Lecture 2 personality and stress, Lecture notes of Human Resource Management

Download Lecture 2 personality and stress and more Lecture notes Human Resource Management in PDF only on Docsity! PERSONALITY AND STRESS There is a deep relationship between “personality and stress”. In the present world these two concepts have attained a very important role. Stress plays a very important role in everyday life of an individual and is present in one form or another. Stress affects the personality as well as the performance of a person. If we understand the relation between stress and the personality, how they affect each other we will be able to channalize and manage stress in a better way. Stress won’t affect individual’s personality in a negative way. Due to the relationship between personality and stress you come to know that how personality affects the stress and how stress affects the personality, how it affects your work, your relationship with other people, personal life, peace of mind, are influenced. If you will understand this dynamic relationship you will lead a successful life. You will be able to perform better and would receive appreciation and should give a boost to your self esteem, by dynamic, it is meant that personality affects stress and stress affects personality. Personality: Personality is the product of a culture to do different things in different situations; it is affected by the environment, family, norms and values, society. The society produces different types of people or individuals. These individuals perform different tasks at different times under different situations. In other words the culture/society/environment produces a different person in an army man, in a teacher, in a student and in a sweeper etc. these individuals have to perform different tasks in the society. This aspect of personality is linked with stress. Stress is situation where there are demands on a person. 1. Social demands: To act or, perform in a certain way, if the person is unable to perform according to the demands of a situation, the pressure emerges. If that pressure is chanalized and the person is able to perform the task then that pressure is normal stress, positive stress or u-stress, or we may say it is something good that out of the pressure or stress the person is able to perform better. There is so much demand on the individual to do few things that if a person is not capable of doing, then the person starts feeling the stress or the pressure. If this pressure is prolonged it may transform into stress. If a stress is putting some thing positive on you to do something in a given period of time it is called u-stress and u-stress is some thing good because it makes Human Relations– SHR3107 © Copyright University of Somalia you able to achieve something. And if you achieve some thing you feel good about it. But if the stress is too much you will have negative consequences on your health, on your person as a whole, and on your work performance. The same situation may be stressful for one person but may not be stressful for the other person, depending on the personality type. People handle stress differently. This leads to two types of stress. Two types of stress a. Positive stress-it is called u-stress; you perform well due to this stress .e.g. Stress in exams makes you achieve better marks in the examination. b. Negative stress: if you can’t adjust to the demands of the situation then the stress is prolonged then this negative stress affects on your performance, your health and your over all personality. 2. Organizational demands: The organizations have certain expectations; they require their employees to fulfill certain tasks. This also puts stress on the employees and the workers. If the organization demands some sort of work from the employee which he knows he will not be able to perform well. The person should say no rather than putting extra stress on himself for something he cannot do, or if someone has to do something too challenging for them then they should first attempt to divide the work into smaller tasks, do the first part of it. If he succeeds then go on to the next part. In this way he will be able to manage the tasks. 3. Situational demands: Stress emerges out of expectations, situational expectations, cultural expectations, organizational expectations, and family expectations all these expectations make you work. If you work according to the situation there should be no stress. Suppose if a person from Somali culture travels to Europe, there are different expectations of that society for you to act in a particular way. Your training, potential, socialization is from your Somali culture but the demands of the immigrant society are different. You do not know the every day routines and norms of that society and the demands and expectations of that society are different. Such a situation can even have another aspect let’s say if a person is well adjusted in an organization, is performing well, knows the hierarchy of commands etc but if he is transferred to another company or if he changes his job he may not fit in as the expectations of that organization may be different but you are Human Relations– SHR3107 © Copyright University of Somalia