In this essay I will be looking at two aspects of personality and the effect that personality traits have on behaviour within organisations. “Personality is the overall profile or combination of traits that characterize the unique nature of a person” (Ray French). This is just one of many definitions for personality, however all definitions linked to trait theory share the same key aspects, that personality consists of internal traits and characteristics that have an effect upon a person’s behaviour.
There are thousands of different personality traits that can contribute to making up a person’s personality and influence the way they may act in a given situation. These traits can be broken down into five key dimensions which can then try …show more content…

Low levels of emotional stability also are linked to individuals being more irritable, depressed, or anxious, and these traits inhibit the completion of workplace tasks (Barrick & Mount, 1991). From this you can conclude that low levels of emotional stability are likely to have detrimental effect upon both, job satisfaction, performance and behaviour. Individuals with low levels of emotional stability can also have a negative influence upon an organisational culture, as people in a team or organisations who work alongside or round people with low levels of emotional stability, can be negatively affected by their personality lowering the overall satisfaction and performance of an organisations culture.

Looking at Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory again, extroverts tend to have less sensitivity to punishments (Pickering et al., 1999). This helps to explain why extroverts tend to have higher levels of job satisfaction (Cook thesis) and therefore demonstrate fewer deviant behaviour in the workplace. If two individuals within the same organisation receive the same feedback, a person with high levels of extroversion is less likely than someone with low levels of extroversion to notice the negative feedback or punishment (cook thesis) and therefore the individual with the lower levels of