Category: Big Five Personality Traits

The concept of work engagement.

Schaufeli and Bakker review definitions of work engagement in the business context and in academia as a basis for considering the instruments assessing engagement. While the popularity of engagement in organizations confirms the concept’s practical dimension, business consultants have applied the term to a range of concepts and measures that depart from those used in scientific research. Schaufeli and Bakker’s analysis shows that consultants use the word “engagement” as a novel, attractive label that covers traditional concepts, such as effective commitment, continuance commitment, and extra-role behavior. They share our focus on the subjective experience of work, but fail to capture the different value added by the new concept of work engagement. Schaufeli and Bakker (2003) found that Engagement is a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption. The work engagement is the opposite of the burnout. Burnout is characterized by exhaustion, cynicism and reduced professional efficacy (Maslach et al., 2001).

The concept of personality

Personality concerns the most important, most noticeable parts of an individual’s psychological life. Personality concerns whether a person is happy or sad, energetic or apathetic, smart or dull. Over the years, many different definitions have been proposed for personality. Most of the definitions refer to a mental system a collection of psychological parts including motives, emotions and thoughts. The definitions vary a bit as to what those parts might be, but they come down to the idea that personality involves a pattern or global operation of mental systems.

Personality has a significant influence on the way of think, feel and relate to other people. This report is intended to give a general idea about how personality might be described and to stimulate to think about the implications for work and personal life.

Personality traits tend to be fairly stable in adulthood and lead people to act in certain preferred ways. At work, employees’ personality will sometimes help to carry out work roles effectively and at other times get in the way. Leading meetings, fronting presentations and organizing social occasions will come more easily to individuals with extravert traits. By contrast, people with low scores on the agreeableness scale may take time to acquire skills in areas such as team building, coaching and mentoring because they are more self-sufficient and self-absorbed.

Personality has been considered as an important factor in the personality related studies specifically for predicting the job performance. It is a behavior which differentiates one person from another (Beer & Brooks, 2011) and provides acumen whether a person will do some specific job, in comparison to others (Sackett et al., 2002).

Personality traits hold specific components in an organizational structure and have dynamic features, which will react differently to the changes of the environment (Lin & Chiu, 1999). So, different personality traits can cause different thinking and influence an individual to make different decisions (Chu, 2003).

Big five personality

Subsequently, several different psychologists working independently and on different samples concluded that personality traits can be organized into five super ordinate dimensions. These five factors have been known as the big five since Goldberg (1971).

The big five factors are extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism (also called emotional stability) and openness to experience (also called intellect or culture). A convenient acronym for these factors is “OCEAN”. These factors represent personality at the broadest level of abstraction. Each factor summarizes a large number of distinct, more specific, personality characteristics. John (1990) and Costa and McCrae (1992) present evidence that most of the variables used to assess personality in academic research in the field of personality psychology can be mapped into one or more of the dimensions of the big five.

They argue that the big five may be thought of as the longitude and latitude of personality, by which all more narrowly defined traits (often called “facets”) may be categorized (Costa and McCrae, 1992).

The big five traits can be found in almost any measure of personality (McCrae and John, 1992), including the analysis of trait adjectives in many languages and these data strongly suggest that personality trait structure is universal (McCrae and Costa, 1997). Research evidence also indicated that the big five traits are highly stable over time (Gosling et al., 2003) and appear to be shaped by biological (genetic) factors (Digman, 1989; Polmin et al.,1990), although the environment also plays its role.

Finally, McCrae and John (1992) concluded that long history, cross-cultural replication, empirical validation across many methods and instruments make the five-factor model a basic discovery of personality psychology.

In recent times, organizational researchers in the area of personality unanimously concluded that the understanding of personality facets is entirely captured by the by the five super-ordinate factors – the big five model.

Extraversion

Extraversion is a prominent factor in personality psychology as evidenced by its appearance in most personality measures and its important role in major taxonomies of personality. Extraversion is thought to consist of sociability (Judge, Higgins, Thoresen, & Barrick, 1999).

According to Leung (2009) noted that extraverts are more sociable, but are also described as being more active and impulsive. Extraversion is related to the experience of positive emptions and extraverts are more likely to take on leadership roles and to have a greater number of close friends.

Extraversion is associated with spontaneity, activity and intimacy in social interactions. Furthermore, the characteristics of extraversion are related to inter-personal competence and experimental work indicates that protégé show a preference for imaginary mentors who demonstrate high levels of interpersonal competence (Olian, Carroll, Giannantonio & Feren, 2018as cited in Bozionelos, 2004).

Characteristic of extraversion includes dominant, expressive, outgoing, chatty energetic, active, talkative, and enthusiastic. Employees have high level on extraversion tend to be cheerful, like people and large groups, and seek excitement and stimulation. Someone is low level on extraversion prefer to spend more time 16

alone and are characterized as reserved, quiet, and independent. Extraversion may be a valuable trait for managerial work (Bozionelos, 2004).

Agreeableness

Agreeableness represents one’s interpersonal orientation. This characteristic associated with this dimension includes being courteous, flexible, trusting, good natured, forgiving, soft hearted and tolerant (Barrick & Mount, 1991).

High agreeableness should be especially useful in the context of military leadership, where caring for subordinates and giving “selfless service” are highly valued (Bartone, Eid, Johnsen, Lagerg, & Snook, 2009).

An agreeable person is fundamentally altruistic, sympathetic to others and eager to help them, and in return believes that others will be equally helpful (Rothmann & Coetzer, 2003).

Agreeableness include care and concern for others as agreeable individuals should be more inclined towards providing advice, help and support for less experiences and less powerful organizational members (Bozionelos, 2004).

Conscientiousness

Costa et al. (1995) said that conscientiousness indicates an individual’s degree of organization, persistence, hard work, and motivation diligent and responsibility in the pursuit of goal accomplishment. Some researchers have viewed this construct as an indicator of volition or the ability to work hard.

Barrick and Mount (1991) said that high level conscientiousness personalities are logical, reliable, determined, and thorough, who focus on success which is also very significant characteristic for performing work tasks.

Conscientiousness encompasses sense of duty and adherence to moral principles. Conscientious individuals should be prone to provide advice and developmental support for less senior colleagues (Bozionelos, 2004).

Neuroticism

Neuroticism is the most universal trait across personality measures. It is prominent in nearly every measure of personality neuroticism leads to at least two related professions, one dealing with anxiety the other addressing one’s well being.as well as this characteristic discuss generally to a lack of positive psychological adjustment and emotional stability (Cocta & Robert, 1988).

Neuroticism includes individual differences in adjustment and emotional stability. Person high level on Neuroticism tends to experience a number of negative emotions including anxiety, hostility, annoyed, stressed, sulky, nervous, doubtful, unconfident depression, self-consciousness, impulsiveness, and vulnerability. Furthermore, workers have low on neuroticism can be characterized as self-confidence, calm, even tempered and relaxed (Costa & McCrae, 1995).

Neuroticism encompasses characteristics that include excessive worry, pessimism, low confidence, and tendencies to experience negative emotions. Because of their tendency to interpret experiences under a negative light, individuals who score high on neuroticism should be less likely to develop positive attitudes towards their work. Furthermore, due to lack of confidence and optimism, those who score high on neuroticism should be less likely to develop ambitions regarding their careers and to set performance and career goals accordingly. Characteristics of neurotic include anxiety, inhibition, negative mood and a tendency focus on the self. Neuroticism is associated with hostility, impatience and low confidence. This characteristic s should make the individual less attractive as mentor (Bozionelos, 2004).

Openness to Experience

Costa et al. (1995) said that Openness to Experience is a personality dimension that characterizes employees are intellectually curious and tends to seek new experiences and explore novel ideas. Someone is high level on Openness to experience can be described as creative, innovative, imaginative, reflective, and untraditional. Someone is low level on Openness can be characterized as conventional, narrow in interests, and un-analytical. Even in the most rapidly changing organizational environments, the managerial role is likely to place more emphasis on following established policies and implementing strategies developed at a higher level (Mount, Mk, Barrick, & Scullen,182005). Openness to Experience refers cognitive and emotional flexibility and receptivity to new experiences and ideas. Those who score high on openness should be more likely to develop interest in the views of subordinates accept their idiosyncrasies and find interest in the relationship (Bozionelos, 2004).

Work Engagement and Personality factors

Historical literature has done some research to find a relationship between some of the Big Five traits and work engagement. Macey and Schneider (2008) found that personality may play an important role in work engagement (Macey and Schneider, 2008), becouse individuals with a specific personality profile can be better able to activate their job resources than persons with a diverse outline. Makikangas, Feldt, Kinnunen and Mauno (2013) stated that the Big Five factors-emotional stability, extraversion, and conscientiousness were consistently related to higher work engagement. As well as several studies found a positive relationship between lower-order individual factors and work engagement. Xanthopoulou, Bakker, Demerouti and Schaufeli (2007, 2009) confirmed self-efficacy, optimism, and self-esteem are related to work engagement. Christian, Garza and Slaughter (2011) showed that conscientiousness, positive affect, and proactive personality were all positively related to engagement.

According to Kim, Shin and Svanger (2009) awareness was an important factor in forecasting commitment at work because of employees with a high degree of awareness, characterized for a great responsibility, organizational capacity and sustainability, they are more likely to increase their energy at work, complete their work and, finally, feel a strong sense of professional performance. ‘ Kim, Shin and Svanger (2009) also hypothesize that consent may be a predictor of commitment, which was not significant. Although consent did not predict work commitment, it had a slightly positive impact on commitment, while awareness had a positive impact on three dimensions of commitment (vigor, commitment and absorption), and neurotics negatively influenced vigor. In the study by Langelaan et al (2006), following a methodology that differed from uncommitted workers, their hypotheses were confirmed: emotional stability (under neuroticism) and great extraverts were considered significant when they were involved in the work envisaged, which means that committed employees showed high levels of both properties in relation to those who are not engaged. However, Langelaan et al (2006). The study did not prove any of the other characteristics and, therefore, it was not possible to establish other conclusions. In addition, Inceoglu and Varr (2012) have discovered through three different online surveys that Emotional Stability and Consciousness are responsible regardless of a greater degree of participation in the work, because the workers who participate in their work tend, in terms practical, to be emotionally stable. , socially proactive and performance oriented, all attributes of these traits. Another study used by the South African police officers assumed that the five traits could be related to commitment at work, concluding that only the conscience, the low neurotics and the extraverts were positively related to him (Mostert and Rothmann, 2006). According to the metaanalytical review of Judges and Layles (2002), extraversion, neuroticism and consciousness are the most relevant features that are related to motivational processes. Christian, Garza and Slaughter (2011) investigated the properties that allowed the control of thoughts and emotions in order to actively communicate with the environment (Bandura, 2001), considering that they are likely to lead to commitment (Hirschfeld and Thomas, 2008): high awareness, reflecting individual responsibility and commitment to tasks and high extraction, because people are more active, awake and excited about their work.

There is no empirical evidence that Openness to experience or Coherence affects participation in the work, although they may be related to other constructions. Acceptability is positively related to job satisfaction (Lian et al, 2013), professional success (Judge et al, 1999), prosocial work behavior (Chiaburu, Oh, Berri, Li and Gardner, 2011), the impact on services that require tiaras. Commercial relations (Mount et al, 1998) and work related to disadvantaged people (Judge and Zapata, 2010). Openness to experience had a positive impact on occupations that required creativity, innovation and divergent thinking (McCrae, 1987), professional success (Judge et al, 1999), tasks that required independence (McCrae and Costa, 1997) and general adaptation to new situations. (Huaug et al, 2005).

Introduction

The relationship between personality and job performance has been a frequently studied topic in industrial psychology in the past century (Barrick, Mount & Judge, 2001). Understanding its people is as important to a company as understanding its operations and processes. Behaviors can come from different influences like environmental factors or personality traits. Many different theories and models on personality traits exist, like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator that separates people out into 16 different personalities.

Another model is the Big Five Personality Model (OCEAN), which puts forth the idea that human personality is made up of five basic dimensions. Because of its validity and wide acceptance the big five has been extensively utilized in recent organisational and other applied research (Barrick and Mount, 1991; Hurtz and Donovan, 2000; Judge et al., 1999; Judge et al., 2002; Salgado, 1997). Therefore, it is important to establish the relationship between the big five and vital organisational behavior variables, including competitiveness, work motivation and job satisfaction. The big five consists of the following traits: neuroticisms, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness (Digman, 1990).

Openness

Openness to Experience includes active imagination, aesthetic sensitivity, attentiveness to inner feelings, a preference for variety, intellectual curiosity and independence of judgement. Those who are in this group have the attitude or mindset that is open to any ideas or opinions. Openness to experience include traits like imaginative, cultured, curious, original, broad minded, intelligent and artistically sensitive (Barrick & Mount, 1991). Openness may not be a valid predictor of job performance and may be moderated by organizational factors. This trait can vary with job requirements.

Individuals high on openness to experience enjoy grasping new ideas, and they have an intrinsic interest in and appreciation for novelty. Open individuals are curious about both inner and outer worlds, and their lives are experientially richer. Research has shown that Openness to Experience is related to success in consulting (Hamilton, 1988), training (Barrick & Mount, 1991; Vinchur et al., 1998) and adapting to change (Horton, 1992; Raudsepp, 1990).

Openness to experience is a personality type which has been a subject of controversy among researchers (Costa & McCrae, 1997; Hough & Ones, 2001). People scoring low on Openness tend to be conventional in behaviour and conservative in outlook. They prefer the familiar to the novel, and their emotional responses are somewhat muted. Openness to experience also has consistently reported the lowest average true score correlations across criteria and occupations (Barrick, Mount & Judge, 2001). Agreeableness and openness to experience are not good predictors of job performance (Barrick, Mount & Judge, 2001). . In contrast, (Johnson, 1997) and (Hayes, Roehm, & Castellano, 1994) found that successful employees obtained significantly lower scores on Openness.

Conscientiousness

Conscientiousness refers to self-control and the active process of planning, organising and carrying out tasks (Barrick & Mount, 1993). Conscientiousness is the tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully, and aim for achievement. The trait shows a preference for planned rather than spontaneous behavior. High scorers avoid trouble and achieve high levels of success through purposeful planning and persistence can be compulsive perfectionists and workaholics, often viewed as stuffy or boring. However, impulsive employees ignore options, may socialize excessively and are easily distracted; accomplishments are scattered and inconsistent. Conscientiousness individuals tend to form relational contracts in their exchange relationship with the organization (Raja, Johns & Ntalianis, 2004). Relational contracts are long term contracts as they not only include purely economic exchange but also include terms for loyalty or growth in an organization (Rousseau & MacLean Parks, 1993).

People who are high in conscientiousness generally perform better at work than those who are low in conscientiousness. Conscientiousness is manifested in achievement orientation (hardworking and persistent), dependability (responsible and careful) and orderliness (planful and organised). On the negative side, high Conscientiousness may lead to annoying fastidiousness, compulsive neatness or workaholic behaviour.

Extraversion

Extraversion includes traits such as sociability, assertiveness, activity and talkativeness. Extraverts are energetic and optimistic. Extraversion is a personality type which exhibits traits such as talkative, sociable, active and expressive (Barrick & Mount, 1991). They have a strong desire for praise, social recognition, status and power (Costa & MacCrae, 1997)

It was found that Extraversion is a valid predictor of performance in jobs characterised by social interaction, such as sales personnel and managers (Barrick & Mount, 1991; Bing & Lounsbury, 2000; Lowery & Krilowicz, 1994; Vinchur et al., 1998). Johnson (1997) found a positive relationship between Extraversion and job performance of police personnel, and explained this relationship in terms of the high level of interaction in the police service.

High extraverts are positively associated with extrinsic career success (Judge et al., 1999). Extravert is a personality types which is positively related to performance in jobs that require interpersonal skills (Barrick & Mount, 1991; Barrick, Mount & Judge, 2001). Extraversion is a valid predictor for occupations such as management and sales which involve social interaction. Extraversion is also a valid predictor of performance in jobs characterized by social interaction, such as sales personnel and managers (Johnson, 1997)

Agreeableness

Agreeableness include traits such as courteous, flexible, trusting, good natured, cooperative, forgiving, soft hearted, and tolerant (Barrick & Mount, 1991). The behavioral tendencies typically associated with this factor include being courteous, flexible, trusting, good-natured, cooperative, forgiving, soft-hearted, and tolerant. Agreeable individuals value getting along with others. They are generally considerate, friendly, generous, helpful, and willing to compromise their interests with others. Agreeable people also have an optimistic view of human nature.

In organizational contexts, agreeable employees show higher levels of interpersonal competence and work effectively when combined action is needed. According to (Tett et al, 1991), Agreeableness is a significant predictor of job performance. The co-operative nature of agreeable individuals may lead to success in occupations where teamwork and customer service are relevant (Judge et al., 1999). However, some researchers conclude that, Agreeableness is not strongly related to any other criterion or occupational group except for teamwork (Barrick, Mount & Judge, 2001). Moreover, agreeableness consistently reported the lowest average true score correlations across criteria and occupations (Barrick, Mount & Judge, 2001).

Neuroticism

Neuroticism includes traits such as anxious, depressed, angry, embarrassed, emotional, worried, and insecure (Barrick & Mount, 1991). Neuroticism is a personality type which is limited in social skills and avoids situations that demand taking control (Judge, Locke & Durham, 1997).

They experience more negative feelings in life than other individuals (Magnus, Diener, Fujita & Pavot, 1993). These negative emotions and lack of alternatives will make them stick to the organization because of the costs associated with leaving the jobs, which would lead to negative work related behaviors and attitudes. Neuroticism is very closely related to negative affectivity (NA) (Watson & Tellegan, 1985). Neurotics are also positively related to continuance commitment (Erdheim, Wang & Zickar, 2006) and continuance commitment is proved to be negatively related to overall job performance (Meyer et al., 1989).

Neuroticism is socially expressed trait associated with poor social skills and lack of trust in others (Goldberg, 1992; McCrae & John, 1992). A high Neuroticism score indicates that a person is prone to having irrational ideas, being less able to control impulses, and coping poorly with stress. Persons who are high on this dimension are usually anxious, depressed, angry, embarrassed, emotional, worried, and insecure. They feel more apprehensive about facing a new work environment that could provide even harsher experiences (Erdheim, Wang & Zickar, 2006).

People with high neuroticism are vulnerable to situations that demand high social skills (Judge et al., 1997). It is expected that the social aspect of job will further enhance or reduce the effects of job scope. A cognitively demanding situation will be particularly threatening to neurotic individuals if it also requires high social skills.

Conclusion

In an organization, the Big Five personality traits are strong predictors of future performance. In 2014, research by Sackett and Walmsley emphasised that of all traits, conscientiousness and agreeableness make the most efficient employees. A conscientious employee refers to a self-motivated individual who sets and achieves her own ambitious work goals and always completes the tasks assigned. This can also be done through flexible and remote working, which many forward-thinking organizations encourage today. Along with this, an employee should also be encouraged to have a flexible, tolerant and accommodating attitude. This includes the willingness to adapt and work with team members from diverse backgrounds or cultures.

Understanding what personality components drive the behavior of subordinates is a highly useful informational data point for management that can be used to determine what type of assignments should be set, how motivation should be pursued, what team dynamics may arise, and how to best approach conflict and/or praise when applicable. The big five personality traits allow you to look at how well someone fits with your organization. This should be coupled with a healthy co-working attitude and positive team spirit. To reduce negative interactions between teams and employees, and to improve processes and increase transparency.

INTRODUCTION

The topic of research moves around the detail analysis of correlation between Irrational belief, Aggression and Big five personality traits. Whenever irrational believes comes in spotlight of discussion, attention draws toward the consequences after thinking irrationally thus aggression comes as one of its consequences whereas irrational thinking is found to be a dominant trait of personality thus it is also an interesting thing to find out if any personality trait is correlated with either irrational belief or aggression. This research has vast horizon of findings which can correlate many subscale together, helping understand better way the relationship of these variables.

Basically Irrational beliefs are those messages about life we send to ourselves that keep us from growing emotionally. Unfounded approaches, feelings, and standards we hold to that are out of synchrony with the way the world really is. Mostly people with low self-esteem or poor self are seen to contain it more frequently. It could be defined by example; if I get to know my enemy got selected for the post I applied I might think like he/she might had any family relationship with the selector. This though is based on irrationality and energizes me to be immature towards the real ground thus is an irrational belief. Albert Ellis had worked on explaining irrational believes in detailed and had explained 12 types of irrational believes. Along with it he developed rational emotive behavioral therapy to encounter it.

To study the personality traits in detailed , Big Five personality theory is selected which has a broader way for understanding different traits, its initial model was advanced by Ernest Tupes and Raymond Christal, based on work done at the U.S. Air Force Personnel Laboratory in the late 1950s. J.M. Digman proposed his five factor model of personality in 1990, and Goldman extended it to the highest level of organizations in 1993. In a personality test, the Five Factor Model or FFM and the Global Factors of personality may also be used to reference the Big Five traits. The Big Five traits are Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism or OCEAN, a. Openness – People who like to learn new things and enjoy new experiences usually score high in openness. b. Conscientiousness – People that have a high degree of conscientiousness are reliable and prompt. c. Extraversion – Extraverts get their energy from interacting with others, while introverts get their energy from within themselves d. Agreeableness – These individuals are friendly, cooperative, and compassionate. People with low agreeableness may be more distant. e. Neuroticism – It is also sometimes called Emotional Stability. This dimension relates to one’s emotional stability and degree of negative emotions.

Moving on to another variable of the research Aggression, the term Aggression mentions a range of behaviors that can effect in both physical and psychological damage to oneself, other or objects in the environment. This type of social interaction centers on harming another person, either physically or mentally. The expression of aggression can occur in a number of ways including verbally, mentally and physically. Psychologists discriminate between different forms of aggression, different purposes of aggression and different types of aggression. Aggression can take a variety of forms including physical, verbal, mental and emotional. Aggression also serve a number of different purposes, to express anger or hostility, to assert dominance, to threaten or intimidate, to attain a goal, to prompt possession, a reply to fear, a reaction to pain, to compete with others

A number of different factors can influence the expression of aggression. Biological factors can play a role. Men are more likely than women to engage in physical aggression. While researchers have found that women are less likely to engage in physical aggression, they also suggest that women do use non-physical forms such as verbal aggression, relational aggression and social rejection.

A research in International Journal of Psychology by Tahira Jibeen published in March 2015 in Volume 50, Issue 2, pages 93–100, presents the first examination of the relation between the Big Five personality traits, irrational beliefs and emotional problems in Pakistan, which is an understudied country in the psychological distress literature. A total of 195 participants (aged 25–60 years), employees at COMSATS University, completed a demographic information sheet, the Big Five Personality Questionnaire, the Irrational Belief Inventory and two subscales of the Brief Symptom Inventory including depression and anxiety. Direct effects of neuroticism, openness and conscientiousness were also observed for depression and anxiety. The results highlight the importance of cognitive beliefs in functionally linking personality traits and emotional problems

International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences published research of Zahra Karami Baghteyfouni in Vol. 31, pp 1-8 The aim the research was to compare the aggression and irrational beliefs of the students who use computer games and those who do not use such computer games. The universe under research included all the high schools students of the city of Saghez studied in the educational year of 2012-2013. A sample size of 100 people at the high school levels was selected through the multi stage cluster sampling and then via simple random method. To collect the data, a 29 question aggression questionnaire by Buss and Perry and a Jones 100 question irrational beliefs questionnaire were used. To analyze the data, the t test was used. Findings revealed that there is a difference between the normal students and the students that use gaming with respect to aggression and irrational beliefs.

Another research by Rebecca p.ang that has an online publication in PsycINFO Database Record 2012 APA, This study investigated the relationship between aggression and the Big Five personality traits (Extroversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness to Experience) in Australia and Singapore. Two hundred and forty-three undergraduate respondents from Singapore and 189 undergraduate respondents from Australia participated in the study. All participants completed a self-report questionnaire consisting of the 34-item Aggression Questionnaire (AQ) and the 40-adjective Mini- Markers. As predicted, the hypothesized relationship between Big Five traits and aggression were similar across both samples: Aggression had significant negative correlations with the Big Five traits of agreeableness and conscientiousness, and aggression had a significant positive correlation with neuroticism. In line with the hypotheses, the Big Five traits of extroversion and openness to experience were not associated with aggression. These findings, suggest at a preliminary level that the relationship between Big Five traits and aggression may be universal for individuals from at least two cultures.

A research was conducted by Raymond diguiseepi got published in journal of cognitive and therapy research in 2011 vol 35, This study examined whether a combination of anger, hostility, and irrational beliefs, i.e, intolerance of rules frustration, intolerance of work frustration, demands for fairness, and self-downing would predict physical, verbal, and indirect aggression and peer ratings of aggression. Follow-up analysis tested gender as a moderator of the relations between irrational beliefs and aggression, and anger and aggression. One hundred thirty-five high school-aged adolescents completed measures of irrational beliefs, anger, hostility, and aggression. Results demonstrated that gender, anger, and an irrational belief of intolerance of rules frustration predicted physical aggression, while anger and irrational belief of intolerance of rules frustration uniquely predicted indirect aggression. Anger alone predicted verbal aggression. Males were more likely to report higher rate of physical aggression and were voted to be more aggressive by their peers. However, gender did not moderate the relations between cognition and aggression, and anger and aggression.

Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment published a research of Dr. Juan J. Barthelemy and John W. Lounsbury in Volume 19, Issue 2, 2009 (pg:159-170) , focus of the study was to determine whether aggression adds incremental validity above and beyond the Big Five personality factors in predicting grades. An archival data analysis was used in this study. The data consisted of a sample of eighth grade students. The students completed the Personal Style Inventory Adolescent, which is a 120-item survey instrument designed to measure the Big Five personality factors and aggression. Results indicated that aggression does add incremental validity above and beyond the Big Five. The results also indicated that the Big Five were significantly correlated with academic performance. When aggression was added into the statistical model, conscientiousness, openness and aggression were significantly correlated with grades.

MATERIAL

For carrying out the test three scales were administered on each participant including

• Big five Inventory (BFI) by John & Srivastava, 1999,
• Irrational Belief Inventory (IBI) by Koopermans et al., 1994
• Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire (BPAQ) by Buss and Perry, 1992.

All of these were administered after one another containing additional part of Identifying information that has:

• Age
• Gender
• Family system
• Last passes exam
• Occupation

DISCUSSION

The main concept of conducting this research was to study the corrletions between variables in this study which were rational and irrational belief, traits, aggression, gender, age, last passed examination, institution, occupation, family system, worrying, rigidity, problem avoidance, need of approval, emotional irresponsibility, extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness, physical aggression, verbal aggression, anger and hostility. For carrying out the research seven hypotheses were formulated from which some got proved with a weak correlation that are relationship found between irrational belief and aggression , aggression and big five personality traits and rigidity and neuroticism. Whereas irrational belief and big five personality traits along with irrational belief and neuroticism founded to have a positive moderate correlation. Extroversion and physical and emotional irresponsibility and verbal aggression had a weak negative correlation according to the analysis.

If discussed about the reasons behind the weak correlations can be the selection of participants was from youth of university which is present in a healthy and open environment with an average of positive and happy mood so the scores on inventory could have been affected by the mood of participants. Another reason could be the uncontrolled environment the data was collected by approaching participants conveniently thus the environment was uncontrolled and weather, noise and working in a group can be reasons for manipulation of mental states.

LIMITATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Limitations of this research was the resources, the participants were not gathered at a controlled place but were approached one by one, if the participants were gathered structurally and with a system at a place and all these test would have been applied, chances of error and manipulation with have been less thus it would be recommended to have a structured and planned way of administration in this research.

CONCLUSION

The research founds to have weak and moderate positively correlation between all three variables proving most of the formulated hypotheses. The aim of conducting this research is to study the correlation between Irrational belief, Aggression and Big five personality traits. There were 266 participants which were approached through convenient sampling from different departments of University of Karachi. Three scales including Koopersman irrational belief inventory, Buss and Perry aggression scale and John Srivastana Big five personality inventory were administered on each participant. Result were statistically analyzed by applying Pearson product moment correlation. Weak correlations were found between irrational belief and aggression, big five inventory and aggression and rigidity and neuroticism. Moderate correlations were found between irrational belief and big five inventory also in neuroticism and irrational belief.

REFERENCE

1. https://www.verywell.com/what-is-the-biological-perspective-2794878
2. https://counseling.dasa.ncsu.edu/irrational-beliefs/
3. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225227988_Anger_Aggression_and_Irrational_Beliefs_in_Adolescents
4. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232444713_Relationship_Between_Big_Five_Traits_and_Aggression_A_Comparison_Between_Undergraduates_from_Australia_and_Singapore
5. https://www.123test.com/big-five-personality-theory/
6. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10911350802687125
7. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijop.12069/abstract
8. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232444713_Relationship_Between_Big_Five_Traits_and_Aggression_A_Comparison_Between_Undergraduates_from_Australia_and_Singapore
9. https://books.google.com.pk/books?id=Fim3i7tWThcC&pg=PA89&lpg=PA89&dq=research+on+irrational+belief+and+aggression&source=bl&ots=PpBt0P0omd&sig=ZYFDR6ECNImxyhr0lLzmMwKBnck&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiGyLjo47nMAhVTJI4KHUjaC4MQ6AEIXDAH#v=twopage&q&f=false

Abstract

Self-Determination Theory (SDT) posits that as humans we constantly seek mastery and growth within our lives, and that this can only be achieved by the fulfilment of certain psychological needs which entail relatedness, autonomy and competence (Deci & Ryan, 2000). Our personality has oft been suspected to impact these results, with particular focus as to whether certain ‘personality types’ have more or less influence in their psychological wellbeing than others. The generally accepted system of classifying personality types is The Big Five Trait Taxonomy, which organises all possible descriptive language which denotes personality into five main, overarching facets: openness to experience or intellect, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and neuroticism or emotional stability (John & Srivastava, 1999). The present study aimed to assess if there were any meaningful relationships between several of the Big Five personality domains (extraversion, neuroticism and conscientiousness) and the presence of the fundamental psychological needs. 923 participants completed two self-report surveys assessing their perceived levels of basic needs as well as personality traits, and their results were analysed. We found moderate correlations between neuroticism and autonomy; r(923)= -.44, p= .001, and conscientiousness and competence; r(923)= .42, p= .001, in accordance with some of the literature. We garnered only a small correlation between extraversion and relatedness; r(923)= .30, p=.001, a surprising find, however explicable by the relevant literature. The study may have future implications for research to continue in this area of interest as correlations between personality traits and basic psychological needs, although do not establish a cause and effect relationship, may provide useful information for practicing clinicians in the field of mental health.

Self Determination Theory (SDT) is a psychological construct which explores the fundamental and universal ‘needs’ humans require to achieve autonomous motivation, mental wellbeing and self-efficacy. The three needs are competence (the ability to master tasks and various challenges), relatedness (feeling a sense of connection and intimacy with others) and autonomy, which is feeling that one’s own actions are the result of one’s own choices and volition (Sheldon & Hilpert, 2012). SDT is believed to be involved in personality development and the regulation of our actions (Deci & Ryan, 2008; Koole et al., 2018). It is understood that each person’s individual personality, is constituted by various ‘personality traits’, which define the very nature of each person. Perhaps the mode widely used personality taxonomy for researchers and clinicians are the Big Five Traits. These aforementioned traits are generally used when the research is trying to establish or measure a broad set of personality characteristics amongst participants (Anglim & O’Connor, 2018).

Personality traits such as those of the Big Five have also been vastly utilised by researchers to predict many life outcomes such as job satisfaction and performance, mortality, divorce and even academic performance (Anglim & O’Connor, 2018). Researching SDT and its potential connection to personality traits may be a vital area of investigation as it could underline and highlight mental wellbeing and one’s trajectory in life in the context of someone’s personality, which may aid in the development of mental illness prevention and understanding. Some literature has drawn tentative correlations between personality types and aspects of the SDT, generally in occupational and educational environments. Takase et al. (2017) suggest that from a cross-sectional study, nurses who embodied traits of conscientiousness were generally more competent at their job. In addition to this, research has pointed to conscientious people as more likely to successfully overcome challenging demands and thus create better engagement with their work, alluding to better competence levels (Sulea et al., 2013). With regards to co-occurrence with neuroticism and autonomy, the results from Powers et al. (2015) displayed a positive association with one’s goal progression and the autonomy support they received, and conversely the ‘under-experiencing’ of autonomous assistance led to higher reports on the scale of Neuroticism and inferior mental wellbeing in general. There seems to be somewhat more literature speaking to the relationships between extraversion and relatedness, perhaps because they may be easier linked or occur naturally together more often. Various studies (Sulea et al., 2013, Swickert et al., 2001) suggest a positive relationship between extraversion and relatedness amongst other people, most notably pointing to the notion that extraverts are generally more likely to surround themselves with more people, thus having a larger support network, however, there are other results from studies which suggest a lesser degree of strength between extraversion and relatedness. Many of these studies however are solely based upon self-reports from participants and do not explicitly state any kind of statistical relationship between personality types and the SDT.

The current study aims to underline and identify any correlations between three of the Big Five personality traits and the components of SDT (extraversion and relatedness, neuroticism and autonomy and conscientiousness and competence), as we expect these traits to have particular correlations with the Basic Needs based on the current literature. It was hypothesised that there would be small weak correlation between conscientiousness and competence, operationalised as a small number of participants who scored highly on conscientiousness also scoring relatively high on competence. It was also hypothesised that there would exist a strong positive correlation between extraversion and relatedness, this being operationalised as participants with a high level of self-reported extraversion also responding positively with the relatedness scale. Lastly, it was hypothesised that neuroticism and autonomy would share a moderate negative relationship, operationalised as self-reported accounts of neuroticism would be paired with relatively low levels of autonomy.

Procedure

During one week in the semester, the participants completed a survey in their normal subject tutorial program which consisted of a Balanced Measure of Psychological Needs (BMPN) scale on a computer to assess their individual self-reported measures of relatedness, competence and autonomy. Immediately after, they then completed a Big Five Inventory-2 (BFI-2) scale which assessed their self-reported measures of Big Five personality traits. During the BMPN scale, even items were worded as negative statements (e.g. I felt unappreciated by one or more important people), and these items were reverse-scored as such. Again, in the BFI-2 some items in the questionnaire were worded negatively so that higher rating levels of these statements indicated lower levels of this particular trait. For example, ‘feels little sympathy for others’ (domain scale 17R), denotes lower levels of agreeableness. Each student for both tests rated themselves for every statement on a scale of 1-5, (1= disagree strongly, 2= disagree a little, 3= neutral or no response, 4= agree a little and 5= agree strongly). The students were all briefed on the nature and objective of this study and were given opportune moment for withdrawal or queries. After the participants had all completed their questionnaires, the data were collected, and the amalgam of each basic psychological need were averaged using the sub-scale items relevant to the specific need and were computed for the statistics software program SPSS for analysation. The same steps were repeated for the BFI-2 scale, all Big Five trait responses were averaged and computed for statistical analysis.

Discussion

This study investigated the potential correlation between several of the Big Five personality traits and the three fundamental psychological needs of Self-Determination Theory. Our hypothesis between neuroticism and autonomy was the only one to be somewhat supported by the data, but other predictions between conscientiousness and competence, and extraversion and relatedness were found to be not supported by the correlation analyses. A correlation of .283 is considered to be small, and thus not sufficient to warrant any meaningful relationship between extraversion and relatedness, however, we had expected this to be somewhat higher given the previously mentioned literature which supported viable relationships between extraversion and relatedness. Surprisingly, we achieved a moderate correlation of .422 between conscientiousness and competence, one we did not expect to be so high.

As conscientiousness and competence seem to be relevant factors in achievement and success in life, Trautwein et al (2009) deemed conscientiousness and competence occurring together as good predictors of academic achievement and effort in students, in addition to this, it seems job seekers are viewed more positively by their prospective employers if the employer believes they are conscientious and competent people (Sears & Rowe, 2003). These studies may help explain our current results of competence and conscientiousness seemingly occurring together more frequently than we had expected.

In terms of our moderate effect finding for neuroticism and autonomy, some literature supports this notion, as it has been posed that within an occupational environment, higher levels of neuroticism positively correlate with low self-reported autonomous feelings, negative affect and emotional exhaustion (Tai & Liu, 2007). Additionally, the need for autonomy manifests in our drive to accomplish goals, and the trait and neuroticism may be an obstacle in realising these goals as neurotic people may use ‘maladaptive coping mechanisms’ when confronted with adversity in life (Ionescu & Iacob, 2019).

The small correlation between extraversion and relatedness was surprising, however some literature supports the notion that extraverts do not always experience relatedness more intensely or more often than non-extraverts. Swickert et al (2000), found that although extraverts tend to have larger support networks and consult their peers for guidance more regularly than introverts, they are not necessarily more emotionally close to their peers than introverts are, and thus although they may have a more ‘outgoing’ or ‘sociable’ personality type, this doesn’t actually equate to always feeling more connected to others.

The current study’s limitations may be that the utilisation of a self-report survey may not be the most accurate method in gaining correct information, as participants may not be rating themselves accurately, or not understand the nature of the statements therefore answering falsely. This is an issue many of the previously mentioned research reports also have, in that when measuring personality and one’s psychological state, it is often most convenient to use self-report methodology. For future study it may be essential to incorporate new ways to research the Big Five personality traits with the Basic Needs. Also, unfortunately, a Pearson correlation between two variables does not establish causality, so we cannot endeavour to ascribe a cause or reason as to why any personality traits may be correlated with psychological needs, however it may be an important area for future research. It is imperative that research continues to investigate the Basic Psychological Needs with regards to personality factors as they are an essential precursor to mental wellbeing and mental health in general (Roberts et al, 2007) and may assist in how we handle people’s pursuit of autonomy, relatedness and competence in light of their personalities.

References

1. Anglim, J., & O’Connor, P. (2018). Measurement and research using the big 5, HEXACO, and narrow traits: a primer for researchers and practitioners. Australian Journal of Psychology, 71(1), 16-35. doi: 10.1111
2. Chen, S. X., Lam, B. C. P., Buchtel, E. E., & Bond, M. H. (2014). The conscientiousness paradox: cultural mindset shapes competence perception. European Journal of Personality, 28(5), 425-436. doi: 10.1002
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5. Ingledew, D. K., Markland, D., & Sheppard, K. E. (2003). Personality and self-determination of exercise behaviour. Personality and Individual Differences, 36(8), 1921-1932. doi: 10.1016
6. Ionescu, D., & Iacob, C. (2019). Self-authenticity, optimism and neuroticism in relation to basic psychological needs. Romanian Journal of Applied Psychology, 21(1), 28-34. doi: 10.24193
7. John, O. P., & Srivastava, S. (1999). The Big Five trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and theoretical perspectives. Handbook of Personality: Theory and Research, 2(1999), 102-138.
8. Koole, S. L., Schlinkert, C., Maldei, T., & Baumanm, N. (2017). Becoming who you are: An integrative review of self-determination theory and personality systems interactions theory. Journal of Personality, 87(1), 15-36. doi: 10.1111
9. Powers, T.A., Gorin, A. A., Hope, N., Holding, A., Chua, S., & Koestner, R. (2015). Effects of Neuroticism on Goal Support, Goal Progress, and Depressive Symptoms. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 34(8), 674-69.
10. Roberts, B. W., Kuncal, N. R., Shiner, R., Caspi, A., & Goldberg, L. R. (2007). The power of personality: the comparative validity of personality traits, socioeconomic status, and cognitive ability for predicting important life outcomes. Perspectives on
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14. Soto, C. J., & John, O. P. (2016). The next Big Five inventory (BFI-2): Developing and assessing a hierarchical model with 15 facets to enhance bandwidth, fidelity, and predictive power. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(1), 117-139. doi: 10.1037
15. Sulea, C., Van Beek, I., Sarbescu, P., Virga, D., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2015). Engagement, boredom, and burnout among students: Basic need satisfaction matters more than personality traits. Learning and Individual Differences, 42, 132-138. doi: 10.1016
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Introduction

Entrepreneurship brings forth economic freedom in its ability to allow individuals to choose how they would like to make the money needed to support themselves and their family members. Benefits of entrepreneurship include but are not limited to, providing a means for boosting the economy and reducing unemployment rates by creating employment opportunities and utilizing innovative technological processes. (Yang & Ai, 2019, p. 2) However, entrepreneurship is not for everyone and it takes a certain kind of individual to be successful as an entrepreneur.

The article titled, “Effect of the Big Five Personality on Entrepreneurial Probability: Influence of China’s Household Registration System” written by Jisheng Yang and Di Ai explores how personality traits influence entrepreneurial probability as a result of China’s household registration system. China’s household registration system, hukou, determines the social economic level of individuals by examining access to quality services, educational resources and overall outcomes. It is believed that the hukou determines personality traits that later determines the probability of entrepreneurship. (Yang & Ai, 2019. P.2) The personality traits that will be explored include the Big Five Personality traits that the author referenced from Goldberg. The personality traits are conscientious, extroversion, agreeableness, openness and neuroticism.

As a result of the hukou there is a difference in the type of job opportunities that are available to urban and rural residents residing in China. Rural residents are restricted to the available resources and their mobility in society is limited forcing them to often be products of employment discrimination. It is not uncommon for a rural resident to be forced into starting a business with very limited funding or resources because of the effects of employment discrimination from the household registration system. (Yang & Ai, 2019. P.3) Rural residents are more likely to be farmers while urban residents would consider themselves to be self- employed.

Study Methodology and Results

To get a better understanding of the impact the hukou status has on individuals, personality traits and entrepreneurship, the sample population was divided into urban and rural residents based on their household registration. The Big Five personality traits were utilized because previous studies have shown that personality traits are originally determined by genetics and are later influenced by societal factors such as family, school and work environments. (Yang & Ai, 2019. P.3) Personality develops in an individual’s youth and becomes stable in adulthood. Entrepreneurship involves taking risks and making critical decisions. Therefore, it is not uncommon that personality traits would be influenced by entrepreneurship. Entrepreneur success is attributed to the need for achievement and being hardworking.

For the purpose of this study three hypotheses were formed to gather a conclusion on how personality traits determine entrepreneurial probability. The hypotheses are listed as followed directly from the article. “H1: The effect of conscientiousness on entrepreneurial probability is uncertain. H2: The higher an individual’s score on extraversion, the higher the probability of him/her being self-employed. H3: The effect of agreeableness on entrepreneurial probability is uncertain. H4: The higher an individual’s score on openness, the higher is the probability of him/her being self- employed. H5: The higher an individual’s score to neuroticism, the lower the probability of him/her being self-employed. H6: “The household registration system will have an impact on the relationship between personality traits and self- employed, but the effect is uncertain.” (Yang & Ai, 2019. P.4-5)

The data was gathered utilizing the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) from 2012, 2014, and 2016 covering 16,000 households across 25 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions by adopting multi-stage, probability proportional to size methods. The data provided economic activities, education, population migration, health, and reality of the sociology of Chinese development. (Yang & Ai, 2019. P.5) Only 2014 and 2016 include employment information and the three main classifications were farming (farming their owned land), self-employment (non-agricultural entrepreneurship), and non-agricultural employment for both urban and rural residents. (Yang & Ai, 2019. P.5) Study questions were based on the Big Five personality traits and socioeconomic factors were considered.

A t-test was conducted for the mean equality of employment status. The results showed that conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness of the self-employed group was significantly lower than the ones in the non-agricultural employment group. (Yang & Ai, 2019. P.7) On the other hand, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and openness of the self-employed was significantly higher than the individuals in the farming classification. (Yang & Ai, 2019. P.7) Conscientiousness, for the urban hukou was not significantly different for those in the self-employed and non-agricultural employment. For the rural population group the differences between the three classification groups were relatively the same. It was concluded that personality traits may be influenced by the household registration system and it was decided to consider the effects that come from the household registration. (Yang & Ai, 2019. P.8) A logit model was utilized and heterogeneity tests on the sample groups using the city size classification from the 2016 set of data.

The heterogeneity test showed there were great differences in the effects personality traits had on the job choices. Non-agricultural employment showed to have no significant effect on entrepreneurial probability for small to medium cities. It also showed that conscientiousness and openness are favorable to raising entrepreneurial probability in cities that were large. This was related to an individual’s ability to find a job due to higher levels of education and more employment opportunities for those individuals with urban hukou. (Yang & Ai, 2019. P.13) However, if the individual is not open or lack ambition it is not relatively easy to just start a business. The data also showed that agreeableness promotes entrepreneurship in small cities for individuals the rural hukou sample for the employment category of farming. It was stated that individuals in rural areas have a hard time starting businesses in larger cities due to the lack of resources and high start-up costs. Being agreeable allows them to relationships faster in the smaller cities with the clients and the vendors which is very critical to entrepreneurial achievement. (Yang & Ai, 2019. P.13)

Conclusion

As mentioned at the start of this paper, entrepreneurship provides a means for economic growth and works to reduce unemployment by providing opportunities. However, there was no clear evidence to state whether personality traits truly impacted entrepreneurship in China. In the farming classification it was concluded that individuals having conscientiousness and agreeableness significantly increases entrepreneurial probability in the rural sample group because of the strong use of relationship building. The data also showed that when the data is subdivided by city size that the entrepreneurial probability is impacted.

This study was limited due to the questionnaire being subjective to what others defined the personality traits closes according to the CFPS dataset. The hypotheses were not identified to be true or false. It is still believed entrepreneurship is strong influenced by a variation of personality traits and it takes a certain type of individual to have the drive to run a business. More research will need to be conducted in the future to determine how personality traits really impact the probability of entrepreneurship. This research will need to focus on providing an assessment to both rural and urban residents with a foundation based solely on personality traits and characteristics.

References

1. Yang, J., & Ai, D. (2019). Effect of the Big Five Personality Traits on Entrepreneurial Probability: Influence of China’s Household Registration System. Journal of Labor Research, 1–17. doi: 10.1007/s12122-019-09294-z

Organisational behavior is a huge concept which highly focuses on human behavior and performance at work place. Personality is an object which plays the most important role when working with others. Its development helps an individual to develop a positive attitude towards work and improve not only outer, but also the inner self. Looking further at the broad theory of personality, lets look over the Big Five dimensions which differentiate different people in terms of organisational behavior. Ability to solve problems, introspection, complex reasoning is what makes humans dissimilar from other creatures. After taking in consideration all the attributes, lets follow how these things makes a difference at the workspace.

The personalities of an individual are thought to feature the five broad traits to some stage, which are commonly known as the Big 5. The single element of Big 5 plays a different role in one’s life and make them unique in their own way. In the past century, the topic of psychology has frequently looked upon the relationship between personality and job performance (Barrick, Mount & Judge, 2001). These traits can be further detailed for more understanding. Starting with, Conscientiousness (productivity, organization, responsibility) basically refers to the difference of an individual’s tendency to follow the social norm of impulse control, to be a keen planner and goal oriented. It is the only trait which frequently shows a strong relationship between work satisfaction and work success. Some studies have also shown that conscientious individuals tend to earn more money as they are less likely to be absented from work and meet the deadlines. Openness to experience (creative imagination and curiosity) is another factor which has been the most controversial as it delays the ability to be a quick learner and flexible at understanding tasks. Also, it has been greatly related with the level of happiness and quality of life. The more inclined the employee will be to openness to new experiences, the more confidence will be gained by the business owner to allow them to grow their business. Extraversion (self-assertive, sociability) is one of the most addressed personality at the work place. These people have various qualities such as wok well in group settings, willing to assist others with difficulties, and moreover they tend to be straightforward, candid, and often charismatic. Highly extraverted people are more likely to promotions, rewards and higher pay. The fourth personality trait is Agreeableness (understanding, trust on others, respectful) which relates to the people who are more cooperative and less competitive. They are usually thoughtful and more kind towards their peers but cannot be a good leader and can have difficulties in the time of working alone. However, they are likely to do well in fields in which these skills (teamwork, caring, helping) are required such as sales, even management, marketing and human resources. The fifth and the final trait of the Big 5 is Emotional stability (tendencies towards depression and anxiety) which is also known as neuroticism, leaders who are high in emotional stability are calm within the storm during crises. To put a positive spin to it, the most successful leaders are emotionally stable over time and they generally demonstrate the mastery of emotional ups and downs. Together, all the five dimensions are most often remembered by the acronym OCEAN (openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism). This five-factor model is highly relevant to different culture and have been consistently recovered in the factor analyses of peer/self-rating of traits which involves rotation methods, diverse conditions and sample methods (Costa & McCrae, 1988). In organizational behavior, it is difficult to see how this personality works in different situations at a company level, though it can be found in daily lifestyle.

Scoring high in all the areas of Big Five traits does not necessarily lead to success as each of them is linked to unique strengths. They might also change based on diverse factors from a person’s mood that day to if they have got any major, nerve-wrecking event coming up. Based on the Big five personality test guided at the workshop, the two main areas for personal development which can enhance the academic or work performance are emotional stability (neuroticism) and agreeableness. Despite rise in the score, there are certain drawbacks which can lead to ‘non-performance’ and dissatisfaction. Again, neuroticism refers to person’s general tendency to experience negative emotions. Individuals with elevated level of emotional stability often blame themselves when things go wrong and gets easily frustrated when they make a mistake. They can also be prone to worrying and have great risk of social phobia (mostly in adults). Kim, Shin and Swanger revealed that, neuroticism, of all the five dimensions is mostly related with the work engagement by reducing engagement to work. It may be because highly neurotic people detect their work environment as more frightening. Whereas, individuals low in neuroticism tend to be more calm and stable in their moods and more socially adjusted to their work environment with high emotional stability. Talking about Agreeableness, it has many cons at the workplace as well. People who score high in this area of traits are likely to be less competitive, hostile and antagonistic. Characteristics such as competitive nature plays an important role to survive and get pass through the tough times, which can boost person’s innovation and result in business benefits. Less score in agreeableness shows that the person is more strong and they have build up as high performing entrepreneurs and business leaders. Small changes in the daily life routine can lead to better job performance such as staying focused and avoiding multi-tasking.

Finally, this shows that the Big five traits are directly related to job performance and almost all personality measures could be categorized according to these dimensions. As personality defines a person, it is not necessary to be good at all the aspects of big 5. Individuals can put extra effort on the task that they lack in, instead of blaming on the work place and their own nature/character. In this way, solving problems faced by the organizations links to a stronger organizational behavior.

Introduction

Personality plays a big part of who you are as an individual. There are many types of personality traits. In this research paper it gives you a definition of what personality is, how does someone personality affect their development. It tells you about the “Big Five” personality traits, it then goes into details about every one of them to let you know how it affect you as a person whether it’s negative or positive. It explains how personality are assessed and examples of projective and objectives of personality assessments. It has an interesting part which is a brief autobiography on my life in relation to how it contributed to my personality development. It ends with a discussion concerning strategies I will put in place to engage in reflective exercises to remain self-aware as an early childhood educator.

A Review of Literature

Personality traits are a reflection of who you are as an individual, it give others an idea of your characteristics. The big five personality traits are extroversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness and neuroticism. (Pappas). Extroversion is when someone takes the pleasure in being around other people rather than being alone. (Cherry) .They are usually the center of attention, they are usually a people’s person, easy to get along with and they can be positive, cheerful and outgoing. Extroversion is a combination of both nature and nurture. People who were overly extroverted as children may find that they are more of an introvert later on in their lives as they go into adulthood.

Conscientiousness is a desire to do one’s duty and to take obligations to others seriously. (Thiel). People who conscientious tend to be well organized and have a strong sense of duty. They like to plan ahead of time which makes them not spontaneous, they are self-discipline, and they are also responsible and reliable. People who have a high level of conscientiousness can be self-efficacy, achievement-striving, perfectionist as they set excessively high performance standards and they can come across as workaholics, they tend to enjoy their work which may cause them to work a lot.

Agreeableness is when a person goes along with whatever is being said even though they don’t think it’s right, it is the quality of being pleasant and friendly(Thiel) . Agreeableness is important because it can create better relationships, it prevents arguments and it helps prevent aggression. Someone who turns out to be too agreeable can be taken advantage of because it may seem like they don’t have a mind of their own. Being too agreeable makes a person more prone to disappointment and they can worry too much about not being liked.

Openness is the quality of letting anyone in your life, it’s a lack of restriction, letting people have accessibility to your life. (Cherry). Being open allows you to learn new things, it allows people to get to know the real you, it also allows you to meet new people. Most people are afraid to be open with other people because they think others may judge them and try to use the information gain against them which may not be the case. Persons who are open minded tend to be curious, creative, adventurous and flexible.

Neuroticism is a form of emotional reaction which can be disproportionate worrying and anxiety, whereas neurotic people tend to worry about everything which may cause them to easily slip into a state of depression. (Thiel) If their lives are going all too well, they then find something to worry about. Neurotic people dwell more on the negative aspects of situation rather than the positive side of things. When they struggle with life and all the stress that comes with life, they become very frustrated and angry. They basically can’t or don’t know how to deal with obstacles that come their way. They don’t know how to deal with their emotions. Some traits of people who are neurotic are immoderate, anger, vulnerable, depression, anxiety and self-conscious.

Personality is assessed by the measurement of someone’s characteristic. Projective assessments are tests where you are shown an ambiguous image and you say the first thing that comes to your mind. It is a test that expose a person’s unconscious perceptions. (Cherry). Two examples are the Thematic Apperception Test and the Rorschach test. The Thematic Apperception Test is a test that consist of twenty cards with one being blank, each card is with an ambiguous drawing and you are then asked to tell a story about each one. This test tells the person that’s giving the test about your characteristics, personality and emotional functioning. The Rorschach test consists of ten cards of ambiguous images and your imagination. It begins with ten cards where the examiner shows you one image at a time. The examiner then ask you to describe the image you see. The examiner then record your tone of voice, reactions and your responses.

Objectives of personality assessment are tests used to restrict response format. Two examples are the Minnesota multiphasic personality inventory (MMPI) and the Rotten Incomplete Sentence Blank. The Minnesota multiphasic personality inventory which are true or false questions where you have forty incomplete sentences or question and you can either tick true or false. The other example is the Rotten Incomplete Sentence Blank where you are given a sentence with at least two-three words and the person have to finish the sentence.

I think a teacher’s personality can indeed affect student’s development and performance. I think so because education is the key to a successful life. You get an education by attending school and applying what you learn. In schools you meet teachers and a teacher knowledge and personality will in fact determine how a child cope with their studies. A teacher that is passionate about her job will make learning so much easier and fun for student. It is important that a teacher motivates and help her students, after all, school is where they spend most of their time. I think teachers should be role models to their students, they have a big impact on their students. If a teacher goes to class unprepared and with a negative attitude, her students will return the favor, they would not have the right attitude to learn which will definitely affect their performance, the teacher can either hurt or help her student’s well-being, motivation and achievement, her attitude can cause her students to be stressed. I think when a teacher expects good results from her students, she gets them and this means teachers are supposed to encourage their students rather than insult them. Students who are internally motivated to learn generally do better, you get better results.

Autobiography

This is me. Who am I? My name is Kerisha Shamika Harridass. I am the third of four children. I have a little girl of my own and she is a complete joy to be around and so my story begins. I never attended preschool, I went straight to primary school at the age of five. I was always a shy individual and ever since I know myself I have been an introvert type of person. I made a couple friends in primary school and ended up with one best friend where we went onto high school together.

I was the same person there, shy and would always stick to myself, didn’t have much friends. I ended up with a bad allergic reaction in form three where the majority of the students made fun of me, including the ones I thought were my friends. They would laugh, point at me, and call me names which damage me for a while because I didn’t want to go back to school. I stick to myself even more. Things changed as time went by, I had friends, still wasn’t the popular girl and I never wanted to be anyways. I graduated and moved on with my life.

At the age of nineteen, something happened that changed my life completely. I got pregnant, it was an experience that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. During my entire pregnancy I would have a lot and I mean a lot of vivid dreams. I would wake up in pain, crying. I went into labor at seven months, my baby was alive, and he looked perfect and healthy to me. He was supposed to be in the hospital for a week, which lead to four entire months. It was the worst four months of my life, he did surgeries back to back, wires all over him, tubes and he was always on IV fluids, never drank actual milk like other babies. The doctors said they did everything for him, yet still they couldn’t find the problem. He eventually died.

I went into a state of depression, it was so horrible that I gave up on prays, I literally hated him, that phrase of my life affected my personality so much. I lost so much of who I was, I was so isolated and in a dark place, this was happening for some time. I then decided that I would like to try again with life with pregnancy and so I did. I never really fully recovered from that experience but I was going to have a baby girl, so I had to be better for her. I am still that shy, introverted young lady I was at primary school. Knowing what I know now about people and about my life, I’m more protective of myself and the people I love more than ever. I love who I am, I love my personality and I love everything about me, so I would say that my very first pregnancy has a lot to do with my personality development, it most definitely changed me.

Reflection

Five strategies I will use to remain grounded or self-aware as I teach are by keeping a personal journal. It would allow me to see how I have matured and grown throughout the year. It would help me to keep track of my feelings that I was feeling at that particular day, it would also allow me to go back on certain events that happened in my life whether good or bad. It allows me to reflect on past experiences and how I dealt with it. Keeping a journal is a great way to remain self-aware and a great way to keep track of my memories.

Secondly, writing down five things I’m grateful for each day or a list of my most important tasks regularly. By writing down five things that I’m grateful for each day can make me feel so much better whether I’m in a good or bad mood. Those five things can change every day or it can remain the same but the goal is to come up with five different things each day. At the end of the week it will make me realize how many things I’m grateful for in life.

Thirdly, writing down my most important task regularly at the beginning of each day. It would help me work towards something when the day comes, so at the ending of the day I would know for sure I have made progress and that I have accomplished my daily task.

Taking a morning walk, it can help me relax, it gives me time to think, gather my thoughts and feelings. It can be a good morning exercise before starting my day. It gives me time to myself, I’ll be full of energy and in a great mood, that way I’ll want to teacher and it’s a great way to begin the long day ahead.

Lastly, I can read books, I love to read. I find it very relaxing. Reading helps improve our vocabulary, makes us smarter, keep our minds active and we can gain more knowledge. I find it very entertaining but it all depends on what I’m reading. It helps you keep up with what’s going on around you. I strongly think those five strategies would help me remain grounded and self-aware as an early childhood educator.

References

1. Pappas, Stephanie. ‘Personality Traits & Personality Types: What Is Personality?” Livescience.Com. N.p., [2018 Upd.] Web.03.Feb.2020.
2. Kendra, cherry. ‘How Extroversion In Personality Influences Behavior’. Verywell Mind.com. N.p., [2020 Upd] Web.03.Feb.2020.
3. Kendra, cherry. ‘How Projective Tests Are Used To Measure Personality’. Verywell Mind.
4. Kendra, cherry. ‘What Are The Big 5 Personality Traits?” Verywell Mind.
5. Kendra, cherry. ‘What Are The Big Five Personality Test Traits? – Learn All About The Theory | 123Test’. 123Test.Com. Accessed 3 Feb 2020.
6. Kendra, cherry. ‘What Is Agreeableness? – Learn All About The Big Five Personality Traits | 123Test’. 123Test.Com. Accessed 3 Feb 2020.
7. Kendra, cherry. ‘What Is Neuroticism? – Learn All About The Neuroticism Personality Trait | 123’. 123Test.Com, 2020. Accessed 3 Feb 2020

Introduction

Personality development is the development of the organized pattern of behavior and attitudes that makes a person distinctive. Personality development occurs by the ongoing interaction of temperament, character and environment. One of the most important measures of personality created is the Big Five Inventory. The big five was originally derived in the 1970s by two independent research teams – Paul Costa and Robert McCrae. These five dimensions were derived by asking thousands of people questions and then analyzing the data with a statistical procedure known as fact analysis. This paper aims to explore the Big Five Personality Traits, discussing and defining each factor and explaining how personality is assessed followed by examples. It also outlines how a teacher’s personality can affect students development and performance, a brief autobiography about myself stating my life events and how they contributed to my personality development, strategies I will put in place to remain self-aware and strategies I will use to remain grounded, and reflect on my personality as I teach.

Review of Literature

In the 1940s, Raymond Cattell developed a sixteen-item inventory of personality traits and created the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF) instrument to measure these traits. Robert McCrae and Paul Costa Later developed the Five-Factor Model, which describes personality in terms of five broad factors which are:

1. Extraversion is an indication of how outgoing and social a person is, they enjoy being with people, participating in social gatherings and are full of energy (traits). People with low levels of extraversion are less outgoing and work more comfortably on their own. People who are high in extraversion need social stimulation to feel energized. Extraverted people gain inspiration and excitement from taking and discussing ideas with other people
2. Agreeableness is one of the five personality traits of the Big Five personality theory. A person with a high level of agreeableness in a personality test is usually warm, friendly, and tactful. They generally have an optimistic view of human nature and get along well with others (traits). Persons high in agreeableness tend to be trustworthy and polite, they are very kind people.
3. Conscientiousness is the personality trait of being careful or diligent. Conscientious implies a desire to do a task well and take obligation to others seriously (traits). They are efficient and organized as opposed to easy-going.
4. Neuroticism or emotional stability is one of the five personality traits of the big five personality theory emotional stability refers to a person’s ability to remain stable and balanced. At the other end of the scale, a person who is high in neuroticism has the tendency to easily experience negative emotions (traits). Neurotic people tend to have depressed moods and suffer from feelings of anger and anxiety.
5. Openness to Experience is trait where a person with a high level of openness to experience in a personality test enjoys trying new thing. They are imaginative, curious and open-minded. Individuals who are low in this trait would rather not try new things (traits). It is a trait where a person is adventurous and open to try new things.

How is personality assessed?

Psychologists seek to measure personality through a number of methods, the most common of which are objective tests and projective measures. An objective test is a test that has right or wrong answers and so can be marked objectively. A projective test is a psychological test designed to let a person respond to ambiguous stimuli, presumably revealing hidden emotions and internal conflicts projected by the person into the test.

Two examples of objective personality assessments.

1. Rorschach Test
2. Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

Two examples of projective personality assessments.

1. Word Association Test
2. Thematic Apperception Test

Do you think a teacher’s personality can affect a student’s development and performance?

Yes, I think a teacher’s personality can affect a student’s development and performance. Personality influencers learn indirectly through attitudes and motivation which create particular conceptions of learning. Teachers with positive attitudes have positive effects on students’ academic performance and personality development. Whereas, teachers with negative attitudes have a negative effect on both the academic performance and personality development of students.

Self-awareness is often defined as the ability to engage in some kind of reflective awareness. As you develop an awareness of the self, you begin to connect with your own unique identity. As you focus on yourself and start evaluating your current behavior in comparison to your internal standards and values, you become self-conscious and you become an objective evaluator yourself. These are five strategies I will put in place to engage in reflective exercises and remain self-aware (‘Positivepsychology.Com – Helping You Help Others’).

Question Discussions

Before acting on a decision we should come up with three good reasons as to why we should pursue it. Stopping to ask yourself ‘why’ improves our self–awareness as it allows us to better understand the motive behind our decisions and explore them further, meaning that we can be confident that the decisions we make are good ones (‘6 Ways To Improve Self-Awareness’).

Mindful Meditation

Meditation helps quiet the mind, reduces voices in your head and helps one be present and open for anything that may come to mind.

Journaling

Journaling is one of the most valuable self–awareness and personal growth tools. When I journal it can help me stay focused on my goals, help me make better choices and see myself as an individual. Journaling also clarifies thoughts, feelings and behavior.

Learning to appreciate criticism

In order to appreciate criticism I can put my feelings aside and attempt to learn from the criticism.

Reflect on my own emotions

If we don’t know how to manage our moods through self – awareness then how can we expect to influence others?

My Autobiography

Have you ever sat back one day and wondered how your personality was developed? Or how your life events contributed to who you are today? Well I have and I am pretty proud of myself. My name is Raquel Claudette Alexander, the middle name I know is funny but let’s not focus on that. I was born on the 15th December 2000 at Mt.Hope General Hospital in Trinidad and Tobago. I am nineteen years of age. My parents are Alicia Munroe and Roger Alexander, and I have two siblings Mya and Warren. I was born and raised in Mt. D’or Champ Fleur for four years where I attended Kiddies Kindergarten at the age of three years. I don’t know if people think about their kindergarten lives, but I reminisce on mines because it was a special and unforgettable one. I still remember my best-friend Tracey Cyrus. My preschool always had us expressing ourselves through art and craft so from an early age I was able to do so. My four years wasn’t as exciting as it seems, my father always had a drinking problem and it was never a good site seeing him drunk. I believe having to experience this and seeing the stress my mother was under formatted my mindset to push harder towards my goals and make her happy.

After Kindergarten I attended Mt. Lambert R.C. School at the age of six years to twelve years. While there I participated in almost all the sporting activities it had in the school, tennis, football, running and netball. I didn’t make the girls football team but I was the second-fastest girl in the school and the most valuable player for my schools netball team. When it was time for graduation I graduated with a diploma in sports. My mom and I moved to movant with her new boyfriend and his family. I started playing for my first netball team, Fire Service Youth Club at the age of eight. I believe my personality started developing more when I joined the team because the officers really pushed us to be great and from early I learnt how to be respectful, a leader and a good friend.

Lastly, after sitting common entrance I passed for Aranguez North Secondary School. Here my personality grew tremendously, I started seeing the world differently. Secondary school was exciting but not so much as we only had school for about three years, due to water issues. I graduated with Five CXC passes and was awarded class valedictorian. Today I recently accepted the lord, back living at Champ Fleur and currently enrolled in UWI-Roytec pursuing studies in Early Childhood Care & Education.

Reflection

Self-awareness is having conscious knowledge of our thoughts and feelings. Those who are self-confident tend to act actively and not unconsciously, meaning they make better decisions, have higher levels of psychological health and have a more positive outlook on life (‘6 Ways To Improve Self-Awareness’). As an aspiring Early Childhood Educator these are five strategies I will use to remain grounded, self-aware and reflect on my personality as I teach. First, I will prepare and plan ahead. Not knowing how you’re going to get through the week as a teacher can be a bit overwhelming, so I will plan in advance. The second tool is Journaling, when I journal it would help me stay focused on my future objectives. Thirdly, mindful mediation. Mediation will strengthen my mind, decrease negative thoughts and allow me to be present. The fourth strategy is Exercise. During break I will do a few yoga poses and stretches to keep my blood flowing. The last strategy is taking deep breaths. I will take minute to pay attention to my breathing to center myself.

Works Cited

1. Armstrong, Thomas, and Thomas Armstrong. ‘5 Ways To Promote Self-Awareness In The Middle And High School Classroom | Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D.’. Institute4learning.Com, 2020.
2. Traits, Big. ‘What Are The Big Five Personality Test Traits? – Learn All About The Theory | 123Test.’ 123test.com. N.p., 2020. Web. 10 Feb. 2020.
3. ‘What Is Extraversion? – Learn All About The Big Five Personality Traits | 123Test.’ 123test.com.Web.
4. ‘What Is Agreeableness? – Learn All About The Big Five Personality Traits | 123Test.’ 123test.com. N.P., 2020.Web.
5. ‘Projective Test: Definition & Example – Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.Com.’ Study.com. N.p., 2020.Web.

The three big questions that we are constantly trying to answer throughout our lives are, “who am I?”, “How do people differ?”, moreover, “What is my future?” These are the questions we regularly ask ourselves because we are never delighted with the answer each time. Personality psychology is an area of study within psychology that investigates how the major mental systems—our motives, emotions, and thoughts—work together as a whole, and what that overall functioning means for a person’s life (Mayer, 2017). Impactful questions like these all have different answers for different people, but personality psychologists are motivated to answer these questions through research by focusing on critical parts and aspects of personality; such as the big five personality traits, dynamics of self-control, personality traits, motives, emotions, attachment styles, and mental models/schemas. This paper will discuss an objective self-assessment, analysis, and reflection of myself from a personality systems standpoint arguing that I have reached most of them successfully and will continue in this trajectory.

How I view myself and approach my personality is based on the humanistic approach, which emphasizes on psychological health and growth following a person’s innate nature and potentials (Bland, 2018). The humanistic approach focuses on the individuals free will, self-efficacy, and self-actualization to encourage individuals to fulfill their highest potential and maximize their overall well-being. With that being said, I also focus on the negative aspects of my personality as well to fix it.

Erikson believed that personality is developed in eight psychosocial stages that occur from infancy to adulthood. Erikson referred to this theory as the psychosocial theory because he thought that the crisis that we are faced with in life (social) conflicts with psychological needs as well (Santrock, 2014). As stated by Erikson, developmental change occurs throughout the human lifespan; that’s why he highlighted the importance of both early and later experiences of life. Erikson broke down his theory into eight stages that unfolds as we go through life. At each stage, the individual is faced with a distinctive task that must be resolved, according to Erikson, “this crisis is not a catastrophe but a turning point marked by both increased vulnerability and enhanced potential. The more successfully an individual resolves the crisis, the healthier development will be” (Santrock, 2014).

Mental models (schemas) are necessary to our understanding of the world we live in. Mental models provide us with clues to guide us to deal with the people and situations we encounter. Our predictions and responses to the world are as good as the mental models we have built, so we need to pay more attention to our perceptions and interpretations of the world; mental models take variations and forms (Mayer, 2017). The mental model that I want to focus on is the self and self models. I consider this mental model one of the most noteworthy models that we compose because they give us a sense of who we are.

Personality derives from our childhood experiences, different life experiences take a toll on our character and shape us as individuals. Early temperament in life form a concept and structure of adult personality, and adult personality is in light of childhood antecedents (Roberts, 2005). I am someone who is goal driven and motivated. I am open to new experiences as long as I feel safe and secure. At times I feel insecure about myself and my body, but other times I feel like I can achieve anything I set my mind to. I mostly make decisions based on logic and reasoning, I dont allow my emotions to get the best of me. When it comes to helping my friends and people around me, I am very caring and supportive. I am an optimistic person who believes that I am in charge of my life which allows me to have the ability to act as my discretion. I only hold myself responsible and accountable for the good and bad decisions that I make in my life. Put, a model of the self refers to a list of traits and features one belief in holding (Mayer, 2017).

There are different models when it comes to self; ought self, ideal self, actual self, and possible selves. Actual self refers to whom we think we are in reality. In reality, I am a student who sometimes is overly stressed and feels lost and confused. On the other hand, my ideal self is someone who has a Master degree with a rewarding career as a therapist. Markus and Nurius (1986) mentioned another category of possible people including desires self- tremendously confident selves we hope to become (Mayer, 2018).

Personally, my life has not always been easy. I was born in Iran, Tehran and moved to Los Angeles with my family when I was about ten years old. As in infant up to early adolescence, I had a secure attachment pattern with my loved ones. The secure attachment pattern is the healthiest attachment pattern in which the individual feels ambivalent security with their loved ones (Mayer, 2017). Unfortunately, after my parents’ separation, this attachment pattern quickly changed and turned into a dismissive/insecure attachment pattern, which an individual feels frustrated and rejected by others (Mayer, 2017).

Some individuals with a dismissive attachment style choose not to be in romantic or close relationships due to the fear of rejection. These individuals have unique ways of dealing and coping with threats of separation or loss. At times the vulnerability is denied through repression to manage the feelings and emotions that were brought up in those situations. Other times, these individuals will focus their attention on different goals and issues (Catlett, 2015). I usually tend to shift my attention and focus on myself. I set new goals for myself and give it my all accomplish the goals. For example, I was in this stage of my life that I got into sports and working out. I shifted my focus and attention to create an ideal version of myself that had a perfect body. Learning more about this attachment style also teaches me more about my personality. Ever since this incident occurred, I always avoid romantic and intimate relationships to protect my ego. Instead of focusing on love and intimacy I usually focus on other activities to keep myself occupied, that way I convince myself that I don’t have time to focus on a romantic relationship at the moment. This makes much sense now, I dismiss and reject people before they have the chance to that to me. An inefficacy to establish and maintain significant relationships with others could be harmful to an individual’s personality. It could cause severe and constant frustration that could cause the person to attack, ignore, or even repudiate others (Santrock, p.321). This is a negative aspect of my personality that I am aware of; therefore, I will start improving myself in this aspect.

The fifth developmental stage of Erikson’s theory is identity versus identity confusion; Which occurs during adolescence, approximately between ages ten to twenty years old (Santrock, 2014). Erikson was one of the first people to consider identity as one of the foundation aspects of adolescence development. Erikson describes this stage as the stage of finding one’s true self. In this stage the adult is faced with identity confusion; Meaning the adult has to aim to find themselves, who they are, what they want to accomplish, whom they want to be and where they are headed in life, such as the career, relationships, families, and housing. The individual has a desire to have a sense of belonging to a society and fit in (Santrock, 2014,p. 276). In this stage of my life, I was confused with my identity. I was still adjusting to a new life in a new country and trying to figure out where I belong.

Additionally, to be able to answer the question of “who am I,” in a more scientific way, I have to look at the big five personality traits. I am a person that has high levels of agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness. Neuroticism vs. Emotional Stability is also referred to as emotionality, ego strength (anxiety), dominant- assured, satisfaction, and effect (Srivastava, 2003). I experience different levels of neuroticism like any other person. I feel safe and secure with my life and who I am as a person. On the other hand, when it comes to school work, I tend to get anxious, and nervous. Since I have high levels of conscientiousness I am trustworthy and reliable, I show tremendous interest in specific tasks, and I have a strong will to achieve them. (Srivastava, 2003) I always work to my best abilities. When it comes to the extraversion trait, I’d consider myself as an ambivert, which is a trait in between introvert and extravert extremes (Davidson, 2017). Ambivert tends to naturally engage inflexible patterns of thinking and listening, unlike extroverts, ambiverts express adequate assertiveness and enthusiasm (Grant, 2013). High levels of agreeableness include the ability to have patience, to be a good listener, be warm and empathetic, and to promote harmony in social interactions (Murugesan, 2017).

Wants and needs fuel motivation to take action, Murray (1938) was very well aware of this concept, and he was able to formulate a list that consists of twenty to twenty-five needs aside from physiological needs. The needs that I most relate to are, power, ambition, and materialistic needs. Power needs that I refer to including dominance and autonomy; I like to be in charge of my surrounding environment and have independence. I don’t want to be micromanaged and controlled, I like to have my freedom, and I respect other people’s freedom and independence as well. Ambition needs refer to achievement, exhibition, and recognition. Ambition needs are the most fulfilling needs for me. I love to challenge myself and overcome challenging tasks. However, this is mostly an internal need, though recognition makes me feel appreciated, I mostly crave this recognition and appreciation from myself, as if I need to prove to myself that I can accomplish anything as long as I believe in myself. This need also relates to counteraction; Murray explained this as a way to make up for past failures by trying again to overcome the obstacles that were faced (Murray, 1938). Motives are the fundamentals of a person’s life. Achievement-oriented people are those who are motivated to compete against standards of excellence, attain unique accomplishments, and commit to pursuing long term as well as short term goals (McClelland et al., 1992). In a literature view on achievement, McClelland and Koestner (1992) concluded that those high in achievement needs, challenge themselves with goals that keep them improving, learning, and approaching their standards of excellence. McClelland (1992) noted that students with high achievement motivation would receive higher grades in the courses that will help them in pursuing their goals for the future. Having a character like this will help me increase my life satisfaction by succeeding in my goals for school, work, and overall well being.

Over time, achievement needs became impactful in my life. Accomplishing goals and feeling the satisfaction of completing goals that I would set became a motivation itself. This is also known as intrinsic motivation-involving self in activities that are viewed as rewarding to the individual (Mayer, 2017). Once I developed a sense of self that I was comfortable with, I decided that I would make small and significant improvements on myself every month both physically and mentally. When it came to the physical aspect, I agreed that it was time to stop smoking cigarettes and slowly transition into a healthier life. Engaging in activities based on personal interest and levels of curiosity to exercise and develop their own skills and knowledge without receiving a reward refers to Intrinsic motivation (Domenico, 2017). In a study on patients who were in a weight loss program (Williams et al., 1996) concluded that the patients who lost the most weight and kept it all of for nearly two years later were the patients who were self-motivated to lose weight.

Self-control and self-awareness are crucial aspects of life because we like to feel like we are in control. Greenwald (1980) in his terms explained this characteristic as a totalitarian ego-the ego acts like a dictator and behaves in three ways that are very similar to a dictator; egocentric, self-serving attribution, and confirmation bias (Greenwald 1980). For the ego to protect and preserve itself from shame, fear, and humiliation, it has created mental operations known as defense mechanisms that deny or distort reality (Freud, 1937). , and later it was systematized by Anna Freud to eight defense mechanisms. Academic psychologists rejected the concept of a defense mechanism for a while. Based on recent empirical studies by cognitive psychologists, the unconscious psychological processes (defenses) existence has been confirmed (Cramer, 2000). One of the defense mechanisms that I always find myself doing is regression- reverting to my childhood and earlier stages of life where life was much more beautiful and simple. Suppression is another defense mechanism that involves conscious blocking of unpleasant thoughts (Freud, 1937). For instance, when I am faced with an extremely stressful situation, there is an interplay of these two defense mechanisms. When I am having a tough time with an assignment, or I feel like I have so much work to do with so little time, I start to panic slowly. In situations like this, I will try my hardest to come up with an ideal answer or solution, but if I am not successful after numerous attempts, I avoid the whole situation. I consciously decide not to think or worry about the specific assignment for some time, and I watch princess Disney movies. Watching Disney movies takes me back to my childhood when life was much more enjoyable and straightforward. After I have given myself some time to cool down, I will go back to the assignment and look at it from a different perspective.

Referring back to the three major questions of “Who I am,” “How do we all differ”? “What is my future?” are still obscure and blurry for me. Not every person will have the answer to all these questions, according to Maslow, a few ever will. Maslow (1987) introduced the Hierarchy of needs that consists of physiological needs, safety needs, love and sense of belonging needs, following with the last but most crucial need esteem and self-actualization. To reach self-actualization, one must meet and satisfy all the other needs. A self-actualized individual has a profound appreciation of life and is connected to reality. The self-actualized individual realizes how painful some truths and human conditions could be, but yet has an appreciation for all. Even though I am still on the path of self-discovery, this is a level of achievement and recognition of life I want to reach eventually. To achieve self-actualization I have to work on significant aspects and part of my personality. I have to have an efficient perception of reality and adequate level of acceptance when it comes to parts of my life I don’t approve of. Instead of focusing on the negative characteristics of my personality, I will show more appreciation for my desirable traits. For instance, being a good friend, being as understanding as I can be in any given situation without judging anyone, being a good listener, accepting the people around me for exactly who they are. Sometimes I can be hard on myself and be very critical. That’s another feature of my personality that I have to improve. Self-love and self-appreciation is the first step to growth.

References:

1. Catlett, J. (2015). Avoidant Attachment: Understanding Insecure Avoidant Attachment. Psychalive.
2. Cramer, P. (2000). Defense mechanisms in psychology today: Further processes for adaptation. American Psychologist, 55, 637-646. 10.1037/0003-066X.55.6.637
3. Davidson, I. (2017). The ambivert: A failed attempt at a normal personality. The History of the Behavioral Sciences,53. doi:doi.org/10.1002/jhbs.21868
4. Domenico, S., & Ryan, R. (2017). The emerging neuroscience of intrinsic motivation: A new frontier in self-determination research. Front Hum Neuroscience,11. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2017.00145
5. Grant, A. (n.d.). Rethinking the extraverted sales ideal: The ambivert advantage. Psychological Science,24, 1024-1030. doi:10.1177/0956797612463706
6. Murugesan, R., & Jayavelu, R. (2017). The influence of big five personality traits and self-efficacy on entrepreneurial intention: The role of gender. Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Emerging Economies,3. doi:10.1177/2393957516684569
7. Roberts, B., Caspi, A., & Shiner, R. (2005). PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT: Stability and Change. Annu. Rev. Psychol.,56, 453-84. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.55.090902.141913
8. Santrock, J. (2014). Essentials of Lifespan Development. New York: McGraw-Hill.
9. Srivastava, S., John, O. P., Gosling, S. D., & Potter, J. (2003). Development of personality in early and middle adulthood: Set like plaster or persistent change? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1041-1053. 10.1037/0022-3514.84.5.1041

Abstract

We explore the influence of Big Five personality traits of self, an acquaintance and close other, on the complex understandings we develop of them and ourselves. Based on previous research, we hypothesized that among the three target groups, acquaintance would prove to show the lowest complexity when compared with self and close other. We conducted this study by distribution of the Big Five Personality 44-inventory to 212 participants and collected and computed results through statistic database. Our results showed that 4 of 5 of the traits (excluding Extraversion) showed higher cronbach’s alpha reliability for the acquaintance target condition. These results basically supports our hypothesis and proves it true.

Keywords:​ Complexity, Big Five Personality Traits, Self-other Descriptions

As humans we have interesting ways that we use to judge and perceive others. There is research that delves deeper into this, relating to the differences between representations of ourselves and others (Prentice, 1990). Research has shown familiarity of self and others can model as an explanation for the differences in observed understandings of the target groups (Prentice, 1990). However, it’s vital to also consider the use of our judgement of certain personality traits when these certain traits are presumably displayed, and also account for the level of complex understandings we hold of familiar and unfamiliar people. Studies such as (Beer, 2008) have researched this and predicted that correlations between traits will show in results to be stronger in rating of others than in ratings of self, especially when judges use ideas about personalities and lack trait relevant information. In their findings, they found that the correlation among traits depended on the type of target (self, familiar other, and unfamiliar other) that was being rated (Beer, 2008).

In this study we will explore this previous research by means of replication to certain degree. We experiment on the complexity of the three targets; self, acquaintance, and close other, and determine which will demonstrate high or low complexity. We hypothesize that the complexity amongst all three target groups will be different. More specifically, we predict that of the 3 targets, acquaintance will receive the lowest complexity in comparison to the remaining two. With this being said, acquaintance is expected to have the highest Cronbach’s Alpha with each trait in the Big Five than self and close other. We also suspect that for acquaintance the correlations on average will be higher.

Method

Participants

A questionnaire was distributed to a convenience sample of 212 participants. The sample consisted of 60 males and 72 females. The youngest age(s) recorded were 18 and the oldest age(s) recorded were 63 .

Measures

Big Five Inventory (John et al., 1990) The Big Five Inventory (BFI) is a 44-item inventory that uses adjective phrases structurally based on the Big Five personality traits known as Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, Openness, and Conscientiousness (John, et al., 1990). Items on the test are answered using a scale ranging from 1-5, 1 representing “Strongly Disagree” and 5 representing “Strongly Agree”. The BFI Scale has a reliability alpha of (.83) and a standardized coefficient of (0.92) (John et al., 2010). BFI contains stem phrases like “I see myself as”, and is used in this study to measure complex understandings (complexity), by examining the traits each statement or question answered is associated with allowing us to observe them as descriptions for each target condition. Each participant was distributed a paper and was asked to answer the questionnaire, based on the 3 targets, which were self, an acquaintance and a close other. After the participants answered the questions, the papers were then collected and the data was organized into a statistics database, SPSS and then finally computed.

Results

For our results, we entered the information into SPSS and computed for reliability and correlations. As shown in Table 1., the cronbach’s alpha was computed for the 3 targets for each trait of the Big Five. Our results show that for acquaintance, the reliability for agreeableness, neuroticism, openness, and conscientiousness were the highest compared to the other two groups. However, for Extraversion we found that the cronbach’s alpha for acquaintance (.810) was actually matched with that of self (.810). This is consistent with previous research (Beer, 2008). As another way of presenting the data, we also computed correlations within the traits for each each target condition. We present the results in Table 2. The data showed that the acquaintance had

Discussion

For this study, we predicted that for each of the traits in the Big Five, low complexity, which is correlated with a high reliability, would be displayed most in only one of the target groups than in the other two. Hypothesized, was that acquaintance would have the highest cronbach’s alpha for all of the Big Five traits, ultimately implying low complexity. Our results show that this was true for 4 traits out of 5, not including Extraversion. These results in large are in accordance with the previous study above, which also found that Extraversion correlations were not significantly higher in peer ratings than in ratings of self (Beer, 2008). Therefore, with flexibility, it is safe to say our hypothesis was supported. For speculation, we can make suggestions on why only 4 of the 5 traits for acquaintance demonstrated low complexity. In other words, why was the cronbach’s alpha low for the trait Extraversion? For this, it would only make sense if we considered the characteristics of the trait itself, and how it is presented to others. Perhaps the reason why Extraversion showed weak indication for low complexity was because it is a trait that is more visible first hand and possibly easier to judge than the other traits that are much more faint on the first or any encounter.

As for this study and the results, we find that the significance of this research is that we tend to have more information about ourselves than others, suggesting that we have a deeper understanding of ourselves in more complex ways. Inevitably, this contributes to the thought that this allows us to simply and easily judge others without knowing much about them. This is important in today’s society or any society in that matter that take trend in “judging a book by it’s cover”. When provided with more information similar to what the studies above have found, perhaps we can look to work towards learning more and familiarizing ourselves with others so that they too can be understood more complexly as we do ourselves.

References

1. Prentice, D. A. (1990). Familiarity and differences in self- and other-representations. ​Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,​ ​59​(3), 369-383. doi:10.1037//0022-3514.59.3.369
2. Beer, A., & Watson, D. (2008). Asymmetry in Judgments of Personality: Others Are Less Differentiated Than the Self. ​Journal of Personality,​ ​76​(3), 535-560. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.2008.00495.x
3. John, O. P. (1990). The ‘Big Five’ factor taxonomy: Dimensions of personality in the natural language and questionnaires. In L. A. Pervin (Ed.) Handbook of personality: Theory and research (pp. 66100) New York: Guilford Press.
4. John, O. P., Robins, R. W., & Pervin, L. A. (2010). ​Handbook of personality: Theory and research​. New York: Guilford Press.

Table 1.

Reliability

Cronbach’s alpha computed for each trait of Big Five within self, acquaintance, and close other.

Self Acquaintance Close Other

Agreeableness .748 .840 .781

Conscientiousness .791 .859 .828

Neuroticism .744 .796 .787

Openness .706 .757 .726

Extraversion .810 .810 .858

Table 2.

Correlations

Correlations computed within each Big Five Trait

BFI-E BFI-A BFI-N BFI-C BFI-O

SELF BFI-E 1 .185 -.270 .171 .256

BFI-A .185 1 -.284 .297 .199

BFI-N -.270 -.284 1 -.409 -.062

BFI-C .171 .297 -.409 1 .247

BFI-O .256 .199 -.062 .247 1

AQT. BFI-E 1

BFI-A

ME, YOURSELF, & THEM 9

BFI-N

BFI-C

BFI-O

CL. OTH. BFI-E 1 .104

BFI-A .104 1

BFI-N -.113 -.433 1

BFI-C -.099 .355 1

BFI-O .346 .231 1