One of the modes of the personality assessment is the nomothetic approach. In the 19th century, the approach was proposed by Wilhelm Windelband a German philosopher. Generally, focus on people trying to discover the laws and regularities between people is the main emphasis of the nomothetic approach in psychology. The general laws that can be practical to numerous different individuals, for instance, the qualities of openness or the factor of sensing are what nomothetic psychology focuses on (Wilson, 2018). Nature and genetics are both thought to be determinants of personality, through experiences and environment or both and it is proved for all possibilities. The influence of both nature and nurture are the basis of most personality traits. The nomothetic approach assumes personality is chiefly inherited, but not nurtured. In the personality assessment and research, the approach involves the examination of types of traits or characters.
An individual always being late or untidy is a trait which makes it a repetitive pattern. Generally, traits are dissimilar among people and that the characteristics are fairly stable over time an assumption by theorists. The dominant preference defines a type and individuals are either introvert or extrovert, with the two peculiarities being discontinuous meaning there is no in between (Hamilton & Webster, 2015). This means individuals can be introvert or extrovert on a constant scale. The idea is that in pairs of opposite characteristics all individuals possess personality traits. Only within a certain paradigm, the nomothetic approach views individuals as unique in their mixture of traits. The amount of each trait an individual has is what makes people different. Basically, individuals differ by measuring differently in each peculiarity, but everybody fits in within a particular set of characters. The mixture of the characters then comes in harmony to define a personality (Burger, 2015).
A self-report questionnaire which normally contains closed questions is a type of personality assessment applied by managers following a nomothetic approach. There is more study of a person who is compared to a group of persons in a nomothetic approach. For years to be able to measure personality theorists have been looking for the right trait clusters. The nomothetic approach is used in psychometric testing which centres on trait and type theories. This is because the personality attributes are quantified with standardized rules. The nomothetic approach is used by numerous trait theorists who believed every person possess a number of identifiable traits. Three main factors models were created, the sociability and unsociability (extraversion and introversion) dimension and the neuroticism-stability dimension. The psychoticism dimension was also added as the third dimension by the theorists. One of the theorists created a trait model referred to as the 16 personality factors (16PF) which the big five personality characters was based on. The sixteen personality dimensions are measured by a self-report test of the 16PF questionnaire. The five dimension personality model had five key personality traits of openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (ocean). There is a score on each of the big five qualities after completion of self-question tests for the big five. The quick self-test questionnaire which is quantitative makes the big five test to be in line with the nomothetic approach. The managers expect responses to be within a certain paradigm because each response given in the test is a closed response unlike to an open question, test where an individual can give any casual response which is not expected by the manager (Martin, 2005).
However, in the nomothetic approach not everything is as straightforward as it appears and managers’ reason that there is more to character assessment than the nomothetic method. This is because not every individual’s character is within a definite dimension and cannot be viewed as a straight set of characters. The fact that the nomothetic approach is a cheap and quick method to personality testing without any actual in-depth grip of the real personality of the person makes it being criticized (Buchanan & Huczynski, 2017).
Theory of motivation
Performance is achieved through the forces of motivation which can be referred to as the aspirations to attain a particular performance level or a goal, leading to objective directed behaviour. When an individual is trying hard to achieve a certain task can be referred to as being motivated. Motivation is not sufficient if one has to perform well, although it is clearly essential. Ability is essential and the main determinant of effectiveness that is, having the skills and knowledge needed to perform the job (Weiner, 2016). Some other critical determinants to performance are environmental factors like information, resources and support need to deliver well. In 1943 a hierarchy of five needs was developed by Abraham Maslow. He claimed that an individual is motivated to meet higher level needs when human motivation acts to satisfy the most basic needs first. The hierarchy classified five types of needs, physiological needs being the most basic need such as food and shelter, security needs like job security and personal safety follows, also the desire to belong to a group and friendship which is a social need. In addition, self-esteem needs such as competence and recognition and the self-self-actualization needs for growth and development (Winston, 2016, p. 124)
In organizational needs, identification of needs relevant to a work environment translates Maslow’s needs into needs for organizational structures as applied in Amazon.com. The organization lets its employees take breaks for snacks and meals which is the most basic need of organizational flexibility. Amazon provides security because is a stable organization with clear responsibilities. Amazon achieves the needs for social connections, self-esteem, and professional growth by making personnel feel as part of a team, and allowing employees training programs and recognition of achievements. Maslow categorized his five needs into a lower-level need that is physical and high-level psychological needs. Amazon.com has always focused to meet the low-level needs of its employees, which have led to its workers focus on the high-level needs. In a work setting, workers are self-motivated to fulfil the higher-level needs if an organization meets the worker’s basic needs for a job and a comfortable workspace. Amazon merely provides the prospect to fulfil such needs by offering appropriate work. Amazon employees fulfil their high-level needs through working as a team, for instance, successfully completing projects and learning new skills in the course of carrying out the task and in this case they fulfil the three high-level needs and become motivated to do the work efficiently and effectively (Reimann, 2008).
Employees are encouraged to reach their full potential in an organizational structure that applies Maslow’s theory to organizational development. It is more challenging to promote self-motivation through prospects to fulfil the higher-level needs, regardless of numerous organizations being flexible enough for personnel to fulfil the basic Maslow needs. At times employee interaction is limited and the scope for professional growth in hierarchical organizations. Employee insecurity is contributed by a matrix and a team-based organization if there is no job after a project is completed this is because their loose business sometimes fails to recognize worker performance and accomplishments. Amazon.com focuses to precisely support the fulfilment of high-level needs; in this case, to apply Maslow’s concepts efficiently an institution must specifically aid fulfilment of the high-level needs. To form the basis of a sense of belonging an organization should allow social interactions, to engender the self-esteem of employees one should recognize their accomplishments and offer opportunities for workers to fulfil their potential. Failure to recognize cultural and individual differences is one of the limitations of the Maslow’s hierarchy theory which assumes that all individuals experience these necessities in the same order. For instance, in collectivist societies, social necessities may be regarded as more essential than physiological necessities. Basing Maslow’s explanation of how self-actualized individuals behaved and felt and of self-actualization on writing and talking to selectively chosen individuals instead of a rigorous sampling is another limitation of this theory. In Maslow’s theory, he restricted the number of self-actualized individuals, at one time, less than two percent of the entire population is made of self-actualized as he wrote (Schultz and Schultz, 2015).
Groupthink symptoms
A psychological phenomenon in which individuals struggle to agree within a group was first in 1972 referred to as groupthink by social psychologist Irving L. Janis. In a number of instances, people adopt the ideas of the rest of the group or will set aside their own personal beliefs. Individuals who are against the conclusions or overriding the judgment of the group often remain quiet rather than interfering with the uniformity of the majority and groupthink has several symptoms which are explained as follows showing examples from NASA on the space shuttle Challenger accident. To begin with, group lead members are overly optimistic and involve at risk-taking and this known as the illusion of invulnerability. Regardless of the close call of Apollo 13 and the Launchpad fire that saw three astronauts die in 1967, the American space program had never had an in-flight death. When engineers were concerned of catastrophic O-ring blow-by, George Hardy NASA administrator casually indicated that the risk was possible to every other flight, they had and Janis sums up this attitude as everything will fall in its rightful place because they are a distinctive group. Belief in the inherent morality of the group is another groupthink symptom where members inevitably accept the rightness of their cause. Collective rationalization is another symptom where the beliefs of the member are prevented from reconsideration and make them not to pay attention to warning signs. Irrespective of the policy that the O-ring seal was a serious failure without back up, George Hardy NASA manager stated that they were relying on the secondary O-ring as the sealing O-ring in the worst case conditions. Apparently, it was a shared misapprehension as NASA manager stated that in the meeting no one questioned the fact that the second seal was inability to seal. This depicts a collective rationalization (Doing, 2012).
Out-type stereotype, where out-group members who challenge or oppose group’s ideas are ignored by in-group lead members. The Thiokol engineers were looked down by the NASA officials who had recommended postponement of the launch and they had expected NASA to wait until April to launch the shuttle. To add on, self-censorship lead to individuals who might have worries to hide their misgivings or fears. Also, the illusion of unanimity, lead members are certain that everyone agrees and feels the same way, for example, NASA leaders maintaining the fiction that each member was fully in consensus on the launch recommendation. Another groupthink symptom is direct pressure on dissenters, is often placed on members who question the group and are regularly seen as disloyal. Lastly, self-appointed mindguards censors to hide problematic information from the group (Guntzburger, Pauchant and Tanguy, 2017, p. 324). However, to get solutions to these problems a group can take some steps to minimize these problems. Ideas that have already been proposed leaders should give group members an opportunity to argue or express their own ideas. Also, division of members into smaller independent teams can be of help. Giving members time to create their own ideas can be a solution to groupthink rather than stating opinions when assigning tasks.
Composed correspondence is viewed as a standout amongst the most basic skills for scholastic and vocation achievement, as clear in overviews of partners from advanced education and the workforce. Accentuation on composing aptitudes proposes the requirement for next‐generation appraisals of composing capability to illuminate curricular and instructional enhancement (Azer, Guerrero and Walsh, 2013, p.435). Powerful correspondence is crucial to accomplishment in numerous parts of life. Researchers have recognized the significance of dialect as an essential medium through which learning happens in instructive and regular encounters, stating that all human experience is eventually social it includes contact and correspondence. With the end goal to cooperate effectively with others in scholarly, work environment and network settings, people must have the capacity to discuss to pass on or trade data, information, and thoughts unmistakably and adequately (Huitt, 2011). The capacity to compose adequately utilizing standard composed English is especially vital in advanced education, where capability with composed correspondence is viewed as a basic understudy learning result. The composition procedure is round; it doesn't end when you present the paper to your educator. With the end goal to gain ground with every task, you should enhance criticism, think about your qualities and shortcomings, and plan for development (Buchanan & Huczynski, 2017). Composed relational abilities are significant for the work environment, yet numerous businesses see school graduates as being underprepared for the composition undertakings required at work. By complexity, school graduates report that figuring out how to compose adequately is a standout amongst the most vital abilities learned in their undergrad vocation. These inconsistencies in observations crosswise over partners underscores the requirement for legitimate, solid appraisals of composed correspondence as a learning result that can give foundations, businesses, and individual understudies with important data about understudies' aptitudes. On-going calls for appraisal change additionally mirror the significance of planning evaluations that have instructional importance, give input to educators and understudies, and can be utilized to enhance educational programs (Huitt, 2014).
References
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Huitt, W., 2014. Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Educational psychology interactive.
Huitt, W., 2011. Motivation to learn: An overview. Educational psychology interactive, 12.
Martin, J. (2005). Organizational behaviour and management. London, Cengage Learning EMEA.
Reimann, B. P. (2008). Personality and social psychology research. New York, Nova Biomedical Books.
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Winston, C.N., 2016. An existential-humanistic-positive theory of human motivation. The Humanistic Psychologist, 44(2), p.142.
Wilson, F. M. (2018). Organizational behaviour and work: a critical introduction.
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