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PERSONALITY THEORY PAPER

Personality Theory Paper By Bryan Van Loo University of Phoenix

Personality Theory Paper

The word personality comes from the Latin word persona, which means mask. According to Latin definition, personality is the impression we make on those around us. It is the mask people offer to the world. The dictionary defines personality as a unique set of traits and characteristics, generally stable of time. Personalities are clearly unique due to the fact that we all have our own personalities that are different from other people. While a persons personality is considered unchangeable over short periods of time, they are not so set in stone over longer periods of time and may change. In the studying of the development of ones personality, theorists debated over nature versus nurture. Within the nature versus nurture debate it suggests that a persons genes and the environment a person grows up in are dueling factions. The purpose of the debate was to try and discover which one was more important than the other. Today, most psychologists have come to evenly agree that both are needed for personality development, they both contribute to help making us who we are. In determining personality contributors there are several influential factors; culture, heredity, family, life experiences, and human interaction. There are genetic factors that do play a role in certain aspects of what we eventually become, short or tall, healthy or inherited health problems, characteristics linked to heredity. How we learn to deal with other people and their reactions towards us and genetic traits also help us develop our personalities. For this particular assignment I will discuss Gordon Allports Personality Trait Theory and how I feel it applies to work and other social settings.

Gordon Allport

Gordon Allports study was focused on the differences of each individual, created a theory of personality as retaliation against those theorists whose positions he regarded as non humanistic. Allport was very open- minded in his theoretical approach and accepted quite a few ideas from fellow theorists. Allport believed that people who psychologically in good health were capable of proactive behavior. This would suggest that people could consciously act in a new and creative way that would develop their own growth and change. Allport called his study research personal developmental science that contrasted with methods relating to the discovery of universal laws. Allport defined personality as Personality is the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his unique adjustments to the environment (Allport, 1937). Allport believed that the basic aspects of a persons personality are personal disposition and the proprium. The proprium describes the behaviors and characteristics that people regard as central and warm in their lives. He chose using proprium over the terms ego or self because second of the two terms could suggest an object or thing inside someone that regulates behavior, where the term proprium implies the center of an individuals personhood. Allport was able to distinguish between common personality traits, which are particular to the person and his or her personal dispositions, Allport further divided personal dispositions into (1) motivational dispositions, which are strong enough to initiate action and (2) stylistic dispositions, which refer to the manner in which an individual behaves and which guide rather than initiate action (Allport,1937).

Workplace Personalities

After 13 years in the retail sales industry I know there are certain personality types that tend to have more success than others. The organization I work for often uses personality test to gauge its candidates for certain positions, mainly managerial. Many organizational industrial psychologists believe that objective personality assessment testing is a valuable tool for employers to select good candidates. Major corporations use personality assessment tests that are created to measure the aspects of a persons personality and related characteristics. Most of these personality assessment tests were not designed to predict a persons behavior, but to assist employers separate the employees who may have integrity issues and engage in internal theft and fraud. Internal theft is the number one cause of shortages of all retailers across the country, over 50%. There are laws that protect certain federal employees from taking personality assessment tests prior to being offered a job. There are some federal agencies such as the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation that require personality assessment test in the early stages of the application process. Even though laws dont always restrict companies from mandatory pre employment testing, companies will sometimes conduct testing after a conditional offer has been made. Organizations use personality tests to help recruiters or hiring managers to understand the personality traits of their employees and to help them determine where the employee will be the best fit within the organizational structure. Personality inventory tests are commonly used in public and private industry hiring, the federal government, the United States Armed Forces, and also popular in foreign countries such as Japan, Korea, and the United Kingdom. The Myers Briggs Type Indicator Test was created in the United States by a mother and daughter, Katharine Briggs and Isabel Myers. The MBTI test was developed on the personality theory of psychologist Carl Jung; the test separates personality inside four scales of opposite characteristics that identifies four activities. The first is how a person is energized, how

one draws energy from the world of people and activities opposite ones self world ideas and emotions. The next is what someone pays attention to such as sensory information or intuition. How people make decisions? Does the person make decisions that are mainly based on logic, personal values and, objective facts? And finally, if someones attitude towards life is thought of as organized or spontaneous. Anyone who wants to know the human psyche will learn next to nothing from experimental psychology. He would be better advised to abandon exact science, put away his scholar's gown, bid farewell to his study, and wander with human heart throughout the world. There in the horrors of prisons, lunatic asylums and hospitals, in drab suburban pubs, in brothels and gambling-hells, in the salons of the elegant, the Stock Exchanges, socialist meetings, churches, revivalist gatherings and ecstatic sects, through love and hate, through the experience of passion in every form in his own body, he would reap richer stores of knowledge than text-books a foot thick could give him, and he will know how to doctor the sick with a real knowledge of the human soul (Jung,1961). In a survey taken by a major organization, upper management staff was asked what they believed the key factors were that separated a high performing employees from lower performance employees ( Gitomer, 2000). The top answers were self discipline, personality, motivated, customer friendly and innate talent. Looking at my own personality traits, I see myself as easy going, friendly, patient, unselfish, understanding, honest, and hard working. I have found my own traits to dictate my own successes within the retail market, but this is not to say that these are the combination of traits to be proven successful for all. Allport defined over 4000 personality traits, for me the success has come from finding the balance in each one of my

traits to assist me in my day-to-day responsibilities as a loss prevention manager in a big box retailer.

Conclusion In conclusion, you dont have to be a professional psychologist to understand a persons personality trait, even our own. In our daily lives when talking about people we know such a friends or co workers we often reference their personalities in conversations. Movies and books use the personalities of their main characters often throughout the story. This allows the reader or viewers either connect with or dislike any key figures. From a workplace standpoint, conversations about personalities are common and frequent, What kind of supervisor is she? Or What kind of employee is he?

References Gordon W. Allport, Personality:A psychological interpretation. New York: Holt and Company, 1937. Retrieved : September 25,2011.

Gitomer, J. (2001). Specific characteristics are what make top sales people tops. American City Business Journals. Retrieved February 6, 2002 from the Internet. Retrieved : September 25,2011. Jung.Carl (1937) , The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Retrieved: September 25,2011.