacks a good character and behavior.

Personality is like a building. Just as a building can exist only when it has a
strong foundation, a personality can impress others only when it has a
formidable basis. And the strong foundation is supplied by character and
behavior. If personality is developed on the solid base of values and ethics, it
will last forever. Fake smiles and mannerisms may attract others for a
comparatively short period. However they are shot-lived and do not help in
improving one’s personality.

Values, Attitudes and Beliefs influence behavior of an individual to a great

extent. A set of values, attitudes & beliefs form an integral part of individual
personality. These are the main elements that distinguish an individual from
others. These are developed from research & theory by behavioral scientists.

 Belief : Beliefs signify our ideas about the situation we are in and the
conclusions we draw about people, events or things therein.
 Values : Values are beliefs about what is desirable or good and what is
undesirable or bad.
 Attitudes : Attitudes denote out positive and negative responses to people,
events and objects and are influenced by the values held by individuals
and their sense of right and wrong.
 Development of Personality is concerned with the process by which an
individual gradually acquires patterns of behavior, thinking, problem solving,
motives, conflicts etc.

Attributes of Personality:
1. Achievement attitudes - degree of motivation toward goals.

2. Emotional temperament - emotions that rule our lives.

3. Energy level - the degree of effort that we use in our daily life.

4. Intellectual factors - characteristics of our minds.

5. Material attitudes - how we regard our environment.

6. Maturity - our level of experience and wisdom.

7. Philosophical attitudes - our preferred ways of thinking.

8. Physical attributes - how we regard our body.

9. Risk attitudes - degree of concern for oneself.

10. Task performance attitudes - approaches toward problem solving.

11. Aggressiveness - measure of camaraderie between people.

12. Control attitudes - mechanisms by which we influence others.

13. Dependability - factors that affect trust in others.

14. Egocentrism - selfishness and selfish attitudes.

15. Emotional expression - ways of expressing inner feelings toward

others.

16. Fairness - how we judge others.

17. Leadership attributes - features that make us stand out in a group.

 18. Physical appearance - how we view ourselves physically.

19. Regard for Rules - obedience for the laws of society.

20. Team Spirit - attitudes toward working with people

Transactional Analysis :
Transactional analysis, commonly known as TA to its adherents, is an
integrative approach to the theory of psychology and psychotherapy. Integrative
because it has elements of psychoanalytic, humanist and cognitive approaches.
It was developed by Canadian-born US psychiatrist Eric Berne during the late
1950s.

 A popular way of explaining the dynamics of interpersonal communication

 A theory which encompasses personality, perception, & communication

 Has been successfully used by organizations as a training & development

programme

 Has two underlying assumptions

 All the events & feelings experienced are stored within us & can be replayed
so we can re-experience events & the feelings of all our past years

Key ideas of TA :

The Ego-State (or Parent-Adult-Child, PAC) model

At any given time, a person experiences and manifests their personality through
a mixture of behaviours, thoughts and feelings. Typically, according to TA, there
are three ego-states that people consistently use:

 Parent ("exteropsyche"): a state in which people behave, feel, and think

in response to an unconscious mimicking of how their parents (or other
parental figures) acted, or how they interpreted their parent's actions. For
example, a person may shout at someone out of frustration because they
 learned from an influential figure in childhood the lesson that this seemed
to be a way of relating that worked.
 Adult ("neopsyche"): a state of the ego which is most like a computer
processing information and making predictions absent of major emotions
that cloud its operation. Learning to strengthen the Adult is a goal of TA.
While a person is in the Adult ego state, he/she is directed towards an
objective appraisal of reality.
 Child ("archaeopsyche"): a state in which people behave, feel and think
similarly to how they did in childhood. For example, a person who receives
a poor evaluation at work may respond by looking at the floor, and crying
or pouting, as they used to when scolded as a child. Conversely, a person
who receives a good evaluation may respond with a broad smile and a
joyful gesture of thanks. The Child is the source of emotions, creation,
recreation, spontaneity and intimacy.

Berne differentiated his Parent, Adult, and Child ego states from actual adults,
parents, and children, by using capital letters when describing them. These ego-
states may or may not represent the relationships that they act out. For example,
in the workplace, an adult supervisor may take on the Parent role, and scold an
adult employee as though they were a Child. Or a child, using their Parent ego-
state, could scold their actual parent as though the parent were a Child.

Within each of these ego states are subdivisions. Thus Parental figures are often
either nurturing (permission-giving, security-giving) or criticizing (comparing to
family traditions and ideals in generally negative ways); Childhood behaviours
are either natural (free) or adapted to others. These subdivision categorize
individuals' patterns of behaviour, feelings, and ways of thinking, that can be
functional (beneficial or positive) or dysfunctional/counterproductive (negative).

Johari window : A Johari window is a cognitive psychological tool created

by and in 1955 in the United States, used to help people better understand
their interpersonal communication and relationships.

 It is used primarily in self help groups and corporate settings.

 The Johari Window, named after the first names of its inventors,
Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham, is one of the most useful models
describing the process of human interaction.

 It is a four paned "window,"

 It divides personal awareness into four different types, as represented
by its four quadrants:

 Open,

 Blind,

 Hidden

 Unknown.

 The lines dividing the four panes are like window shades, which can
move as an interaction progresses.

 When performing the exercise, the subject is given a list of 55

adjectives and picks five or six that they feel describe their own
personality. Peers of the subject are then given the same list, and each
pick five or six adjectives that describe the subject. These adjectives
are then mapped onto a grid.

 Charles Handy calls this concept the Johari House with four rooms.

 Room 1 is the part of ourselves that we see and others see.

 Room 2 is the aspect that others see but we are not aware of.

 Room 3 is the most mysterious room in that the unconscious or

subconscious bit of us is seen by neither ourselves nor others.

 Room 4 is our private space, which we know but keep from others.
 Open / Free Area Blind Area

Q. 1 Q. 2

Hidden Area Unknown Area

Q.3 Q. 4

Quadrant 1

 The "open" quadrant represents things that both I know about myself,
and that you know about me.

 Example: I know my name, and so do you, and if you have explored

some of my website, you know some of my interests. The knowledge
that the window represents, can include not only factual information,
but my feelings, motives, behaviors, wants, needs and desires...
indeed, any information describing who I am.

 When I first meet a new person, the size of the opening of this first
quadrant is not very large, since there has been little time to exchange
information.

Quadrant 2

 The "blind" quadrant represents things that you know about me, but
that I am unaware of.

 For example, perhaps in our ongoing conversation, you may notice

that eye contact seems to be lacking.

 You may not say anything, since you may not want to embarrass me,
or you may draw your own inferences that perhaps I am being
insincere.
  Then the problem is, how can I get this information out in the open,
since it may be affecting the level of trust that is developing between
us?

 How can I learn more about myself? Unfortunately, there is no readily

available answer. I may notice a slight hesitation on your part, and
perhaps this may lead to a question. But who knows if I will pick this
up, or if your answer will be on the mark.

Quadrant 3

 The "hidden" quadrant represents things that I know about myself, that
you do not know.

 For example, I have not told you, nor mentioned anywhere on my

website, what one of my favorite ice cream flavors is.

 This information is in my "hidden" quadrant. As soon as I tell you that I

love "Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia" flavored ice cream, I am
effectively pulling the window shade down, moving the information in
my hidden quadrant and enlarging the open quadrant's area.

 Again, there are vast amounts of information, virtually my whole life's

story, that has yet to be revealed to you. As we get to know and trust
each other, I will then feel more comfortable disclosing more intimate
details about myself. This process is called: "Self-disclosure."

Quadrant 4

 The "unknown" quadrant represents things that neither I know about

myself, nor you know about me.

 For example, I may disclose a dream that I had, and as we both

attempt to understand its significance, a new awareness may emerge,
known to neither of us before the conversation took place.

 Prior to this event, I had viewed myself and others had also viewed me
as being extremely shy.

 Thus, a novel situation can trigger new awareness and personal

growth.
 The process of moving previously unknown information into the open
quadrant, thus enlarging its area, has been likened to Maslow's
concept of self-actualization.