Personality

The difference between the nurture and nature approach to personality is that:

The nature approach says that personality is inherited and that traits of personality can be passed down to people though genetics, for example if a person was a power and successful leader 200 years ago then their descendants would also be successful and powerful people. On the other hand the nurture approach explains that that personality is developed due to environmental conditions this means that dependant on where a individual is will have an impact on their personality. For example if a person works in an office and they had a happy personality before depending on the working environment they employ personality can change in contrast to eh work environment.  Below is explained the Nomothetic and ideographic approaches to personality .

Nomothetic

The Nomothetic approaches are primarily concerned with the collection of group data.  An example of a nomothetic approach is the nature approach to personality.

Nomothetic approaches tend to view environmental and social influences as not very important and view personality as inherited and that it does not change even in a different environment. It does not reduce the difficulty that personality brings but the , Nomothetic approach says that it is possible to measure and predict the ways in which personality types would behave in certain circumstances. (Mullins, 2008)

Eyesenck conducted an investigation of 700 servicemen and was able to use thorough statistical data to test his hypotheses, what  his findings showed was that it supported the notion that there were two major differences which could be measured these were extroversion and stability .

What Eysenck`s theory showed was that an individual could fit in to one of four main personality

types.  Eysenck’s theory and his subsequent Personality Inventory allowed identification of a personality type. From this description it was possible to predict likely behaviours. Eysenck had a clear view about the constancy of personality. He believed that personality was largely inherited and that introverts and extroverts are born with differing physiological tendencies. Furthermore, he argued that the personality we are born with is largely unalterable by environmental influences. Eyesenck`s approach to personality relates to managers in organisations which are concerned with predicting the future behaviour of employees, for Selection and promotion.  (Mullins, 2004)

Ideographic

The Idiographic approaches are concerned with understanding the individuality of people

and development.  An example of an ideographic approach is the nurture approach to personality They regard personality development as a process which is open to change. The measurement of traits is seen as inappropriate in that one person’s responses you may not be abler to compare to another persons. The ideographic approach suggests that personality assessment is not a valid method of understanding the unique

ways in which a person may understand the world. The depth of a person’s personality cannot be revealed in a way such as with paper-and-pencil questionnaires.

 Cattell and Eysenck both used similar  methods in studying personality. He used

Quantitative. He used objective techniques in order to analyse his data and followed traditional scientific procedures in order to understand personality. Cattell used three main sources for the collection of personality data. These are

1 L-data (life record data) – this is used in ratings by trained observers.

2 Q-data (self-rating questionnaire) –  these are responses to a questionnaire which measured

personality traits

3 T-data (test data) – these are observations collected in specific situation tests.

                                                                                                                                          (Mullins, 2004)

In my opinion the dominant influence between the nurture and nature is the nurture approach. The reason for this is that there is no guarantee that personality traits can or will be inherited by people . As times change, personality traits that may have been an advantage in the past will not be necessary in the present day, so if someone inherits some traits form a family member they will not be able to use these personality traits depending on their positions within a business.  Nurture personality approach is more dominant because what it shows is that someone’s personality is affected and can be changed due to their environment they are within , this is true as if someone hangs out with a certain type of people or works in a certain job a persons personality will change.  For example a student in the university personality would change and adapt to a new environment when they go to a job ,  the persons would be more serious and focused on doing their job on the other hand the personality of the student would be happy and wanting to have fun but due to the change in environment their personality would be affected.  For this reason the more dominant approach of personality is nurture.

References

Mullins. L (2004) management and organisational behaviour , 7^th edition : Ft Prentice Hall