Personality Essay

In this essay I will be looking at two aspects of personality and the effect that personality traits have on behaviour within organisations. “Personality is the overall profile or combination of traits that characterize the unique nature of a person” (Ray French). This is just one of many definitions for personality, however all definitions linked to trait theory share the same key aspects, that personality consists of internal traits and characteristics that have an effect upon a person’s behaviour.
There are thousands of different personality traits that can contribute to making up a person’s personality and influence the way they may act in a given situation. These traits can be broken down into five key dimensions which can then try to explain what sort of personality an individual might have and how they might act in a given situation. ‘The Big Five’ as they are sometimes called are: * Sociability/ extroversion * Adjustments * Conscientiousness * Agreeableness * Intellectual Openness
I will be looking at two of the big five, extroversion and adjustment in greater depth and looking at how useful these two dimensions are for explaining behaviour in organisations.
Certain characteristics can be desirable or undesirable within organisations and therefore organisations may look to recruit people with certain personality traits in order to improve an organisations workforce productivity and limit deviant behaviour. As part of the selection process many firms will use a personality test, to try and indicate the personality traits of an individual, such tests usually come in the form a multiple choice questionnaire (Richard Pettinger).

Extroversion can be defined as, “the degree to which individuals are oriented to the social world of people, relationships and events as opposed to the inner world.” (Ray French). A person with high levels of extroversion tends to have characteristics such as, excitability, talkativeness, sociability,