PERSONALITY OF UNIVERSITY TEACHERS ACCORDING TO THE DEFENSE MECHANISM TECHNIQUE MODIFIED (DMTm) AS RELATED TO THEIR ASSESSMENT OF THEIR UNIVERSITY AS AN ORGANIZATIONAL SETTING

Abstract

The present study considers possible relations between personality and organizational-assessment variables. Subjects in a stratified sample of 114 university teachers, 36 women and 78 men, were examined using the Defense Mechanism Technique modified (DMTm), a percept-genetic technique. They also made assessments of their university as an organization. Two data sets were formed initially, the one consisting of 18 DMTm variables and the other of these variables together with gender. In total, 34 factor analyses were performed, each involving the inclusion, together with the data set in question, of a different one of the 17 organizational variables which were employed. Affect anxiety (DMTm) was found in factors together with ratings of the organizational variables of openness/diversity, developmental orientation, planning/clarity, workload pressure (negative sign), personal attitude toward the superior, change-centeredness of the superior and organizational climate. Identity anxiety (DMTm) was found in a factor together with organizational climate (negative sign); repression 3 (DMTm) in a factor together with academic values, human orientation and formalization/centralization (negative sign); projected introaggression (DMTm) in a factor together with employee-centeredness of the superior (negative sign); and denial through reversal III (DMTm) in a factor together with structural orientation, formalization/centralization and sufficiency of resources (negative sign). The results were found to be interpretable in terms of the Andersson model of the mind and to support the usefulness of the type of data treatment employed.