Organizational Behavior — Personality — Definition

2 min readOct 14, 2019

Definition of personality

Personality means how a person affects others and how he understands and views himself as well as the pattern of inner and outer measurable traits and the person-situation interactions (Fred Luthans). According to Stephen P. Robbins, personality is the sum total ways in which an individual reacts and interacts with others. It may be defined as those inner psychological characteristics that both determine and reflect how a person responds to his environment.

Personality can be defined as those inner psychological characteristics that both determine and reflect how a person responds to the environment.

The word personality is derived from a Greek word “persona” which means “to speak through.” Personality is the combination of characteristics or qualities that forms a person’s unique identity. It signifies the role which a person plays in public. Every individual has a unique, personal and major determinant of his behavior that defines his/her personality.

Personality trait is basically influenced by two major features −

Inherited characteristics
Learned characteristics

Inherited Characteristics

The features an individual acquires from their parents or forefathers, in other words the gifted features an individual possesses by birth is considered as inherited characteristics. It consists of the following features −

Color of a person’s eye
Religion/Race of a person
Shape of the nose
Shape of earlobes

Learned Characteristics

Nobody learns everything by birth. First, our school is our home, then our society, followed by educational institutes. The characteristics an individual acquires by observing, practicing, and learning from others and the surroundings is known as learned characteristics.

Learned characteristics includes the following features −

Perception − Result of different senses like feeling, hearing etc.
Values − Influences perception of a situation, decision making process.
Personality − Patterns of thinking, feeling, understanding and behaving.
Attitude − Positive or negative attitude like expressing one’s thought.

Traits of Personality

Personality traits are the enduring features that define an individual’s behavior. A personality trait is a unique feature in an individual. Psychologists resolved that there are five major personality traits and every individual can be categorized into at least one of them. These five personality traits are −

Extrovert
Neurotic
Open
Agreeable
Conscientious

Determinants of Personality

Several factors influence the shaping of our personality. Major among these are

Heredity,
Culture,
Family Background,
Our Experiences through Life,
And The People we interact with.