Personality

Personality can be seen entailing of steady features that describe the reason a person acts in a specific way. So, for example, independence, conscientiousness, agreeableness and self-control are some of the instances of these personality characteristics. On the other hand, it is just when we see/hear/observe an individual that we are able to acquire a knowledge of what their personality is. We expect that individuals are normally stable in the way in which they react to circumstances. There are occasions when we might be astonished by someone’s comportment and we may comprehend they are ‘acting out of character’ .Generally talking, personality studies can be divided into two main attitudes, characterised as nomothetic and idiographic. In this blog, I will be taking a look at the differences and the similarities of nature and nurture approaches to personality.

The nomothetic approach is a quantifiable and particular perception that examines at the recognition of behaviours and personality as a set of characteristics. These characteristics can be expressed, acknowledged and measured and thus can be exposed to investigations and experiments. Nomothetic attitudes have a habit to outlook environmental and public effects as negligible and regard personality as unchanging, mainly hereditary and resilient to alteration. Nomothetic researchers carefully support themselves to investigations that are ‘scientific’ in a positivistic wisdom. Such methodology moves procedures employed in natural sciences to the social world.

The idiographic approach is a universal and vibrant viewpoint which claims that managers take into account a ‘whole’ insight of the individual at work. This may also involve going yonder the study of utter psychology to an intellect of the societal perspective in which the person exists. It is further concerned with empathising the rareness of folks and the expansion of the self-concept. They deem personality growth as a procedure that is accessible to a modification. They view individuals as acting in response to the setting and people nearby them and perceive the changing aspects of the connections as enacting a significant fragment in forming personality.

In my point of view, personality is distinctive. I consider that it is not probable to place personal characteristics in an assessment. Each individual’s uniqueness crafts associations tough, if not unviable. Workers may not constantly disclose their right ‘self’ – at intervals, situations may push them to ‘mask’ their favoured habits of acting. They may not consistently report on their own performance or there may be an actual variance amid what they declare and what others grasp. Nomothetic theorists utilises questionnaires  for it to be a foundation for forecast but I believe responding ‘set’ questions is  ‘forcing’ replies to questions that may not be pertinent. As an alternative, it may be more suitable to apply open-ended methods. This guarantees that individuals employ their own descriptions and accepts for bigger interpretation about their inspirations and reasons of conduct.

I have taken a test in BBC which is called the Big personality test to determine what my personality by answering a set of questions : (https://www.bbc.co.uk/labuk/experiments/personality/)

The Big five form the foundation of typical personality questionnaires that verify positive or negative scores for each aspect. Below is the result of my test :

I scored 3.8 out of 5 for Openness which is a medium.

The Big Personality Test says:

 “This trait is sometimes known as ‘Openness to experience’. People with scores like yours tend to have fairly broad range of interests. You may be more sensitive to art than those scoring low on this measure.

You are likely to find it easy to come up with original solutions to problems.

It has been suggested that Openness is related to a person’s likelihood to hold unusual beliefs. People with low-to-medium Openness may therefore be less likely to believe in things like conspiracy theories.”

I disagree with this point of view that I may be more sensitive to art as I am not really keen into art at the first place. However, I do have a fairly broad range of interests and not all the time I don’t believe in things like conspiracy theories as there are times that I do depending on the situation.

I scored 3.8 out of 5 for Conscientiousness which is a medium.

The Big Personality says:

“Conscientiousness describes how dependable, organised and hard-working a person is likely to be. This may be the reason why, of all the personality traits, Conscientiousness is the most consistent indicator of job success. People with scores like yours are less likely to be workaholics, instead achieving a good work-life balance.

Conscientiousness often gives out clues to the amount that a person plans. You probably enjoy planning aspects of your life and may indulge in occasional list-making, but you are unlikely to be averse to behaving spontaneously.

Some studies have shown the more Conscientious an individual is, the more disciplined they are likely to be about exercise and diet.”

Comment: I completely agree in this point of view as I may be not as addicted to working instead I balance my social and work life to balance my happiness and stress. In addition to this, I do have plans and aspirations in my mind but I am likely to be sometimes out of track on the pathway that I planned to be in. Also, at the past I was disciplined about exercise and diet to improve my appearance, nevertheless, at present, this changed to me trying to get back on strict diet and exercise but I tend to give up after a couple of days.

I scored 3.9 out of 5 for Extroversion which is high.

The Big personality test says:

“Extroversion is characterised by positive emotions and the tendency to seek out pleasure-stimulating or risk-taking activities. People with scores like yours are often perceived as gregarious, expressive and energetic. You are likely to be someone who enjoys socialising and be quick to form new friendships.

Personality studies have shown that scoring highly on Extroversion often translates to a natural capacity of leadership. High Extroversion may also indicate a tendency to earn more than those with lower scores, but the reasons for this are unclear.

People with high Extroversion are more likely to lead risky lifestyles and take greater risks in pursuit of rewards. Health studies have shown they are more likely to smoke and less likely to get enough sleep than people who scores less highly on this trait.”

Comment: I believe that my emotions tend to change at different levels in different situations, environment and the people who I am with. I agree with my personality being pleasure-stimulating as I think everyone would desire that but taking up risk-taking activities is not my interest at all as I get too nervous even just trying to watch how it is done or hear anything about it. Also, I do enjoy socialising and meeting new people and creating friendship with different kind of people. Again, sleeping less and smoking depends on the situation I am in. As there are times when there is a problem that caused depression in me which resulted to me not sleeping properly. Also, there was a phase in my teenage life where I started to smoke not just because of the stress but by the influence of other people too.

I scored 4.7 out of 5 for Agreeableness which is high.

The Big personality test says:

“Agreeableness measures how sympathetic and considerate a person is likely to be. People with scores like yours are likely to find it very easy to get along with other people. You probably find that you are sensitive to the feelings of others and that people find it easy to warm to you.

As a ‘people person’ you will probably be very comfortable in situations that require teamwork.”

Comment: It is certainly true that I tend to be really friendly which usually get along with anyone from different backgrounds. Also, I do take attention to what people feel  as I am myself is sensitive therefore it feels awkward knowing there is something wrong  with the people I know . In this situations I try to approach them and give advice so in my group of friends, most of them say that I am the person who they can run too.

I scored 3 out of 5 for Neuroticism which is medium.

The Big Personality Test says:

“In the context of the Big Five personality traits, the term ‘Neuroticism’ relates to a person’s response to threatening or stressful situations. People with scores like yours are likely to be comparatively level-headed about perceived threats, but you may find yourself worrying when faced with uncertainty or unfamiliar situations.

Some scientists have suggested that Neuroticism was beneficial in evolutionary terms. Early man may have found it advantageous to live in a population where certain individuals had a high sensitivity to threats to the group’s survival.

There is evidence to suggest that Neuroticism, when combined with high scores in personality traits such as Conscientiousness, can result in a powerful work ethic and a will to succeed.”

Comment: I both agree and disagree with this statement because in all honesty I believe that I worry and stress too much when under pressure and threats come along. I disagree with the last statement where it says scoring high in Neuroticism and Conscientiousness “can result in a powerful work ethic and a will to succeed” as in my opinion, most individual can achieve and would want this kind of life; it is just the case of the path they take in their future.

In conclusion, I believe that personalities cannot be measured by any kind of questionnaires as some of the questions from the questionnaires might mean different things to people and answer wrongly. Also, having 5 different measurements such as: strong agree, agree, unsure, disagree, strongly disagree, it can be biased as it is difficult to distinguish in which category they are in. Also, the big five personality is not the only measurement that can be done for instance: The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and Eysenck theory and Erikson’s as each theory/indicators has different views and it is hard to identify which tells your real personality especially if they are contrasting each other. In summary, in my opinion, personality is idiographic and it changes as time goes by, as they grow old, meet different kind of people and come into different cultures and phases in their life.

References:

Mullins, L.(2010) Management & organisational Behaviour : ninth edition. Harlow : Pearson Education Limited.

Gallagher,K .,Rose, E. , McClelland, B., Reynolds, J., Tombs,S. (1997) People in Organisations: An active learning approach.Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Inc.

Chamorro-Premuzic,T. (2007) Personality and Individual Differences.Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Wilderdom. (2004) Personality Traits: Idiographic vs Nomothetic[online]. Wilderdom Website.Available from: http://wilderdom.com/personality/traits/PersonalityTraitsIdiographicNomothetic.html [ Accessed on 13 April 2011 ]