Public Service Motivation (PSM) is a topic that has generated considerable interest among Public Administration scholars. Research on PSM has mainly focused on either defining what PSM is and how this construct can be measured or on testing how PSM affects individual and organizational variables. However, very little is known about how the motivation to serve the public interest is influenced by personality. We evaluate the psychological antecedents of PSM by distinguishing two classes of motives behind PSM: affective versus nonaffective motives. Our analysis of data from responses to two independent questionnaires by 320 undergraduate students reveals that PSM is strongly influenced by core personality traits. Our results suggest that affective motives of PSM—Compassion (COM) and Self-Sacrifice (SS)—are positively influenced by the personality traits of Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, and Agreeableness, and negatively by Conscientiousness. In contrast, nonaffective PSM motives—Attraction to Policy-Making (APM) and Commitment to the Public Interest (CPI)—are positively associated with the Openness to Experience trait.

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Public sector motivation ad fonts : Personality traits as antecedents of the motivation to serve the public interest

The “greening” (i.e., inexperience) of the U.S. teacher workforce puts a premium on districts and schools hiring effective and persistent beginning teachers. Given the limitations of characteristics currently available at the time of hiring (e.g., academic ability, preparation type), we built off previous research in economics and psychology to investigate associations between personality traits and first-year teachers’ performance and retention in North Carolina public schools. Using the 5-factor model of personality, we find that conscientiousness is significantly associated with higher value-added estimates, higher evaluation ratings, and higher retention rates. Additionally, general self-efficacy, a subdomain of conscientiousness, is significantly associated with teacher value added and evaluation ratings. These conscientiousness results are consistent with a rich body of evidence connecting conscientiousness-related measures to employee performance and retention across professions, and they suggest t...

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A Temperament for Teaching? Associations Between Personality Traits and Beginning Teacher Performance and Retention

Employing the dispositional approach and a national sample, this study reexamines the relationship between the Big Five personality traits and job satisfaction to establish whether its findings may...

Big Five personality traits and job satisfaction: Evidence from a national sample

Goldberg’s International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) big-five personality factor markers currently lack validating evidence. The structure of the 50-item IPIP was examined in two different adult samples (total N=811), in each case justifying a 5-factor solution, with only minor discrepancies. Age differences were comparable to previous findings using other inventories. One sample (N=193) also completed additionally another personality measure (the TIPI Short Form). Conscientiousness, extraversion and emotional stability/ neuroticism scales of the IPIP were highly correlated with those of the TIPI (r=0.62 to 0.65, P=0.01). Agreeableness and Intellect/Openness scales correlated less strongly (r=0.54 and 0.58 respectively, P=0.01). The IPIP scales have good internal consistency (a=0.88) and relate strongly to major dimensions of personality assessed by the two questionnaires.

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Psychometric properties of the International Personality Item Pool Big-Five personality questionnaire for the Greek population

Both Herbert A. Simon and Anthony Downs borrowed heavily from psychology to develop more accurate theories of Administrative Behavior outside and Inside Bureaucracy: Simon, to explicate the cognitive shortcomings in human rationality and its implications; and Downs, to argue that public officials, like other human beings, vary in their psychological needs and motivations and, therefore, behave differently in similar situations. I examine how recent psychological research adds important nuances to the psychology of human decision-making and behavior and points in somewhat other directions than those taken by Simon and Downs. Cue-taking, fast and intuitive thinking, and emotions play a larger role in human judgment and decision-making than what Simon suggested with his notion of bounded rationality. Personality trait theory provides a more general and solid underpinning for understanding individual differences in behavior, both inside and outside bureaucracy, than the 'types of officials' that Downs discussed. I present an agenda for a behavioral public administration that takes key issues in cognitive psychology and personality psychology into account.

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Human behavior inside and outside bureaucracy: Lessons from psychology

Job satisfaction is an important component of bureaucratic success. In this article, we build on the emerging literature on the five-factor model of personality and argue that basic personality characteristics can help us understand why certain employees are more satisfied with their jobs than others. Multivariate analysis of personality and job satisfaction data from over 1,000 public servants supports this argument. We conclude with a discussion about how personality can add to our theoretical understanding of public personnel management, and help public managers identify applicants who are likely to be satisfied with work in the public sector.

Audrey Reiner

Papers

Personality and Job Satisfaction: Evidence from a Sample of Street-Level Bureaucrats