The objective of this research was to determine the relationship between personality dimensions and job performance. A cross-sectional survey design was used. The study population consisted of 159 employees of a pharmaceutical company. The NEO-Personality Inventory - Revised and Performance Appraisal Questionnaire were used as measuring instruments. The results showed that Emotional Stability, Extraversion, Openness to Experience and Conscientiousness were related to task performance and creativity. Three personality dimensions, namely Emotional Stability, Openness to Experience and Agreeableness, explained 28% of the variance in participants' management performance. OPSOMMING Die doelstelling van hierdie navorsing was om die verband tussen persoonlikheidsdimensies en werksprestasie te bepaal. 'n Eenmalige dwarsdeursnee-ontwerp is gebruik. Die ondersoekgroep het bestaan uit 159 werknemers binne 'n farmaseutiese organisasie. Die NEO-Personality Inventory - Revised en die Prestasiebeoordelingsvraelys is as meet- instrumente gebruik. Die resultate het aangetoon dat Emosionele Stabiliteit, Ekstroversie en Konsensieusheid met taakverrigting en kreatiwiteit verband hou. Drie persoonlikheidsdimensies, naamlik Emosionele Stabiliteit, Openheid vir Ervaring en Inskiklikheid, het 28% van die variansie in bestuursprestasie (soos beoordeel deur toesighouers) voorspel.

/pdf/the-big-five-personality-dimensions-and-job-performance-3gwlire1ar.pdf

The big five personality dimensions and job performance

The search for a meaningful index of the relative importance of predictors in multiple regression has been going on for years. This type of index is often desired when the explanatory aspects of re...

History and Use of Relative Importance Indices in Organizational Research

After a single hearing, the 14-year-old Mozart transcribed Allegri’sMiserere – 12 minutes of music for nine voices – from memory. In his seventies, and totally blind, Euler composed and dictated dozens of major works of mathematics. Mozart and Euler are indisputably geniuses of the first magnitude, but not simply because they possessed seemingly magical mental abilities. After all, Luria (1968) documented the case of a Russian journalist who could remember virtually everything (including tables of random numbers seen decades ago) but who never produced work of any consequence. A number of autistic individuals – so-called savants – can perform prodigious feats of calculation, although they never advance mathematics. Geniuses usually have exceptional gifts, but their defining characteristic is that they use these gifts to solve artistic, intellectual, or practical problems in original ways. What is it beyond mere mental ability that leads these individuals to see the world with a fresh perspective? In this chapter, we consider the hypothesis that genius is due in some measure to personality traits, and in particular to a group of traits that define Openness to Experience. The idea that genius is tied to distinctive traits is old and widespread. In particular, since antiquity it has been asserted that genius is akin to madness, and Eysenck (1993) revived this idea by arguing that creative geniuses are high in Psychoticism, a general personality trait supposed to be a predisposing factor for psychosis.1 Jamison (1996) presented the case that artists are particularly prone to bipolar disorder. The evidence for a link between genius and mental disorder is mixed (Waddell, 1998), but suggests the hypothesis that genius may be related to personality traits in the domain of Neuroticism. A quite different set of traits was identified by Cox (1926) in a pioneering study of character in geniuses. She reported that early in life they were distinguished by (among other things) tenacity of purpose, perseverance in the face of obstacles, and a desire to excel. Simonton (2000) similarly mentioned ambition as a common characteristic of highly creative persons. These are characteristics contemporary psychologists would call aspects of Conscientiousness. Our focus in this chapter will be on a third domain of personality traits, Openness to Experience.

Openness to Experience

The purpose of this study was to build on preliminary findings of unusually high internalizing symptoms and substance use among suburban high school students. The sample consisted of 302 sixth- and seventh-grade students in an affluent, suburban community. Findings corroborated expectations regarding several domains of vulnerability, showing (1) high rates of clinically significant depressive symptoms among older girls, (2) significant links between various internalizing symptoms and substance use among both boys and girls, and (3) peers' approval of substance use among older boys. In exploring potential causes of distress in this suburban sample, associations were found for achievement pressures (particularly excessive perfectionistic strivings), and isolation from parents (particularly low perceived closeness to mothers). Findings of this study are discussed in terms of widespread stereotypes about affluent families, as well as implications for future research and preventive interventions for a subgroup of youth typically viewed as being at "low risk."

/pdf/privileged-but-pressured-a-study-of-affluent-youth-4d65aq9val.pdf

Privileged but pressured? A study of affluent youth.

This study extends the literature on personality and job performance through the use of random coefficient modeling to test the validity of the Big Five personality traits in predicting overall sales performance and sales performance trajectories--or systematic patterns of performance growth--in 2 samples of pharmaceutical sales representatives at maintenance and transitional job stages (K. R. Murphy, 1989). In the maintenance sample, conscientiousness and extraversion were positively associated with between-person differences in total sales, whereas only conscientiousness predicted performance growth. In the transitional sample, agreeableness and openness to experience predicted overall performance differences and performance trends. All effects remained significant with job tenure statistically controlled. Possible explanations for these findings are offered, and theoretical and practical implications of findings are discussed.

The big five personality traits and individual job performance growth trajectories in maintenance and transitional job stages.

The current study examined one possible explanation for the lack of stability found to date in the relationship between Openness to Experience, a second-order Big Five personality factor, and job performance. An organizational setting and geographic locale were chosen, a priori, to reflect a condition that would increase the potential for openness to serve as an advantageous personality disposition for job performance. Consequently, we studied job performance and openness among inhabitants of the southeast employed in U.S.-based Japanese manufacturing companies. A step-wise hierarchical regression analysis revealed that openness predicted unique variance in job performance for these employees above and beyond both cognitive aptitude, and the other four personality dimensions of the Big Five. Explanations for the finding and its implications on the study of personality-job performance linkages are discussed.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/25077352

Openness and Job Performance in U.S.-Based Japanese Manufacturing Companies

A measurement of a conditional disposition, academic hypercompetitiveness, was created via the contextualization of hypercompetitiveness scale items into situations and circumstances relevant to academic life. An investigation of the construct and criterion-related validity of this new instrument, the Hypercompetitiveness in Academia (HIA) scale, was conducted. The HIA scale was found to be more strongly associated with academic outcomes and achievements than a scale measuring individual differences in a generalized, context-independent, hypercompetitive disposition. Conversely, the generalized hypercompetitiveness scale was found to be more strongly associated with measures of antisocial dispositions. The implications of this research on Horney's (1937) theory of neurosis, the possible negative repercussions of academic hypercompetitiveness, and the study of individual differences through investigations of conditional dispositions were discussed.

Mark N. Bing

Papers

Openness and Job Performance in U.S.-Based Japanese Manufacturing Companies

Hypercompetitiveness in academia: achieving criterion-related validity from item context specificity.