C18OR, Semester 1, 2010-11, TEAM ESSAY

Zoya Shoaib - 091577568, Abhishek Mathur - 091621355, Talha Zaveri – 091621344, Zahra Hawa - 091589240

Introduction
Personality can be defined as “the psychological qualities that influence an individual’s
characteristic behavior patterns, in a stable and distinctive manner” (Huczynski, Buchanan,
page 138). Almost everyday we describe and assess the personalities of people around us.
Consistent behavioural patterns in various situations and over time give shape to an individual’s
personality. However, an individual’s personality can be flexible, or we can say that an
individual is not restricted to having one specific personality alone. Individuals often have more
than one personality type depending upon the role they play in the society, or an organization.
For example, an authoritarian and aggressive leader at work can be a very caring and friendly
father at home.

There has been an on going ‘nature versus nurture’ debate in the past regarding the
origin of personality. Some school of thought believe that it is determined by hereditary factors -
an individual’s personality being the result of what genes he/she acquires, whereas another
school believes that one’s personality is shaped by the environment. However, both are correct
to a certain extent and one’s personality is partly determined by genetics and shaped by the
environment he/she is exposed to.

There are various ways of measuring personality and over time many questionnaires and
indicators have been developed based upon research, some popular ones being Carl Gustav
Jung’s (1875 – 1961) personality types matrix followed by Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
which classifies people according to the Cattell 16PF – sixteen cognitive styles, helping the
theory of psychological types, described by C. G. Jung, to become useful and understandable in
people’s lives. These ranges of assessments are covered under psychometrics which is “the
systematic, testing, measurement and assessment of intelligence, aptitudes and personality”
(Huczynski, Buchanan, page 138).

“Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” is a 2010 American Drama film directed by Oliver
Stone. It is a sequel to the 1987 film “Wall Street”. This film, set during the 2008 financial
crises, revolves around the lives of the main and prominent characters of ‘Gordon Gekko’ played
by Michael Douglas, ‘Jacob Moore’ by Shia LaBeouf, ‘Winnie Gekko’, ‘Bretton James’ and ‘Louis
Zabel’.

The film's plot mainly centers on the reformed Gekko acting as more of an anti hero
rather than a villain and follows his attempts to help Wall Street before its soon-to-be stock
market crash as well as trying to repair his relationship with his daughter Winnie with the help
of Jacob, Winnie's fiancé. In return, Gekko helps Jacob get revenge from James, the man he
blames for his mentor Zabel's death.

In the film, Gekko has recently been released from prison and, after a failed attempt to
warn business leaders of the imminent economic downturn, he decides to try to rebuild a
relationship with his daughter Winnie. The character of Gekko is “not of a person who is
satisfied with anything for very long” explains Ken Lipper, who served as a technical adviser on
the film. “There's no sense of long lasting accomplishment.” He wants to keep on achieving more
and more, at any cost, to the extent of limitless boundaries. He finds no peace until everything
for everyone else around him is a failure.

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 Heriot-Watt University, Dubai Campus
Team Report: Gordon Gekko – Personality Analysis

Making use of various psychometrics, such as Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Friedman

and Rosenman’s (1974) personality Type A and Type B, and ‘The big five’ personality factors
approach, the personality of Gordon Gekko’s character would be assessed in the following
context.

Literature Review
Facial expressions ‘not global’ – BBC NEWS

The purpose of this study is to determine whether or not people from different culture
read facial expression differently. Information is collected by Dr Rachel Jack – University of
Glasgow. A group of people from different ethnic background were asked to read and interpret
facial expressions. They gave 26 individuals set of standardized images depicting the seven main
facial expressions: happy, sad, neutral, angry, disgusted, fearful and surprised. The information
was collected by personal analyzing. The study shows that people from different ethnic observe
different part of the face while reading the facial expression. This study can help us identify the
facial expression of the personality we are analyzing. This information gives us a clear idea
about how individuals from different cultural background read facial expressions and how facial
expressions can be used to define a personality.

Analysis
Type A and Type B:

Every human being born in this world has a unique personality. However, personality of
a person is shaped a lot by environmental factors, such as culture etc. In an organizational
context, or in general, every individual undergoes stressful experiences and different people
tend to react differently to similar situations or vice versa. Friedmen and Rosenmen (1974)
identified two extreme ‘behaviour syndromes’ which explain differences in stress levels. These
are known as the Type A personality and the Type B personality.

Type A personality can be defined as “a combination of emotions and behaviours

characterized by ambition, hostility, impatience and a sense of constant time-pressure”
(Huczynski, Buchanan, page 151). Type A personalities are known to be competitive, possess
high need for achievement, are aggressive, impatient, extremely alert, and faced by constant
feeling of time pressure and are more likely to suffer from stress-related illnesses such as heart
attack, high blood pressure etc.

Type B personality, the opposite, can be defined as the “temperament characterized by

moderate ambitiousness and drive, accommodating attitude, cooperativeness, focus on quality
over quantity and, in general, an easy going approach to life.” People with type A personality are
likely to have a fast-paced lifestyle, whereas type B personalities are more relaxed and work on
their own comfortable pace. For example, a type B personality can wait in a queue to pay his or
her grocery bills longer than a type A personality who would easily get stressed and frustrated
waiting for his or her turn.

Gordon Gekko, the character from ‘Wall Street’ film can be said to have “re-engineered”
from being a type A personality in ‘Wall Street’ (1987) to a type B personality in the sequel ‘Wall

pg. 2
C18OR, Semester 1, 2010-11, TEAM ESSAY
Zoya Shoaib - 091577568, Abhishek Mathur - 091621355, Talha Zaveri – 091621344, Zahra Hawa - 091589240
Street: Money Never Sleeps’ (2010). When Gekko was young, he had self-esteem issues, was
very aggressive, impatient, stressed, had a fast-paced lifestyle, was very productive and had high
needs of achievement. However, as years passed his approach towards work and life did change,
although his needs of achievements were similar – ‘big money’. The main differences in his
personality characteristics became noticeable as he approached his old age, and could have been
re-engineered during the eight years he served in jail as a consequence of his wrong actions and
greed. That could have affected his way of thinking and made him adopt a different approach to
life. It is noticeable that after serving his time in jail, Gekko appears to be more calm and
collected in the sequel. This observation can be justified as in ‘Wall Street’ (1987) Gekko’s
character is one who is impatient and wants things to happen his way quickly, and when they
wouldn’t, he would display signs of stress such as “tense facial muscles”. He was extremely alert
in his business work and was always one step ahead. However, in the sequel, he patiently waits
for a few years and does a lot of planning before getting his daughter’s 100 million dollars.

In his young age, Gekko could be said to have been suffering from ‘Narcissistic
personality disorder’. People suffering from this disorder feel themselves to be above all the rest,
being the most powerful being on the planet, and such a way of thinking is reflected in his
personality. For instance, the way he used to manipulate stock by raising them at rapid pace, his
over-confidence showed that he thought too high of himself. Also, people suffering from this
disorder feel really important to themselves and consider themselves to be magnificent and
impressive. They are very arrogant and get very angry a task given to someone else by them isn’t
carried out their way. Gekko’s behaviour has glimpsed of similar patterns, supporting the
argument.

Gordon used to be a very aggressive and had a money-seeking personality, believing in

the motto “greed is good”. In ‘Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps’ (2010), his way of approaching a
particular task was a lot different as he was more reserved, calm, and patient and less stressed –
type B personality characteristics. The most important thing was that he tried to reconcile with
his family, something he never really had all his life, but couldn’t resist the call of big money (it
never sleeps after all).

Myers & Briggs Personality Type Analysis:

Gordon Gekko appears to be ENTJ (Extroverted Intuitive Thinking Judging). By

definition, ENTJ’s are born leaders. Gordon lives in the world of opportunities where
everything is achievable. When Gordon meets Bud Fox in the first part of the series “Wall
Street”, Fox is looking to impress the trader with information which he has accumulated but
Gordon keeps dismissing them by saying he already knows what’s going around in the market
and what he wants is the information which he doesn’t possess. Fox then gives out critical
information about Bluestar airlines, the firm in which Bud’s dad Carl Fox works and is the union
representative. Gordon being a typical ENTJ reacts quickly to the situation and acts according to
the ‘insider information’ provided by Fox.

Gordon has a drive for leadership, which is supported by his knowledge of the market
and inborn talent to solve complexities. Gordon is career-focused and his aggressive nature
makes him fit to the business world perfectly. Gordon is actively monitoring his environment for
opportunities & problems arising so those can be dealt with accordingly for e.g. when Sir Larry
Wildman arrives in the United States and becomes a citizen, Gekko is aware of the situation and

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 Heriot-Watt University, Dubai Campus
Team Report: Gordon Gekko – Personality Analysis

he speculates that Larry is going to make a move very soon. He puts Fox on the job to monitor
the activities of Larry so that he is ware of what his move is going to be.

ENTJ’s are generally interested in long-term planning and goal setting which allow them
to see things from a large perspective and prepare solutions for the forthcoming problems.
Frank Davis (ENTJ) is one example of such character from Thomas Green Case Study; he is
decisive and quickly saw illogical and inefficient procedures. He kept a note of Thomas Green’s
activities over a period of time and did a good job in documenting every move of his against
Thomas. Gordon in ‘Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps’ likewise is also goal-oriented and
believes in long term planning. He sees Jacob Moore as an opportunity to pave his way back
into the market and also keeps saying that “a fisherman always sees another fisherman from
far”. He planed and executed everything perfectly because of his ability to foresee future and
predict what’s going to happen.

ENTJ’s are natural business leaders because they are able to visualize where the
organization as a whole is headed; the way they do their respective jobs seems effortless. ENTJ’s
provide no margin for error; they just can’t stand inefficiency and dislike people working in the
organization who are highly emotionally motivated. They like people who base their opinion
professionally not emotionally, like how he tricks his daughter for her money. ENTJ’s are not
very responsive towards other people’s emotions but they do get sudden emotional streaks, and
don’t like to display their feelings to the world because they take it as a weakness. Gekko shows a
tough attitude by cheating his own daughter and not caring about anyone and leaves the country
but once he comes to know about his grandson, he reacts to that information and transfers the
money to United Fusions.

ENTJ’s love to socialize, as extroverts they are thrilled and love to have lively and
balanced conversations about which they easily get into the win-lose conversations. Gekko loves
giving public speeches and loves to address the audience who listen to him and follow his ideals.
He has a very strong opinion about the current situation of financial crisis and blames people
world-wide. ENTJ’s have excellent verbal communication skills and high level of self confidence.
They always want to be in charge rather than share responsibilities. Gordon Gekko chose to steal
money from his daughter rather than working with them on the same project of United Fusion
because he wanted to own his own empire. ENTJ’s are always interested into looking at new
ideas and thoughts; as shown in the first part of the series he receives around 100 offers a day
and only one gets selected. This shows that he values the ideas only if they hold some credibility.

‘The Big Five’:

A ‘trait’ is “a relatively stable quality or attribute of an individual’s personality,

influencing behaviour in a particular direction” (Huczynski, Buchanan, page 142). Hans Jurgen
Eysenck (1916 – 97) came up with one of the most influential theories of personality. His
research explored into two personality dimensions: (1) Extraversion – Introversion or the ‘E’
dimension, and (2) Neuroticism – Stability or the ‘N’ dimension. Extraverts are those who are
expressive, impulsive, risk taking, and sociable. Introverts, being the opposite, are inhibited,
controlled, reflective, careful and unsociable. Neurotics are emotionally unstable and possess
traits such as anxiety, guilt, low self-esteem, obsessiveness and unhappiness. On the other hand,
emotionally stable are those who possess a sense of calm, have high self-esteem, free of guilt and

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C18OR, Semester 1, 2010-11, TEAM ESSAY
Zoya Shoaib - 091577568, Abhishek Mathur - 091621355, Talha Zaveri – 091621344, Zahra Hawa - 091589240
are generally much happier. According to Eysenck, these two dimensions were sufficient to
describe human personality.

However, an impressive body of further research on Eysenck’s and Cattell’s 16PF

theories supports that five basic dimensions of human personality underlie all other personality
dimensions, also known as ‘the Big Five Models of Personality’. The five basic dimensions
include:

1) Openness to experience or inquisitiveness,

2) Conscientiousness,

3) Extraversion/Introversion,

4) Agreeableness, and

5) Neuroticism (Emotional Adjustment).

Each of the above dimensions refers to a continuous scale from high to low.

“Openness to experience is a measure of an individual’s range of interests” (Khan, 2009).

This dimension ranges from ‘Explorers’ (O+) to ‘Preservers’ (O-). Explorer’s are imaginative,
innovative, and highly intellectual and welcome new experiences whilst preserver’s lack interest
and are narrow-minded. Gordon Gekko would be labeled ‘explorer’ on this spectrum. He is
extremely intellectual, which is reflected in the way he thinks and how fast his mind works on
track with the ‘game of money’ – buying and selling stocks at the right time, in the right place,
for his benefit and to maximize his earnings, and he is also willing to take on new experiences
(such as invest in risky and companies unheard of), as long as he had all the required
information like how he used Bud Fox in ‘Wall Street’ (1987) to acquire information for him
about the airline company ‘Bluestar’ and of what actions his competitors would take so he could
manipulate his decisions to override theirs.

Traits relating to ‘Conscientiousness’ such as competence, achievement-orientated,

dependable and purposeful, run from ‘focused’ (C+) to ‘flexible’ (C-). Gekko is definitely is a
strong leader, with a strong sense of direction of achievement. He is very goal orientated.
However, he isn’t actually dependable, as he simply uses people for his own benefit and
therefore, should not be trusted, but he is smart enough to manipulate his words to earn trust he
actually doesn’t deserve. So, he can be said to rate high on this spectrum.

On the ‘Extraversion/Introversion’ dimensional spectrum, Gekko is definitely an

extravert (E+) as he is quite sociable, has a lot of contacts and a big social circle, remains
updated with the ‘inside’ news of his social circle, mostly through illegal ways such as spying.
However, Gekko hasn’t been able to maintain a good relationship with any of the people around
him, always ending up hurting them, or betraying them, them being his wife, or his daughter
Winnie, or young, enthusiastic men like Bud Fox and Jacob Moore, leaving them with bitter
feelings for him. In this case, he is often left standing alone in life – just him and his money, and
no one to share it with, thus having fewer ‘real relationships’ – an (E-) trait.

Gekko is a ‘Challenger’ (A-) and not an ‘Adapter’ (A+) on the ‘Agreeableness’ -

dimension. This is because in the course of the film, his character is not shown to value

pg. 5
 Heriot-Watt University, Dubai Campus
Team Report: Gordon Gekko – Personality Analysis

harmonious relationships, such as that of his close family, and instead is more concerned with
his own needs and desires than those of others. He is the kind who insists on having their say,
no matter what. He is antagonistic, cold and disagreeable, often having conflicts of interest from
people he socializes with.

The traits relating to Neuroticism are anger, discouragement, self-consciousness,

impulsiveness, and vulnerability. Gordon Gekko can be Reactive (N+) and/or Resilient (N-)
depending on situation. In ‘Wall Street’ (1987), Gekko was mostly calm, contented and highly
self assured, but whenever things wouldn’t go his way, for example, when stocks would fluctuate
differently, or when Bud Fox cheated on him to save the ‘Bluestar’ company, Gekko would
display short-temperedness, using explicit language to relieve him off his frustration and
anxiety. However, in the sequel ‘Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps’ (2010), Gekko is more on
resilient end of the spectrum.

Another trait which Gekko possesses and which is not part of ‘the Big Five’ personality
factors is ‘high internal locus of control’. Locus of control is “an individual’s generalized belief
about internal (self) control versus external control (by situation or others)” (Huczynski,
Buchanan, page 841). It represents the degree to which individuals believe they can affect or
have control over what happens in their life. Gekko, not only believes that his actions will have
powerful impact on others and his surrounding environment, but actually does have a lot of
power to manipulate people and his environment for his own benefit.

Conclusion
Gordon Gekko’s personality, as analysed, is the stereotypical personality of anyone
working in the Wall Street firms. His personality is best suited for his role. It is very evident how
other characters like Jacob Moore or Bud fox, working at a lower level than Gekko dream of
being at Gekko’s position and often, in the film, Gekko has referred to “seeing himself in them”.
Money, and greed, is the major driving force towards the formation of such a personality, and a
person working in such an organization is bound to fall into the trap. Hence, looking at Gekko’s
personality, one is made aware of the fact that there are over a thousand more Gekko’s in the
real world and there will be many more in the future for money never sleeps and greed never
dies.

pg. 6
C18OR, Semester 1, 2010-11, TEAM ESSAY
Zoya Shoaib - 091577568, Abhishek Mathur - 091621355, Talha Zaveri – 091621344, Zahra Hawa - 091589240

References:
Howard Khan, ‘Organisational Behaviour’, 2009 Release, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh,
United Kingdom, Chapter 2 (Pages 19-50).

Andrzej A. Huczynski and David A. Buchanan, ‘Organisational Behaviour’, 2007, Pearson

Education Limited, 6th Edition, Chapter 5 (Pages 136 -158)

Olga Tabunshchikova, ‘Organisational Behaviour’, 2010, Lecture Notes.

Jim Zarroli, ‘Gordon Gekko, Preaching the Gospel of Greed’

Judith Burns, Facial expressions ‘not global’, BBC News, Published: 2009/08/14,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/8199951.stm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Gekko

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street:_Money_Never_Sleeps

www.myersbriggs.org

http://www.scribd.com/doc/38315975/MBTI-Personality-Type-Test

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/

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