The Definition And Determinants Of Personality Psychology Essay

Better operation of organizations associate with different individuals, how they work and performance can influence the running of organization. Because different individuals have their own knowledge, experience, perception, skill and characteristic that just as the important resources to the organization. There are many notions of personality from different literatures; however there is no specific one to define it. According to IAN BROOKS, personality refers to specific attributes include hidden or open factor and which may also determine either general or differences in behavior in organizations (IAN, 2009).

Determinants of personality

There are many factors determine the personality which from external and internal aspects. Nonetheless the determinants of personality can consist of four types, this show in the below chart:

Biological factors include three points: heredity, brain and physical features. First one is heredity, generally human basic characteristics is from heredity which direct come from one’s parents and transmits to generation to generation (Fayyaz, 2008). Second one is brain, according to the result from Electrical stimulation of the Brain (ESB) research that show the much better understanding of personality and behavior that obtain from much better brain (Fayyaz, 2008). Third one is physical features that indicate from the people external features which is biologically determined, it is an important factors of personality.

Culture factor

Different individual has different cultural, it is an important factor within human grow up, therefore it is also determine the shape of personality.

Social factor

It is also refer to family factor that is important to form the individual’s personality. The factors can come from the member of the family, how they feeling, thinking and their behavior style can influence each other.

Situational factor

According to the research of Milgram, he said situation would influence the individual’s action, which has important press on people (Kumar, 2001).

Theories of personality

Personality is from many fields, there are three theories in this topic area which is the trait, psychodynamic and sociocultural.

Trait theories of personality

Another useful approach to understand the personality can through the structure of the people’s trait process. Personality trait can refer to whatever the situation is, an stable attribute of people that appears constantly ( Fayyaz, 2008). There are two commonly know theories which research by Gordon Allport and Raymond Cattell. Gordon Allport was pioneer in the study at personality traits. The basic research distinguished between common traits and personal dispositions. Common traits can compare the people and the six factors come out from his study: economic, theoretical, social, political, aesthetical and religious for comparative purpose(aaa). While Personal dispositions was about total unique characteristics, they called central, cardinal or secondary ( peripheral).

Built upon Gordon Allport’s research, Raymond Cattell developed the theory in 1965. In order to better understand the personality he did a lot surveys and investigations, then he selected 171 words that can be used to summary or describe the people. The two major types were surface trait and source trait. Generally these investigations were recognition to the research of personality; it provided the primary information to further study. Another famous british psychologist Hans J. Eysenck who concluded the normal effect and build three- factor model of personality: introversion-extroversion, stability- instability and psychoticism. His research provided the data to indicate these personality dimensions can give peole’s major personality patterns(Bratton, 2010). Moreover nowadays there is five -factor model of personality which implicate at wild fields.

Look at this chart, it shows the big five dimensions: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. These can help the researchers predict the people’s personality in more specific directions.

The psychodynamic theory of personality

There are two aspects in the psychodynamic theory, first one comes from the Austrian physician Sigmund Freud and second one comes from Erik Erikson. According to Freud, the personality consists of id, ego and superego:

The id is about all needs and urges, and the superego is responsible for ideals and moral. While the ego moderates between the demands of the id, the superego, and reality (personality psychology study guide). For example, id says ‘I want that’, and then ego responds ‘no, you can’t do that, it’s not yours. Finally the superego may choose moralistic principles firstly not realist ones. In Freud’s theory, he develops seven stages and emphasis on the childhood can influence people from child until to adult.

On the other hand Erikson emphasized that personality include a series of stages in the progress, meanwhile some conflicts came up at each stage. However success in each stage associate with overcomes these conflicts successfully (Robert, 1996).

Sociocultural theories of personality

In the view of some researchers, different environment will shape the behavior of the people, such as feeling, thinking and talking. Sociocultural theories indicate that people’s personality relates to social activity and social environment. There are three approaches in the sociocultural theories, first one is the social- learning approach which emphasize people obtain the learning experience from the social environment. Second one is the phenomenological approach which emphasize social experience will shape people’s thinking, feeling and so on. Third one is the social- self approach, according to the psychologist Carl Rogers and sociologist George Herbert Mead.

Applications of personality theories in the workplace

Personality theories are important and essential to the organizations’ management in modern society. Because personality trait relate to how people cooperate with other others, how people perform well at work, whether they adapt at the work, and help the organizations’ managers choose right people at right work, moreover help the manager find the potential of employee so that better to allocate the tasks, furthermore help people understand the stress and then release the pressure.

According to John Holland’s research, he create personality-job fit model that include six categories- realistic, investigative, social, conventional, enterprising and artistic, and each categories have their suitable environment. The following table shows the relations.

This chart displays these viewpoints:

Different works can get the suitable tasks through their types so that their efficiency and increase the satisfaction to the managers and themselves.

Work environment and different kinds of occupation are more suitable to certain personality types.

These theories are widely used in many fields, especially in the recruitment of the organizations; managers can select the right people do the right work. For instance, the kindergartens’ teacher should be more patient and more active than others. The nurses should be more carefully and patient.