Individual behaviour, understanding and judging others

Definition of personality

Personality is a stable set of enduring qualities and characteristics that relay an individual’s emotions, attitudes, motivations and interpersonal interactions. These characteristics influence an individual’s behaviour. Cultural, family, educational and environmental influences shape personality. Greenberg (2013) argued that personality doesn’t always determine how an individual behaves.

Description of various personality dimensions

Greenberg argued that there are five personality dimensions which are responsible for individual differences in organizational behaviour. They include;

1. Agreeableness

This is the affinity to be compassionate to others which stretches from being trustworthy, good-natured and helpful in the positive view to uncooperative, irritable, and suspicious in the negative view.

1. Neuroticism

He explained this as the tendency to experience unpleasant emotions easily, which ranges from composed, calm, poised and not hypochondriacal to being nervous, high-strung, anxious and hypochondriacal.

1. Conscientiousness

This is the tendency to where an individual exhibits self-discipline, strives for competence as well as achievement. It ranges from the positive well-organized, responsible and precise to the negative nature of being impulsive, disorganized, undependable and careless.

1. Openness to experience

This is enjoying new ideas and experiences. It ranges from being imaginative having wide interests and being witty on the high end to being simple, down-t-earth and having narrow interests on the lower end

• Extraversion

This is the tendency where individuals seek stimulation and enjoy company of others. This dimension ranges from enthusiastic, sociable, energetic and talkative attributes to the sober, retiring, reserved, and cautious and the silent attributes

I figure myself having the positive attributes. These are the dimensions which raise my self-esteem and give me the locus of control. It makes me feel able to control things in a manner that affects my daily life. As such, I feel emotionally stable being confident, steady and secure.

Social perception

            This is defined as the study of how people form impressions of and make inferences of other individuals. Greenberg (2013) defined social perception as the process of combining and interpreting information about others so as to understand them well.

Processes by which people judge others

            To be able to describe other people, there are things that you may look at and say who they are. One may focus on the individual characteristics such as personality, special skills, interests and appearance. This forms the personal identity. We may also describe the individual in terms of the groups that they belong, and this forms the social identity. These two ways of recognizing the way we perceive ourselves as well as others in the unique characteristics form the social identity theory. At other times, we use correspondent inferences, that is, we judge people based on what we observe them doing.

References

http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/Or-Pr/Personality-and-Personality-Tests.html

Greenberg, J. (2013).  Managing Behavior in Organizations (6th ed.).  McGraw-Hill/Irwin.  ISBN-10:  0-13-272983-0.