Page 295 - Discrimination at Work The Psychological and Organizational Bases

STONE-ROMERO
262
PERSONALITY
In view of this chapter's focus on the stigmatizing consequences of per­
sonality, this section considers two major issues. First, a working definition
of personality is presented. Second, a popular typology of personality is
described.
The Personality Construct
Personality is often viewed from two perspectives: (a) the person's social
reputation in terms of the way that he or she is viewed by others with respect
to such traits as dominance, agreeableness, extroversion, and risk-taking
propensity, and (b) the person's inner nature in terms of "the structures,
dynamics, processes, and propensities inside a person that explain why he
or she behaves in a characteristic way" (Hogan, 1991, p. 875). In accordance
with the social reputation perspective, many theorists and researchers ar­
gue that traits are central to the structure of personality and its measure­
ment (e.g., Wiggins & Pincus, 1992). Thus, this chapter focuses largely on
the trait perspective.

Major Dimensions of Personality

In recent years, the approach to conceptualizing and measuring personality
traits that has attracted the most attention among industrial and organi­
zational psychologists is the Big Five model (Digman, 1990). It posits the
existence of five major dimensions of personality: (a) neuroticism or emo­
tional stability, (b) extraversion or surgency, (c) intelectance or openness
to experience, (d) agreeableness or likability, and (e) conscientiousness or
conformity. Of these factors, the construct that is of greatest interest here
is neuroticism or emotional stability, which has also been labeled neg­
ative affectivity (Watson & Clark, 1984). One important reason for this
focus is that being labeled as emotionally unstable or neurotic can be es­
pecially stigmatizing and harmful to either job applicants or job incum­
bents.

PERSONALITY MEASUREMENT IN ORGANIZATIONS

In view of this chapter's focus on the stigmatizing effects of formal and
informal assessments of personality, this section consider two issues sur­
rounding such assessments in work organizations. First, some views on the
use of personality measures for personnel selection purposes are presented.