JAMIA MILLIA ISLAMIA, UNIVERSITY

F/o Social Science Dept. of Political Science

Submitted by
ALWIA NOORIEN
Student ID - 20180907
M.A. PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
SEMESTER II
SUBMITTED TO
Dr. NAVED JAMAL
(Assistant Professor)
Organizational behavior
TOPIC – TYPES AND THEORIES OF PERSONALITY

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First of all, I owe my deep gratitude to The Almighty who gave me an opportunity to be a part of
this institution. Then, I would like to thanks my Professor Dr. NAVED JAMAL, who gave me a
golden opportunity to work on the topic ‘TYPES AND THEORIES OF PERSONALITY’ and
for his guidance, supervision and encouragement. It was an amazing experience for me, I learned
a lot from it.

Last but not the least, I would like to thanks my parents, my friends and my roommates for their
constant support and guidance throughout the assignment.

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Table of Contents

1. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................................... 4

2. PERSONALITY ....................................................................................................................................... 4

3. TYPES OF PERSONALITY .................................................................................................................... 6

4. THEORIES OF PERSONALITY ............................................................................................................. 9

4.1 PSYCHOANALYTICAL THEORY – ........................................................................................ 9

4.2 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY- ............................................................................. 11
4.3 TRAIT FACTOR THEORY - ................................................................................................. 12
4.4 SELF CONCEPT THEORY- ................................................................................................... 14
5. PERSONALITY AND ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR .................. Error! Bookmark not defined.

6. CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................................................... 16

7. BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................................................... 18

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1. INTRODUCTION

Personality, perception, attitude, values and learning are the foundation of individual’s
behavior. The word personality is derived from a Latin word “Persona” which means “Mask”.
In simple words, we can say that the study of personality is all about the study of masks that
individual wear. In general parlance, the term personality signifies good looks, attractiveness,
smartness, positive attitude and so on. Their understanding about the term personality is usually
governed by the impressions showed by the individual. The term usually understood in terms of
social attractiveness. But this definition of term personality is not accepted by the psychologists.
According to them, this is not a correct understanding of the term personality. According to
them, the concept of personality is a very dynamic concept which includes growth and
development of whole psychological system of the individual. The concept of personality is a
vast concept which not only includes the attributes like good looking, smartness, charming face
and so on, rather it includes entire psychological system of the individual. Further in this
assignment I am going to deal with the definitions of personality given by different scholars,
different types of personality, theories of personality and its importance in organization.

2. PERSONALITY

Personality is a difference in individual which gives consistency to individual’s behavior. It is a

relatively stable set of characteristics, traits, attributes, habits, patterns and conditioned responses
to any stimuli or object, which gives impressions of a person to the others and also influence an
individual’s behavior. There is no consensus about the meaning of personality, it understood
differently by different people. Personality may be defined as sum total of psychological,
intellectual and physical attributes which determines the pattern of individual’s behavior in a

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given situation1. According to some psychologists, some traits of personality in individual are
inherent by the birth, some traits develop during his early childhood and few traits developed at
later stage of his life. Personality is a dynamic concept. It includes entire growth and
development of psychological system of an individual. It is a complex sum total of individual’s
psychological characteristics, attitudes and so on. The concept of a personality has been
differently defined by various scholars. Some of the definitions of personality given by different
scholars are:

According to Gordon Allport, “Personality is the dynamic organisation within the individual of
those psychological systems that determine his unique adjustment to his environment.” 2 It
suggests that there is an inner personality in an individual which guides and directs the human
behaviour.

According to Ruch, personality should include:

a. External appearance and behaviour or social stimulus value.

b. Inner awareness of self as permanent organizing force; and

c. Particular pattern or organisation of measurable traits, both inner and outer.3

According to Hilgard and Atkinson, “Personality may be understood in terms of

characteristics, pattern of behaviour, and mode of thinking that determine persons adjustment to
environment”.4

After analyzing the above definitions, in simple words we can define personality as the traits and
characteristics of an individual because of which an individual shows consistent pattern of
response to environmental stimuli. There are various determinants which affect the growth and
development of personality and shape the personality. Some of the determinants are heredity,
environment, family, culture, education and so on.

1
MOSHAL B.S , Organisational behaviour design and applications ,Galgotia Publications Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi,
2006, p.6.6
2
PRASAD L. M, Organisational behaviour ,Sultan Chand & Sons, New Delhi,1899, p.93
3
.ibid.
4
MOSHAL B. S , Organisational behaviour design and applications ,Galgotia Publications Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi,
2006, p.6.7.

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Earlier it has been accepted that the personality of an individual is a combination of both
inherited and learned characteristics. Inherited characteristics are those features of individual
which he/she acquires from their parents, for example features like color of eyes, religion, shape
of the nose and so on. While learned characteristics are those features which an individual
acquires from their surroundings and environment, for example characteristics like pattern of
thinking, values and so on. But in recent years, some modern psychologists introduced the big
five personality traits, which are very important and relevant in organization. According to this
big five personality traits, there are five basic traits in individual’s personality which are very
important for understanding human behaviour. The major big five personality traits are as
follows:

i. Extroversion which means the person is gregarious, assertive and sociable.

ii. Agreeableness which means the person is cooperative, agreeable and gentle.

iii. Conscientiousness which means the person is workaholic, goal oriented, hardworking,
organized, responsible and self disciplined.

iv. Emotional stability which means the person is calm, self confident, reliable and cool.

v. Openness to experience which means the person in creative, imaginative, curious and
cultured.5

By analyzing, identifying and studying the above big five personality traits model in an
integrated manner, one can easily understand and predict the human behaviour. It may also be
helpful to the managers for better understanding and predicting the employees or subordinates
behaviour.

3. TYPES OF PERSONALITY

Personality typing refers to a system of understanding the human behaviour. In general parlance,
there are three types of personality and, that are Introvert (reserved and want to live alone),

5
MOSHAL B.S , Organisational behaviour design and applications ,Galgotia Publications Pvt. Ltd., New delhi
2006, p.6.8.

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Extrovert(outgoing and sociable) and Ambivert (combination of both extrovert and introvert).
Carl Jung was the first who developed a theory of types of personality. According to him each
person has a psychological type. He asserted that an individual perform two functions, one is
perceptions of things while other is decisions making. While performing these two functions
there are two other ways in which an individual functions. We perceive things by using our

senses or intuitions, while we make decisions on basis of objective logics or subjective feelings.
Among these functions and ways one is dominant over other functions, which is known as their
‘dominant’ function, and it defined the type of personality an individual holds. Carl Jung gave
eight types of personality –

i. Reflexive Extrovert- whose actions are always based on reasons.

ii. Reflexive Introvert- a person with great intellectual activity. They are so ambitious and
determined, for achieving the goals.

iii. Sentimental Extrovert- a person is understanding and sociable. They are very skilled at
communication.

iv. Sentimental introvert- person with this can do everything within their power to go unnoticed,
and they like to remain silent.

v. Perceptive extrovert- a person has a special weakness for objects and they can do everything
to achieve it.

vi. Perceptive introvert- a person usually put more emphasis on sensory experiences.

vii. Intuitive extrovert- a person with this are very active and restless. They want to achieved
goals quickly.

Viii. Intuitive introvert- people with this are imaginative, dreamers and idealists. They are very
sensitive to elusive stimuli.

Above is all about Jung’s types of personality. He basically used the introvert and extrovert traits
of individual’s personality for identifying the different types of personality.

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Katherine’s daughter Isabel was very much responsible for bringing the works of personality
types into light or focus. They both worked together. They said that there are four basic
dimensions of categorizing people and they are – Introversion vs Extraversion, Sensing vs
intuition, thinking vs feeling and judging vs perceiving. They gave sixteen types of personality.6
They uses acronyms like ISTJ, INFJ, INTJ and so on to described all types of personality. It
based on beliefs that there are sixteen different types of personality and one type among the
sixteen is always found in each individual’s personality which described him/her accurately.
Every person is born with certain type and characteristics of personality, which cannot change
throughout his/her life. Human behaviour can be modify in future because of life experiences,
but their type will remain be same. The model of type of personality is non-partisan, which
means we cannot say this type of personality is good or bad. Each type has pros and cons.

On the basis of traits of an individual, many scholars tried to define the different types of
personality of an individual. The big five traits of personality is very helpful for the researchers
in determining the types of personality an individual. The big five traits are openness,
agreeableness, extraversion, neuroticism and contentiousness. There are four types of personality
which are based on recent researches done by the researchers at Northwestern’s McCormick
School of Engineering, in Illinois. And the types of personality are as follows :-

i. Average – the most common type of personality. The people with this type of personality are
good in extraversion and neuroticism and bad in openness.

ii. Reserved – the person with this type of personality is emotionally stable. They are not good in
openness. They tend to be agreeable, introvert and conscientious.

iii. Role-Models – the people with this type have the high levels of traits of agreeableness,
openness, extraversion and conscientiousness. They are the natural leader with less trait of
neuroticism. They are more innovative, reliable and also a good listener.

6
https://www.truity.com/view/types , Last Visited on 21/03/ 2019

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iv. Self-centered –the people with this type of personality have high level of extraversion traits in
their personality. They possess less than average traits of openness, agreeableness and
conscientiousness.7

4. THEORIES OF PERSONALITY

There are various personality thinkers who gave various theories of personality for better
understanding of personality and they also tried to give answers of questions like: what is
personality? What does personality constitute? How personality influenced the human
behaviour? There is no consensus among the scholars regarding the answers of these questions.
Every scholar propounded his own theory of personality which resulted in various number of
theories. There are four widely accepted theories of personality and they are psychoanalytical
theory, social psychological theory, trait factor theory and self concept theory.

4.1 PSYCHOANALYTICAL THEORY –

Psychoanalytical theory is a very important theory of personality propounded by Sigmund Freud
who was a psychologist. Apart from him, many other psychologists such as Carl Jung, Alfred,
and so on also made valuable contributions to it. The main assumption of this theory of
personality is that human behaviour is mostly governed by various unseen forces, which lies in
the subconscious and unconscious part of the mind, than by rational and conscious thoughts. He
adopted clinical techniques for developing this theory. According to psychoanalytical theory the
pattern of human behavior is influenced and determined by various factors, stored in
subconscious mind such as id, ego and super ego.8 According to Freud, the main motivating
force to man is an unconscious framework. Freud gave three aspects of personality which are
interrelated but for better understanding he mentioned them separately. Three aspects of
personality are as follows:-

7
https://www.euronews.com/2018/09/21/personality-types-average-self-centered-role-model-or-reserved-
t137902 , Last Visited on 21/03/ 2019
8
MOSHAL B. S , Organisational behaviour design and applications (Galgotia Publications Pvt. Ltd., 2006), p.6.11.

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i. The Id is a strong, inborn and basic instinctive drive and urge which are at the centre of
individual motivation and personality. Main force of ‘id’ is pleasure seeking. Main function of id
is to discharge tension by instant relief. It’s basically governed by childish behaviour.
Psychologically ‘id’ is a source of all desires that exist in the form of image and fantasies in a
person. It depicts the unconscious part of mind which seeks immediate satisfaction. For example,
children are always governed by ‘id’ aspect of his personality. They always want things
immediately like food, toys and so on.

ii. The Ego is related with reality and it governs by conscious part of mind. It works on reality
based principles. It satisfies the unrealistic wants of id by any alternative means or tries to defer
or postpone it. Ego always checks ‘id’ through logic and intellect. Ego always maintained
separation between daydreaming, which are done by ‘id’, and reality. It always keeps checks on
reality. For example, if a person wants to buy a product but it is expensive then ego tried to
suppress the wants of id or will try to fulfill it by any alternative means. In order to resolve the
conflict between id and ego, the ego gets support from superego.

iii. The Super Ego is partially unconscious and different from ego. Moral principles are guiding
forces of super ego. It serves as an ethical constraint on behaviour. It provides norms to ego to
decide between what is wrong and what is right. It is basically related to use of wisdom and
conscience. It is developed by adoption of cultural values and societal norms. It also resolved the
issues between id and ego. It is moral code of conduct which helps individual in making himself
perfect. The main function of super ego is to directly suppress the impulsive wants of ‘id’ rather
providing any alternatives.

This theory of personality also faced criticisms because of inherent defects. This theory lacks the
scientific proofs, it is based on theoretical conception. It overlooked the role of environment on
the personality and human behaviour. This theory doesn’t provides a total picture of behaviour
emerging from the personality. That is why this theory is not very relevant for behavioural
scientists.

Some of the major contributions of this theory are that it gave important insight into the structure
of personality and the idea of unconscious motivation is important and also used by behavioral
scientists.

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 4.2 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY-
According to Social Psychological theory, there is relationship and interdependence between the
individual and society. This stated that individual and society are interlinked. They both satisfy
the needs of each other. According to Social Psychological theory of personality, the personality
of individual is an outcome of his relationship with and interdependence on the society. 9 The
personality of an individual is determined by the interaction between society and individual. The
social psychological theory consists of two words one is social, which consists of family,
religion, wealth, society. Other is psychology which consists of feelings, thoughts, actions,
beliefs. By joining these two social factor and psychology factor, the social psychological theory
of personality comes into existence and these two factors play a very important role in shaping
the human behaviour. This theory is propounded by thinkers like Alfred, Horney, Fromm and
Sullivan. They accepted that social-psychological factors determine the personality of individual.
This theory is also known as Neo-Freudian theory because it is different from the Freud’s
psychoanalytical theory in the following ways:

i. As per the social psychological theory of personality, the personality of an individual and its
development is an outcome of social variables, rather than of biological drives.

ii. According to the social psychological theory, the motivation is conscious in nature which
means an individual is fully aware of his needs and wants and he behaves in a way which can
fulfill his needs and wants.

There is no consensus among the social psychological theorists on the relative importance of the
social variables. For example, Fromm stressed on the importance of social context in the
personality development, While Sullivan and Horney focuses on the importance of interpersonal
relationship in shaping an individual’s personality. And Alfred uses different variables. On the
basis on interpersonal relationships Horney gave three broad categories of personality and they
are as follows:

i. Compliant individuals who always need affection, love, appreciation, recognition and so on.
They are dependent on others and always move towards the others.

9
MOSHAL B. S., Organisational behaviour design and applications (Galgotia Publications Pvt. Ltd., 2006), p.6.12 .

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ii. Aggressive individuals whose main source of motivation is the need for power. They always
move against the people. They have the quality of manipulating things for their own benefits.

iii. Detached individuals are self-reliant, and they move away from the others. They want to live
independent and self reliant. They need freedom in their life, and they follow the principle of live
and let the others live.

The social psychological theory of personality to great extent provided the answers to the
problems of psychology, particularly the influence or role of social factors in shaping the
individual’s personality. The managers of the organisation can take the help of this theory for
better understanding of behaviour of employees working in the organisation. But this theory
cannot help the managers to get the total picture of behaviour determined by personality.

4.3 TRAIT FACTOR THEORY -

In the terms of psychology, traits are the ways which we use to describe a person. The trait factor
theory plays a pivotal role in understanding an individual’s personality. According to this theory,
the personality of an individual consists of certain predominant characteristics which are known
as traits. It is the characteristics of individual’s personality which are stable in nature and help an
individual to behave in certain manner, in a particular situation. According to trait theorists, traits
of an individual are always remained same in every type of situations. An individual do not have
only single trait rather individual’s personality consists of various traits. Traits of individual
make him/her different from others. Everyone has different types of traits with themselves,
which make their personality unique and different from others. The main aim of the trait factor
theory is that to identify and measure the characteristics of individual’s personality. We can also
consider individual variables as traits.

This theory is basically focuses on the differences in personality of individuals. There are three
basic assumptions of trait factor theory and they are as follows:

i. Many traits of individuals are common, but it varies in amounts between the individuals.

ii. There are stability in traits of individual and shows universal effects on behaviour despite of
any situation. It creates consistency in the functioning of personality variables, which is helpful
for predicting the vast varieties of individual’s behaviours.

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iii. By measuring the behavioural indicators we can assume the traits of individual’s personality.

There are two widely accepted trait theories one is given by Gordon Allport and other is given by
Raymond Cattell. Gordon Allport was the first thinker who gave the trait theory of personality.
According to him, traits are the building block of personality. His trait theory is based on the
differences between personal dispositions and common traits. Common traits are used for
comparing the people. Allport talks about six categories of values which are used for purpose of
comparing. The six categories of values are- religious, economic, social, political, theoretical and
aesthetic. Apart from the common traits, there are also some personal dispositions which are
unique in character. The personal dispositions, according to Allport, are as follows:

i. Cardinal traits (most pervasive in nature)

ii. Central traits (unique and limited in number)

iii. Secondary traits (peripheral in nature).10

Raymond Cattell has developed another popular trait theory of personality. His theory is based
on various sources. He had also used some approach of Allport. Raymond uses a factor analysis
for reviewing and categorizing a large number of traits. He divided traits into two categories and
they are:

i. Surface traits are the aggregation of behaviours observed in a particular situation. There are
thirty-five surface traits identified by Cattell. Some of the surface traits are honest-dishonest,
sociable-seclusive and so on. These traits are found over the surface of personality and are
mostly determined by the source traits.

ii. Source traits are the basic sixteen dimensions of personality which provide base to all
behaviour. Some of the traits are dominance vs submissiveness, ego strength vs emotionality and
neuroticism, group dependent vs self sufficient and so on.

No theory is without criticisms. So, same is with the trait theory of personality. It has certain
loopholes. Some of the loopholes are that trait theory is very descriptive in nature rather than
analytical. It is unable to predict or depict the individual’s behaviour. One more criticism of this

10
L. M, Orgaisational PRASAD Behaviour ( Sultan Chand & Sons, 1899), p.95.

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theory is that it is not able to identify the reasons of differences among the individuals’
personalities.

4.4 SELF CONCEPT THEORY-

In this theory, the concept of self is very important. According to theory, the concept of self is
major source of determining an individual’s personality and behavior. We all governed by a self
concept. According to self concept theory personality and behavior of an individual is an
outcome of his interactions with an environment which gives a rise to his ‘self’ on the basis of it
personality traits are identified.11 The above three theories gave the traditional approaches for
analyzing the human personality. The self concept theory focuses on behavior in totality and also
emphasizes over its interrelatedness. Main proponent of the self concept theory, whose
contributions are immense, is Carl Rogers. Abraham Maslow, Herzberg and many mores were
also contributed to this theory. Carl Rogers theory of self concept is very much relevant for the
organizational behaviour. According to him, by analyzing individual’s internal frame of
reference we can understand the human behavior because the individual is a core of experiences.
His image of self gives him a clear or true picture of oneself. The concept of self is an outcome
of his interactions with environment. For example positive and negative feedback about yourself
can directly influence your behaviour. There is a difference between self concept and
personality, former refers to what an individual believes to be and later refers to what an
individual is. According to this theory, the self concept has very strong influential power over an
individual’s behaviour. It holds a great value in individual’s behaviour. Individual behavior
always tried to enhance their ‘self concept’. It gives sense of recognition and consistency to
individual. There are four factors which are included in self concept and they are as follows:

i. Self Image :- It is a way to see oneself, an individual’s perception about oneself. Self image
consists of beliefs, like who and what we are, in an individual about oneself. It gives an identity
to an individual.

ii. Ideal Self :- It is a way one would like to be. It is different from the self image because self
image is based on reality but ideal self in based on assumptions. Ideal self gave the ideal

11
MOSHAL B. S , Organisational behaviour design and applications (Galgotia Publications Pvt. Ltd., 2006), p.6.13.

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perception of individual regarding oneself which are not in reality, which an individual desires to
be.

iii. Looking Glass-Self :- It is a way through which an individual looks or perceives himself from
the other’s perception and thinking. It basically means an individual wants to know what others
think about him/her. In this an individual assumed himself about the perception of others towards
him/her by techniques like face to face interaction with others and so on. It is a social product.

iv. Real Self :- It is basically what one really is. The above three self-concept are the product of
individual perception or we can also say that they are assumptions made by an individual
towards oneself by using their own perceptions. The above self-concept of individual can be
same or totally or partially different from the real self. One can confirmed his real self concept
by analyzing and evaluating the feedbacks taken from the environment. On the basis of
feedbacks an individual re-evaluates himself and readjust his self-image. By doing this an
individual can developed his true and correct self-concept. The validity of his/her self-image is
confirmed after this.

This theory also faced criticisms and some of the loopholes are that Roger’s self concept theory
lacks the empirical values. This theory does not put emphasis on the role of society in the
personality development. They laid extreme importance to subjective experiences on individual.
This theory is accepted also because of many reasons. Self concept gives meaning and
consistency to an individual. The self concept plays a significant role in analyzing the
organizational behavior. It helps the person to perceive the situation as per their self concept
which has direct effect over his/her behaviour.

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5. PERSONALITY AND ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR

An Organization is an association or a group of people who comes together to achieve the desired or set
goals. An organizational behavior is a study of relationship between the employees and the
management. An organization consists of individuals or group of people. So, individual’s personality and
behavior can directly effects the functioning, effectiveness and efficiency of the organization. Role of
personality development is very important for the success of an organization. As we all know that an
individual’s behaviour is the reflection of his personality. So, for better understanding of behaviour of
any organization, it is very important to know about the personality of employees as well as
management. The personality of manager plays a crucial role in determining the work environment of
any organisation. For example, if a department is fully staffed by aggressive, rude and lethargic
managers , then it will directly affects the efficiency of his/her subordinates and it causes conflicts in the
organisation with no proper solution. So, this will adversely effects the efficiency of an organisation. On
the contrary, if the managers are good, kind, supportive and workaholic, then it will enhanced the
morale of the employees and also motivate them in the accomplishment of the goals of an organisation.
There will be harmony in the organisation. It is also said that personal attributes of employees tend to
influence the success and failure of a team at work. It is very essential for the managers to know about
the types of personality of his team members or subordinates. It will prove to be helpful for the
managers to organize and distribute the works among the team members. It will help the managers to
predict the behaviour of his team members in a particular situation. These all will lead to high efficiency
and effectiveness in the organisation and also maximizes the production level of employees which will
automatically leads the growth and development of the organisation. There are the five major
personality attributes which influence organizational behaviour – locus of control, Machiavellianism,
Self-esteem, Self-monitoring and Risks taking. Every organization does not need every type of
personality in the organisation. It is a duty of recruitment department to properly analyze the situation
and demands of work, like what type of personality is needed and so on, before recruiting the
employees. The managers should keep precise knowledge about the personality and individual
differences, it will help to enhance the effectiveness in the organisation. For better understanding of
organizational behaviour of any organisation, it is necessary to first understand the personality of the
employees and the management.

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6. CONCLUSION

After a thorough study of types and theories of personality, I would like to conclude my
assignment now. After doing this assignment, I can say that the personality is a wide concept .
According to my perception, it is impossible to know anyone’s personality completely, but by
analysing the different theories and types of personality given by various thinkers, we can
generalize about the personality of an individual to some extent. Personality is very important
aspect of individual which determines the behaviour. We can say that personality is not only
about good looks, charming face, fair complexion and so on, rather it is wide concept which
includes both internal and external aspects of an individual. There are many factors which
determined an individual’s personality, factors like biological, environmental, situational and so
on. The study of personality is very significant for the managers in the organisation, because it
helps the manager to predict the behaviour of employees, in a certain situation, working in the
organisation. Personality assessment and its development are the very crucial aspect of
organisation. Personality development of both the employees and the management is essential
element for the growth of organisation.

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7 BIBLIOGRAPHY

1 MOSHAL B. S , Organisational behaviour design and applications, Galgotia Publications

Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, 2006

2 PRASAD L. M , Orgaisational Behaviour, Sultan Chand & Sons, New Delhi, 1899

3 https://www.truity.com/view/types

4 https://www.euronews.com/2018/09/21/personality-types-average-self-centered-role-model-
or-reserved-t137902

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