Performance Essay

How does Personality

Influence

Individual Performance

  Introduction

  This essay seeks to answer the question, “how does personality influence individual performance?” The main concepts and terms to help describe the question are: The “Big Five” personality dimensions (extraversion. emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience); circumplex model (Judge & Erez 2007); density distribution (Fleeson 2004), within-person variation; personality trait-based model (Tett and Burnett 2003); personality mechanism; plus core and non-core traits. This essay examines the person-situation debate in measuring individual performance and introduces a “personality mechanism” concept to integrate both approaches under one paradigm. The main point of contention is that individual performance is not only determined by personality but that personality is a part of individual difference domains (Murphy 1996). The main intention of this essay is to suggest   an integration of person-situation approaches in determining performance outcomes is possible and will attempt to do so by introducing a personality mechanism model that relies on three elements; traits (both core and non-core), external factors, and behavioural interaction (as the process of these two).   To elaborate, this essay seeks to explore the intersection of sub-processes that influence the personality-performance regime.

  This essay will be broken up into five themes.   Theme one and two sets out to describe the person-situation debate.   Theme one elaborates on the person camp studies and theories, and identifies their function in the personality mechanism.   Theme two elaborates on the situation camp studies and theories, and identifies their function in the personality mechanism.   Theme three explores the relationship between traits and external factors.   Theme four elaborates on the вЂ?right’ and вЂ?wrong’ aspects of personality related to performance selections.   Theme five...