Personality. To understand a buyer needs and convert them into customers is the main purpose of the consumer behavior study. ... Personality signifies the inner psychological characteristics that reflect how a person reacts to his environment. Personality shows the individual choices for various products and brands.

1. PERSONALITY ???

2. The sum total of ways in which an individual
reacts and interacts with others.
Personality is a pattern of stable states and
characteristics of a person that influences his
or her behavior toward goal achievement

3. DEFINITION
Personality -A relatively stable
set of characteristics that
influences an individual’s
behavior

4. Definition of Personality?
• Personality refers to the relatively enduring
characteristics that differentiate one person from
another and that lead people to act in a consistent
and predictable manner, both in different situations
and over extended periods of time.
• Personality is defined as: the enduring or lasting
patterns of behavior and thought (across time and
situation).

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4–5
What is Personality?
Personality
The sum total of ways in which an individual reacts
and interacts with others.
Personality Traits
Enduring characteristics
that describe an
individual’s behavior.
Personality
Determinants
• Heredity
• Environment
• Situation

6. PERSONALITY DETERMINANTS
• Heredity
• Environment
• Situation
• Culture
• Family and social background

7. Personality Determinants
• Heredity
– Factors determined at conception: physical stature,
facial attractiveness, gender, temperament, muscle
composition and reflexes, energy level, and bio-
rhythms
– This “heredity approach” argues that genes are the
source of personality
– Twin studies: raised apart but very similar personalities
– There is some personality change over long time
periods
5-7

8. Personality
Four Major Perspectives on Personality
Psychoanalytic - unconscious motivations
Trait - specific dimensions of personality
Humanistic - inner capacity for growth
Social-Cognitive - influence of environment

9. (1) Psychodynamic Personality Theories:
• Source of information about personality:
• Obtained from expert analyst from people in therapy.
• Cause of behavior, thoughts, and feelings:
• unconscious internal conflict associated with childhood
experiences.
• Also, unconscious conflicts between pleasure-seeking
impulses and social restraints.
• Outlook on humans:
• negative.
• Comprehensiveness of theory:
• very comprehensive.

10. (2) Humanistic Personality Theories:
• Source of information about personality:
• obtained from self-reports from the general population
and people in therapy.
• Cause of behavior, thoughts, and feelings:
• self concepts,
• self-actualizing tendencies.
• conscious feelings about oneself (based on one’s
previous experiences).
• Outlook on humans:
• positive.
• Comprehensiveness of theory:
• fairly comprehensive.

11. (3) Trait Personality Theories:
• Source of information about personality:
• obtained from observation of behavior and
questionnaire responses from the general population
as well as from people in therapy.
• Cause of behavior, thoughts, and feelings:
• stable internal characteristics;
• some emphasize genetic basis.
• Outlook on humans:
• neutral - neither positive nor negative.
• Comprehensiveness of theory:
• not very comprehensive.

12. (4) Social-Cognitive (Learning) Approaches to
Personality Theories:
• Source of information about personality:
Obtained from experiments, observations of behavior, and
questionnaire responses from the general population.
• Cause of behavior, thoughts, and feelings:
•reciprocal influence between people (cognitions and behavior)
and their environmental situations, colored by their perceptions
of control.
• Outlook on humans:
•neutral: neither positive nor negative.
• Comprehensiveness of theory:
•not very comprehensive.

13. Social-Cognitive-Learning Perspective
Behavior learned through
conditioning and observation
What we think about our situation
affects our behavior
Interaction of
Environment and Intellect

14. Personality Traits
Enduring characteristics that describe an
individual’s behavior
– The more consistent the characteristic and the
more frequently it occurs in diverse situations, the
more important the trait.
•Two dominant frameworks used to describe
personality:
– Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI®)
– Big Five Model
5-14

15. • Enduring characteristics that describe an
individual’s behavior.
PERSONALITY TRAITS

16. Myers-
Briggs
Sixteen
Primary
Traits

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4–17
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
Personality Types
• Extroverted vs. Introverted (E or I)
• Sensing vs. Intuitive (S or N)
• Thinking vs. Feeling (T or F)
• Judging vs. Perceiving (P or J)
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
A personality test that taps four characteristics and
classifies people into 1 of 16 personality types.

18. 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.
Flexible and
Spontaneous
Sociable and
Assertive
Quiet and
Shy
Unconscious
Processes
Uses Values
& Emotions
Practical and
Orderly
Use Reason
and Logic
Want Order
& Structure
5-18

19. 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
businesslike
– Conceptualizers (ENTP): entrepreneurial, innovative,
individualistic, and resourceful
• Research results on validity mixed
– MBTI® is a good tool for self-awareness and counseling.
– Should not be used as a selection test for job candidates.
5-19

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4–20
The Big Five Model of Personality
Dimensions
Extroversion
Sociable, gregarious, and assertive
Agreeableness
Good-natured, cooperative, and trusting.
Conscientiousness
Responsible, dependable, persistent, and organized.
Openness to Experience
Imaginativeness, artistic, sensitivity, and intellectualism.
Emotional Stability
Calm, self-confident, secure (positive) versus nervous, depressed,
and insecure (negative).

21. 4–21
Extroversion
This trait includes characteristics such as excitability, sociability,
talkativeness, assertiveness, and high amounts of emotional
expressiveness.
Sociable, gregarious, and assertive
I love excitement and am a cheerful person
Agreeableness
This personality dimension includes attributes such as trust,
altruism, kindness, affection, and other prosocial behaviors.
Good-natured, cooperative, and trusting.
People find me warm and generous and selfless
Big Five Personality Traits
Conscientiousness
Common features of this dimension include high levels of
thoughtfulness, with good impulse control and goal-directed
behaviors
Responsible, dependable, persistent, and organized.
People find me reliable and I keep my house clean

22. Emotional Stability
Individuals high in this trait tend to experience emotional
instability, anxiety, moodiness, irritability, and sadness.
calm, self-confident, secure (positive)
versus nervous, depressed, and insecure
(negative).
am very moody I often feel sad and down
Openness to Experience
This trait features characteristics such as imagination and
insight, and those high in this trait also tend to have a broad
range of interests.
I am a very curious person & enjoy challenges
Imaginativeness, artistic, sensitivity, and intellectualism.

23. 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.
See E X H I B I T 5–1
5-23

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4–24
Major Personality Attributes
Influencing OB
• Locus of control
• Machiavellianism
• Self-esteem
• Self-monitoring
• Risk taking
• Type A personality

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4–25
Locus of Control
Locus of Control
The degree to which people believe they are
masters of their own fate.
Internals
Individuals who believe that they control what happens to
them.
Externals
Individuals who believe that what happens to them is
controlled by outside forces such as luck or chance.

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4–26
Machiavellianism
Conditions Favoring High Machs
•Direct interaction
•Minimal rules and regulations
•Emotions distract for others
Degree to which an individual is pragmatic, maintains
emotional distance, and believes that ends can justify
means.
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.

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Self-Esteem
Self-Esteem (SE)/ self evaluation :
Individuals’ degree of liking or disliking themselves.
Positive self-evaluation leads to higher job performance

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Risk-Taking
• High Risk-taking Managers
– Make quicker decisions
– Use less information to make decisions
– Operate in smaller and more entrepreneurial organizations
• Low Risk-taking Managers
– Are slower to make decisions
– Require more information before making decisions
– Exist in larger organizations with stable environments
• Risk Propensity
– Aligning managers’ risk-taking propensity to job
requirements should be beneficial to organizations.

29. Other Personality Traits Relevant to OB
• Narcissism
– An arrogant, entitled, self-important person who needs excessive
admiration
– Less effective in their jobs
5-29

30. • Self-Monitoring
– The ability to adjust behavior to meet external,
situational factors.
– High monitors conform more and are more likely
to become leaders.
More Relevant Personality Traits
5-30

31. Even More Relevant Personality Traits
• Type A Personality
– Aggressively involved in a chronic, incessant 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 leisure time
• Obsessed with achievement numbers
– Prized in today’s competitive times but quality of the work is low
– Type B people are the complete opposite of Type A’s
5-31

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Proactive Personality
Identifies opportunities, shows initiative, takes
action, and perseveres until meaningful change
occurs.
Creates positive change in the environment,
regardless or even in spite of constraints or
obstacles.

33. Linking Personality and Values to the
Workplace
Managers are less interested in someone’s ability to do
a specific job than in that person’s flexibility.
•Person–Job Fit:
– John Holland’s Personality–Job Fit Theory
• Six personality types
• Vocational Preference Inventory (VPI)
– Key Points of the Model:
• There appear to be intrinsic differences in personality between
people
• There are different types of jobs
• People in jobs congruent with their personality should be more
satisfied and have lower turnover
5-33

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Achieving Person-Job Fit
Personality Types
•Realistic
•Investigative
•Social
•Conventional
•Enterprising
•Artistic
Personality-Job Fit Theory
(Holland)
Identifies six personality
types and proposes that
the fit between personality
type and occupational
environment determines
satisfaction and turnover.

35. Relationships Among Personality Types
The closer the
occupational
fields, the more
compatible.
The further apart
the fields, the
more dissimilar.
E X H I B I T 5-6
Need to match personality
type with occupation.
Source: Reprinted by special permission of the publisher, Psychological
Assessment Resources, Inc., from Making Vocational Choices, copyright 1973,
1985, 1992 by Psychological Assessment Resources, Inc. All rights reserved.
5-35

36. Personality Assessment
• Personality assessment involves the techniques for
systematically gathering information about a person
in order to understand and predict behavior.
• Goal of personality assessment: to obtain
reliable, valid measures of individual differences that
will permit the accurate prediction of behavior.

37. How do we measure “Personality”?
• (1) Interview:
– Ask the person about themselves.
– Obtain information that reveals personality.
• (2) Behavioral Observation:
– Watch the individual’s behavior in an actual or simulated
situation.
• Personality Tests:
– (3) Objective tests (questionnaire tests).
– (4) Projective tests.

38. How do we measure personality?
(2) Behavioral assessment
• Behavioral assessment is based on the principles of
learning theory.
• Behavioral assessment employs direct
measurement of behavior to determine the
characteristics related to personality.

39. How do we measure personality?
(3) Objective Test Assessment
• Objective personality tests (self-report questionnaires)
present the test taker with a number of specific items to
which she is asked to respond, either on paper or on a
computer screen.
• Self-report measures ask people about a sample range
of their behaviors.
• These reports are used to infer the presence of particular
personality characteristics.

40. How do we measure personality?
(3) Objective Test Assessment
• Examples of objective personality measures:
– the MMPI (the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality
Inventory).
– the 16 PF (the Sixteen Personality Factor
Questionnaire).
– the NEO-PI (the NEO Personality Inventory).
• The most commonly used self-report measure is the
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2),
designed to differentiate people with specific sorts of
psychological difficulties from normal individuals.

41. Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
(MMPI-2)
• Most widely used personality instrument.
– Used in clinical and employment settings.
– MMPI-2 Has several different scales (multiphasic).
• MMPI sample items:
• ‘I usually feel that life is worthwhile and
interesting (FALSE) = Depression.
• ‘I seem to hear things that other people can’t
hear’ (TRUE) = Schizophrenia.
• Measures aspects of personality that, if extreme, suggest
a problem:
– Extreme suspiciousness may indicate paranoia.

42. How do we measure personality?
(4) Projective Test Assessment
• A projective personality test is one in which the subject
is given an ambiguous stimulus and asked to respond
spontaneously.
– pictures or inkblots.
– No clear answer.
• The ambiguous stimulus allows test takers to project
their own needs, dreams, feelings into their response.
• The observer’s responses to the stimulus are then
used to infer information about the observer’s
personality.

43. How do we measure personality?
(4) Projective Test Assessment (continued)
• All projective tests are based on the projective hypothesis
which states that the individual's response to an
ambiguous stimulus represents a projection of his or her
own inner, often unconscious, feelings and needs.
• Indirect method of personality assessment:
• Based on psychoanalytic assumptions:
– Personality is mostly unconscious.
– People are unaware of contents of unconscious.

44. How do we measure personality?
(4) Projective Test Assessment (continued):
• The 2 most frequently used projective tests are:
• the Rorschach: reactions to inkblots are employed to
classify personality types.
• the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT): stories about
ambiguous pictures are used to draw inferences
about the storyteller’s personality.

45. Rorschach Inkblot Test
• Most popular projective technique.
• Respond to inkblot: “What could this be?”