Week 6 - Personality

Personality is made up of the characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviours that make a person unique. In addition to this, personality arises from within the individual and remains fairly consistent throughout life.

There are two different types of approaches to personality. These are:

1) Nomothetic: This approach believes that people’s unique personalities can be understood as them having more or less or particular traits that are usually common in most people. This emphasises comparability among individuals but sees people as unique with their own personal combinations of personality traits. This view sees that the traits have the same psychological meaning for every individual but the only difference is the amount of each trait that a person has. This is what makes each individual personality unique. The way in which this approach is usually analysed is by self-report personality questions and factor analysis.

2) Idiographic: This view believes that people have completely unique personality structures, and therefore some traits are more important in understanding the structure of people. This approach believes that only one person possesses certain traits and this means that there are times when it is impossible to compare one person with another. It is also emphasises that some traits may be more important in some people rather than others. Case studies, biographical information and diaries are usually used to gather information about these types of personalities.
http://wilderdom.com/personality/traits/PersonalityTraitsIdiographicNomothetic.html

I have taken the Mindframes personality test. Here are my results for this personality test:

The sequence of your eight mindframes is quite special. You may never encounter another individual who has this identical mindframe pattern.

Here are three strategies that will help you take advantage of your unique strengths to achieve greater success. They require an awareness of your tendencies, an understanding of the eight mindframes and a willingness to make conscious choices about what you'll do next.

1. Make the most of your comfort zone.

Anisa, your tendency is to favour: SOCIABILITY, ORDER, SENSITIVITY and CHARISMA. Because you employ it more often, a mindframe in your comfort zone will strongly influence your behaviour. You'll find using it comfortable and enjoyable, so anything you handle in your comfort zone will be done with more enthusiasm and persistence. Whatever you get involved in, you'll do it well and accomplish a lot.

To build on your success:
Learn to be aware when you're operating in your comfort zone. When working in one of your comfortable mindframes, push yourself to higher levels of performance. Seek other projects, roles or jobs that require you to use your comfort zone

2. Stretch beyond your comfort zone.

You're less likely to use: INSIGHT, LOGIC, PROACTIVITY and CONTROL.
Regardless of the job or task at hand, you won't be able to operate in your comfort zone all the time. So when the situation requires it, use one of the mindframes outside your comfort zone—even if you have to "stretch" to do so.

"Stretching" means making an extra effort to do what needs to be done, even if you consider it unfamiliar, uncomfortable or unpleasant. You don't have to change who you are. Just make a special exception to your usual pattern. Rather than neglect a requirement, make a deliberate decision to get the task done, whether you're inclined to do it or not. Once you've taken care of business, you can return to doing what's comfortable. In addition, consider these methods for accomplishing tasks that are beyond your comfort zone:

Teaming—Make an effort to get along or work more smoothly with people who favor mindframes that you don't
Skills—Gain experience with techniques
Procedures—Follow job aids, menus and other guides
Devices—Employ technology to support your efforts

€3. Increase your understanding of yourself and others.
Gain powerful insights into your own personality with the Revelations Report. And get a match-up report for help in learning how to connect effectively with another individual the first time, every time.

www.initforlife.com/home/tm.asp

By looking at the findings of this test, I would say I would agree with it partially. It gave me the right information about the kind of personality traits that I have and the traits that I do not have but would be helpful for me to achieve.

For businesses to use these kinds of the tests as a selection tool has its advantages and disadvantages. They can be good because if answered honestly, they can provide an accurate representation of a person’s personality and what kind of traits they can bring to the organisation. However, a disadvantage is that if people know that these kind of tests are being used as selection tools then they are very likely to give answers which they feel are the most suitable to portray themselves as someone who would be suitable for that organisation.