Michael+Scott

=Michael Scott = = = =Emma Stockmann =

Biography
 Michael Gary Scott is a character played by Steve Carell on NBC’s hit television show, //The Office//. He is the regional manager of Dunder Mifflin Paper Company in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Although he did not attend college, he managed to get a job as a salesman at Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. Because of his successes as a salesman, he was promoted to regional manager of the Scranton branch. Michael prides himself on being, what he considers, a great boss, friend, and entertainer. In the office, he is known for his inappropriate sense of humor and “that’s what she said…” jokes. This results in his co-workers not having much respect for his authority. He’s also rather gullible which causes the other people in the office to feel like they can take advantage of him and play pranks on him. He enjoys being the one telling the jokes, but as soon as the jokes get turned on him, he takes them extremely personally.

Michael is not very well-liked in the office, not only because of his inappropriate humor, but because he constantly craves to be the center of attention and tries to take credit for other people’s ideas and success. He does not have friends outside of the office so he has difficulty distinguishing between his work and personal life. For this reason, he often plans parties and work functions that take place after hours. Having a romantic relationship is extremely important to Michael. He goes to great lengths to try to find his “perfect” woman, such as hunting down a chair model he saw in a magazine and the searching for a woman who left her glove at a blood drive. However, when he gets into a relationship, he tends to get too attached and scares the women away or he lets them dominate the relationship. He, over all, has an unrealistic expectation of these relationships.

Ultimately, Michael Scott brings a unique personality into the Dunder Mifflin, Scranton branch. He may not be a hard worker or overly competent boss, but he has extreme loyalty to the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company and the people who work there.

When it comes to the “Big Five” character traits, Michael Scott is considered quite extroverted. He is extroverted in the sense that he is extremely sociable and is never hesitant to approach a social situation. He enjoys being around his co-workers all the time and is constantly trying to be the center of attention. He tries to be dominant and assertive when interacting with his employees but because he tries so hard to be their friends, they often take his demands and dominance very lightly.

Michael Scott is agreeable to a lesser extent. While he is fairly friendly over all, trust is definitely not one of his more prominent traits. He is not someone that should be trusted with important information or secrets. For example, when Angela from accounting was cheating on her fiancé, Andy, with another co-worker, Dwight, Michael had trouble keeping the secret to himself and eventually ended up telling Andy. He also couldn’t be trusted with company information regarding which branch was being shut down and ultimately, ended up telling everyone at the company picnic that the Buffalo branch would be closing. He’s also not a man that would be considered modest. While others may doubt his abilities, he thinks extremely highly of himself because he always wants to be considered for the higher positions in Dunder Mifflin when in reality, he does not have much of a chance.

Michael scores quite low in conscientiousness because he is not overly dependable or competent. He is not very competent when it comes to his job because he is constantly delegating work to everyone else, as Pam points out during his roast. He constantly needs to be told to stay on task and oftentimes, when it comes to important decisions he insists that someone else make them for him. The company cannot depend on Michael because it does not take much to distract him from his work, like an office party or taking a long lunch to prove to his co-workers that he could fight Dwight.

When it comes to his personal relationships, Michael Scott is definitely neurotic. Michael takes any type of romantic relationship very seriously considering he decided to propose to his realtor, Carol, after only a few dates. When any relationship does not go as planned, he takes it extremely hard and almost goes into a brief depression and is unable to function for days. Because he gets so attached to relationships, he always puts himself in a vulnerable position and gives the other person the upper hand.

Lastly, Michael is definitely open. He has a very extensive imagination and is extremely open to new experiences. Michael’s imagination ranges from making creative informative videos for his co-workers to writing a screen play about Michael Scarn. Although it is not always appreciated by other employees, it does not stop Michael from using his creative mind. He is not the average boss and insists to make the work place an entertaining place to be, no matter what.

The cognitive perspective includes the concept of field dependence. Whether a person takes the outside environment into account when in certain situations, the person can be field dependent or field independent. According to this perspective, Michael Scott would be referred to as field dependent which means that he is extremely reliant on the environment and outside factors when completing a task or trying to solve a problem. This can be illustrated because it is clear Michael prefers social situations and working with other people rather than being alone and working independently. It is also seen in his career choice because in his everyday job he works with several different people and before he became a manager, he was a salesman which allowed him to work with clients on a daily basis. Had Michael been field independent, he would be uncomfortable in these social situations.

Categorization is also something Michael shows a great deal of. For the most part, Michael categorizes people into groups. This gets him into trouble because he tends to stereotype and generalize about people in the office. For instance, after he found out Oscar from accounting was gay; he would often make references about Oscar being feminine and other, sometimes inappropriate, jokes. Kelly and Stanley also were stereotyped by Michael and he often made references to their race. Michael does not look at any of his employees negatively because of these stereotypes, but because he openly talks about them, the people around him tend to feel uncomfortable.

According to a social-cognitive perspective, Michael Scott’s emotional intelligence is definitely not perfect. He definitely has some issues when it comes to being empathetic when dealing with other people. For instance, when Kevin was dealing with his cancer scare on the same day as Michael’s birthday, he had a difficult time allowing Kevin to have all the attention on that day. He was more concerned about people celebrating his birthday. As far as being self aware, he does not always realize that what he does or says is inappropriate and this sometimes affects his ability to interact smoothly with others because people are not always comfortable being around him. Emotion knowledge is the ability to interpret your own emotions and the emotions of others. Michael is very good at the self aspect of emotion knowledge because he is very open with his emotions and his emotions are conveyed in a very obvious manner. On the other hand, Michael tends to lack to ability to recognize other people’s emotions. It isn’t that Michael does not care about the emotions of others, but he gets extremely caught up in his own that he does not pick up on how other people are feeling.

Although Michael Scott may not be the best suited for his job as regional manager of Dunder Mifflin Paper, his character adds an entertaining personality to //The Office.// His personality and mood are often extremely dependent on the events and environment around him. I think this stems from him being extremely self-conscious and that he needs the reinforcement from the people around him to be happy with himself. I believe that he is overly concerned with what people think about him because he often talks about how in his childhood he was made fun of or didn’t have many friends. This is shown when he is asked to fire someone and he dreads the decision because he does not want people to think badly of him. He puts it off until the absolute last minute and when he tries to fire Creed, he refuses to get fired and Michael ultimately fired someone else. I also think Michael has this insecurity because he realizes that he isn’t as competent as a manager. When Ryan brings Michael to his business class for a presentation about the company, Michael’s incompetence is made extremely clear and I feel this leads to his constant insecurity and need of approval from the people in the office. Although, the analysis of Michael Scott’s personality according to these two perspectives seems to paint him in a negative light, Michael’s intentions are always positive and he does care a great deal for his co-workers and company.

[|MICHAEL SCOTT MOMENTS]

References
Friedman H., Schustack, M. (2009). //Personality: Classic Theories and Modern Research//. New York: Pearson. Michael Scott: The Office. (2010). Retrieved April 10, 2010, from []. Silverman, B., Daniels, G., Gervais, R., Merchant, S., Klein, H., Lieberstein, P (Executive Producers). (2005-2010). //The Office//: Seasons 1-5[Television Broadcast]//.// California, CBS.