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Personality and Work Behavior

Chapter · January 2017

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_793-1

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P

Personality and Work Behavior Work behaviors refers to configurations of

actions and interactions that take place at work
Antonio Chirumbolo by members of a given organization and that
Department of Social and Developmental affect, both directly and indirectly, the functioning
Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, and the effectiveness of the organization. These
Rome, Italy work behaviors can positively affect the organiza-
tion and/or its members and are often called pro-
ductive or cooperative behaviors. Conversely,
Synonyms work behaviors can also negatively impact the
organization and/or its members and are often
Dispositions; Individual differences; Job perfor- referred to as counterproductive or deviant work
mance; Organizational behavior; Traits; Work- behaviors.
place behavior

Introduction
Definition
Work behaviors in organizations can be explained
Personality regards the study of individual differ- by a number of different contextual and environ-
ences in human characteristics that relate to pecu- mental variables; however, dispositional factors
liar patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors play an important role as well. In fact, great atten-
and also the psychological mechanisms behind tion has been given to personality characteristics
these patterns (Funder 2001). Therefore, person- to describe, explain, and predict the behaviors of
ality involves more general internal self- individuals at work (Barrik and Ryan 2003). In
regulatory systems that structure affective, cogni- this entry, we will review how certain personality
tive, and motivational processes and give a sense features can be directly and differently associated
of continuity and coherence to individuals across to specific work behaviors, both productive as
different contexts (Caprara and Cervone 2000). well as counterproductive ones. On the other
The study of personality, however, goes beyond hand, we will also deal with how and when per-
the study of individual differences and their struc- sonality features can interact with given situations
tures but involves both the person as a whole and to predict work behaviors.
the interaction between the person and the
environment.

# Springer International Publishing AG 2017

V. Zeigler-Hill, T.K. Shackelford (eds.), Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_793-1
2 Personality and Work Behavior

Personality and Productive Work (Greguras and Diefendorff 2010) and innovative
Behaviors work behaviors (Parker et al. 2006). Internal locus
of control showed a positive relationship with
Both government organizations and private com- work behaviors that implies personal initiative,
panies need their employees to carry out their jobs whereas an external locus of control was more
at a reasonable level of productivity. At the gen- relevant for clerical and structure task-related
eral level, productive work behaviors may be behaviors (Blau 1993).
directly related to the task and the role exerted Although task behaviors are essential, often the
by the individual (task work behaviors); however, general functioning of an organization relies very
they may not necessarily be connected directly to much on those behaviors that fall outside the job
the job task (contextual or extra-role work behav- role, such as helping and cooperating with col-
iors) (Borman and Motowidlo 1997). leagues and supervisors, supporting organiza-
One of the earliest meta-analysis that investi- tional goals, and volunteering for tasks and
gated the relationship between personality and responsibilities not formally part of the job role.
task work performance found that Conscientious- Those are also called Organizational Citizenship
ness was the personality trait mostly related to Behaviors (OCB; Organ and Ryan 1995) and are
different dimensions of work performance across characterized as being discretionary, extra-role,
different occupational groups (Barrick and Mount and not recognized or rewarded officially by the
1991). This result was consistently found in other organization. Individuals that have a high OCB
independent studies (e.g., Barrick et al. 2001; Tett usually act beyond what is required in order to
et al. 1991). Individuals that are accurate, caring, favor global organizational interests in ways that
persistent, responsible, and high in achievement are not explicit in job descriptions, rules, or pro-
motivation also have higher levels of productive cedures. Undeniably, the most effective organiza-
work behaviors and higher ratings from supervi- tions are those whose employees go further than
sors. Also Emotional Stability showed a general what they must do and spontaneously behave in
positive relation with overall work performance, ways that help their organization, their colleagues,
although lower in magnitude (Barrick et al. 2001). as well as organizational clients. The main reason
Employees that tend to be anxious, depressed, why OCB represents a very important variable for
hostile, insecure, or nervous tend to have lower companies’ management is that when individuals
work productivity. Other personality traits are dis- do only what they need to do at work, but rarely do
tinctively related to different productive work per- more, their organizations tend to globally perform
formance. In particular, Extraversion positively less effectively than organizations where, instead,
correlates with performance in jobs that require employees are more frequently engaging in orga-
social interaction (Barrick and Mount 1991). nizational citizenship behaviors, or nonrequired
Thus, Extraversion appears to be particularly rel- activities.
evant in jobs where sociability and interpersonal Personality traits importantly predict those
interactions with colleagues or clients play an behaviors, the most crucial one being again Con-
important role, such as in sales or in management. scientiousness (Organ and Ryan 1995). To a lesser
In contexts where social interactions involve extent, also Agreeableness appears to be posi-
forms of cooperation, like helping and support, tively related to dimensions of citizenship like
Agreeableness appears to be important as well altruism and general compliance (Organ and
(Mount et al. 1998). Openness, on the other Ryan 1995). Also, Proactive Personality predicts
hand, was mostly related with training proficiency citizenship behaviors such as altruism, courtesy,
(Barrick et al. 2001). As regards other personality and sportsmanship (Greguras and Diefendorff
traits not included in the Big Five taxonomy, 2010). A more extensive and recent meta-analysis
research showed that Proactive Personality (i.e., (Chiaburu et al. 2011), based on 87 independent
stable personal tendency to effect environmental samples, investigated the relation between the
changes) robustly predicts task performance Big-Five traits and organizational citizenship
Personality and Work Behavior 3

behaviors. This research focused on multi- as extra-role work behaviors since it would be
dimensional forms of OCB that are individual- very hard to conceive of them as part of the task
directed (OCB-I), organization-directed (OCB-O), and the desired role exerted by the employee.
and change-oriented citizenship (OCB-CH). Different definitions and terms can be recog-
OCB-I refers to interpersonal behaviors like altru- nized in literature to indicate the phenomenon
ism, courtesy, helping, and interpersonal and per- of bad behavior at work such as noncompliant
sonal support, while OCB-O relates to behaviors work behavior, anticitizenship behaviors, organi-
such as compliance, accuracy, job dedication, orga- zational misbehavior, workplace deviant behavior,
nizational support, and civic virtue. On the other antisocial behavior, or workplace incivility (see
hand, OB-CH regards positive behaviors such as Vardi and Weitz 2016). Recently, literature focused
taking personal initiative and acting in adaptive, especially on the term Counterproductive Work
creative, and innovative ways. Personality traits Behavior (CWB), referring to social behaviors
related differently to the different OCB dimensions. that are voluntarily aimed to harm the organization
The best dispositional predictor of aggregate OCB either through acts that (a) directly impair
was Conscientiousness, followed by Agreeable- tasks performance or organizational properties or
ness, Openness/Intellect, and Emotional Stability. (b) hurt other employees of the organization (Miles
To a lesser extent, Extraversion also showed a et al. 2002).
moderate positive impact of OCB. All personality Gruys (1999) identified 11 categories of CWB
traits displayed incremental validity for OCB over using a factor-analytic approach: (1) Theft and
and above job satisfaction. Interesting patterns of related behavior (e.g., theft of cash or property);
results emerged when different forms of OCB were (2) Destruction of property (e.g., damage or
investigated. While Conscientiousness was the best destroy property); (3) Misuse of information
predictor for both OCB-O and OCB-I, Openness/ (e.g., reveal confidential information); (4) Misuse
Intellect emerged as second best predictor as well of time and resources (e.g., waste time, conduct
as Agreeableness. On the other hand, Openness/ personal business during work time); (5) Unsafe
Intellect and Extraversion were the best disposi- behavior (e.g., failure to follow safety proce-
tional predictors of OCB-CH. dures); (6) Poor attendance (e.g., absenteeism,
The role of personality dispositions seems to tardiness); (7) Poor quality work (e.g., intention-
be of particular importance to understand extra- ally slow or sloppy work); (8) Alcohol use (e.g.,
role work behaviors. Actually, some scholars alcohol use on the job); (9) Drug use (possess, use,
observed that while task behaviors are sometimes or sell drugs at work); (10) Inappropriate verbal
better predicted by abilities and experiences, citi- actions (e.g., argue with customers; verbally
zenship behaviors appear to be better predicted by harass coworkers); and (11) Inappropriate physi-
personality traits (Borman et al. 2001). cal actions (e.g., physically aggression or sexual
advances toward coworkers).
Some authors clustered these different CWBs
Personality and Counterproductive into a more synthetic classification, distinguishing,
Work Behavior based on their goal, two distinct categories of
behaviors: CWB directed towards the organization
Not all employees’ behaviors are aimed to make and CWB targeting other persons in the organiza-
an organization more productive, effective, and a tion (e.g., Robinson and Bennett 1995). However,
psychological healthy place to work. Admittedly, these two aspects are very highly correlated
some behaviors are negative in nature and have and often form a single latent dimension (Fox
detrimental effects on other employees and the et al. 2001).
organization itself. These misbehaviors may Personality dispositions consistently predict
cause serious threats to the functioning and effec- CWB. A recent meta-analysis pointed out that
tiveness of organizations as a whole (Vardi and Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Emotional
Weitz 2016). Obviously, they are to be considered Stability showed robust negative correlations with
4 Personality and Work Behavior

CWB (Berry et al. 2012). Also Openness had a interaction between personality traits and situa-
negative relation but more modest in magnitude. tional conditions, they differ in quite a few impor-
Positive and negative affect also proved to be tant aspects in how they conceive the role of
related to CWB (Dalal 2005). Within the personality, the role of the situation, and the par-
HEXACO model of personality, Honesty-Humility ticular hypotheses they make.
was found to be very powerful in predicting CWB. The personality-job fit theory (Chatman 1989)
Significant solid negative correlation were found claims that specific organizational contexts and
between Honesty-Humility and antisocial behavior certain job conditions are well-matched for indi-
directed both towards individuals and the organi- viduals with certain personality dispositions. Indi-
zation and between Honesty-Humility and delin- viduals who have the right job-person fit also
quent behavior at the workplace (i.e., theft, exhibit higher well-being, higher job satisfaction,
vandalism, absenteeism, alcohol abuse, and the and more positive work behaviors. In this per-
like) in different countries and cultures (Lee et al. spective, Trait activation theory (Tett and Burnett
2005). Not surprisingly, honest, sincere, modest, 2003) holds that personality traits are expressed as
uncrafty, and undeceptive individuals less likely responses to trait-relevant situational cues that
perpetrate bad behaviors at work. may come from organization, task, and social
backgrounds. The individual would gain intrinsic
satisfaction from an organizational environment
Person-Situation Interaction and Work that permits the full expression of his/her specific
Behavior personality. Situations that activates personality
traits which are particularly valued on the job
Many scholars in psychology have argued that the (i.e., their expression is beneficial to achieve qual-
influence of personality on work behavior is ity job tasks) ultimately lead to more productive
indeed indirect and have thus focused on the work behaviors. According to this theory,
boundary conditions (moderators) and the under- employees enjoy working where and when they
lying mechanism (mediators) that can better are allowed and rewarded for being themselves
understand this relationship. For instance, auton- (Tett and Burnett 2003).
omy was found to be a moderator of the relation- However, not all situational constraints are
ships between the Big Five personality traits and the same. Some situations are stronger when orga-
productive work behavior (Barrick and Mount nizational rules, structures, and cues provide
1993), while Proactive Personality appear to influ- clear direction for the expected work behavior.
ence innovative work behavior through the medi- According to Judge and Zapata (2015), while
ation effect of role breadth self-efficacy, flexible trait activation is specific to each trait, situation
role orientation, and job autonomy (Parker strength, that is the degree to which situational
et al. 2006). constraints are present in the environment, is
Generally speaking, a long-term topic in per- important for all Big-Five traits. Their research
sonality research is the debate about the interac- showed that Conscientiousness and Openness
tion between the person and the situation (e.g., were more important for jobs that request auton-
Fleeson and Noftle 2009). There is evidence that omy and independence to achieve a task. Emo-
the link between personality and work behavior is tional Stability, Agreeableness, and Extraversion
actually situational specific, that is the influence of tend to be more relevant in jobs requiring strong
given personality traits on work behavior would social skills. In jobs with high levels of competi-
occur more likely in the presence of certain con- tion, Extraversion can exert a positive role while
textual and environmental conditions. Several Agreeableness can be more negative. Openness,
theories have identified the boundary conditions instead, tends to be more crucial for jobs with
of the effects of personality on workers behavior. strong innovation and creativity requirements.
However, while these theories rely on a common Focusing on the underlying motivational pro-
view that human behavior is a function of an cesses, the theory of purposeful work behavior
Personality and Work Behavior 5

(Barrick et al. 2013) seeks to understand how the responsible for making the individual more or less
Big Five personality traits and certain job charac- vulnerable to the impact of a given stressful event.
teristics interactively affect work behaviors. A key The negative strain outcome would more likely
variable in this theory is meaningfulness which manifest when a combination of a high (or low)
refers to the meaning that an individual derives level of a given trait and a high level of a
from engaging in certain work activities. When given stressor would occur. This process is also
the motivational forces associated with personal- known as the vulnerability model of interaction.
ity traits and job characteristics operate jointly, In this regards, personality traits are conceived
people would experience the psychological state as individual resources to cope with stressful sit-
of meaningfulness. In turn, experienced meaning- uations. Turning back to negative work behavior,
fulness leads to purposeful, goal-directed, and this interactional approach would suggest
motivational processes that positively influence that personal characteristics interact with a spe-
work outcomes. A very recent and interesting cific stressful situation to influence individuals’
development of this perspective was elaborated CWB. Consistent with this more general frame-
by Li et al. (2014) who, building on different work, some research found, for instance, that
theories, proposed an integrative and comprehen- Conscientiousness moderates the relationship
sive model that identifies key mediating and mod- between work stressors and CWB (Bowling and
erating mechanisms aimed at explaining why, Eschleman 2010): that is, work stress is positively
how, and when personality traits predict both pro- related to CWB but not for individuals with high
ductive (task and contextual) and counterproduc- level of Conscientiousness. From an organiza-
tive work behaviors. tional point of view, this finding would encourage
A slightly different interactionist approach is management to hire or reward conscientious
also used by scholars that investigate the role of employees since even in presence of high work
personality traits in the stress-strain relationship, stress or low satisfaction they are not going to
which is relevant to our topic since very often voluntarily harm the organization. Similarly,
CWB is interpreted as a form of psychological Honesty-Humility was found to moderate the neg-
strain in response to job stressors (Fox et al. ative impact of a specific work stressor, namely,
2001). Personality, in fact, can affect the stress- job insecurity (Chirumbolo 2015). Individuals
strain process in different ways. First of all, dif- who perceive their job at risk tend to have also
ferent personal traits may be responsible for dif- high CWB; however, this is not true for individ-
ferent levels of exposure to stressors, which in uals with high Honesty-Humility.
turn lead to stress outcomes; this process was
called the differential exposure model (Bolger
and Zuckerman 1995). For instance, the life- Conclusions
style typically held by an individual with a type
A personality (that is competitive, outgoing, Personality traits play an important role in pre-
ambitious, impatient, and aggressive) is usually dicting work behavior. Conscientiousness appears
occupied by more high stressful activities than an to be the personality traits strongly correlated to
individual with type B personality, who is in gen- productive in-role and extra-role work behavior
eral considered more relaxed. Secondly, differ- across different jobs and occupational status. On
ences in personality traits affect the individual the other hand, Honesty-Humility and Conscien-
reactivity to stressors: personality would affect tiousness appear to be importantly (negatively)
strain outcomes by moderating or amplifying the related to counterproductive and deviant work
impact of stressors on these outcomes (referred to behavior. However, other personality traits are
as the differential reactivity model; Bolger and distinctively related to different work behaviors
Zuckerman 1995). Due to a range of individual in relation to the kind of specific job requirements.
differences, different people tend to react differ- Personality traits may have a substantial direct
ently to the same stressful situation. Personality is effect on work behavior but they also operate in
6 Personality and Work Behavior

conjunction of specific situations and circum- Chatman, J. A. (1989). Improving interactional organiza-
stances that can come from the organization, the tional research: A model of person-organization fit.
Academy of Management Review, 14(3), 333–349.
environment, and the social world. In this regard, Chiaburu, D. S., Oh, I. S., Berry, C. M., Li, N., &
interactionist models are very popular in organi- Gardner, R. G. (2011). The five-factor model of per-
zational psychology to describe, predict, and sonality traits and organizational citizenship behaviors:
explain the influence of personality on work A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96(6),
1140.
behavior. Chirumbolo, A. (2015). The impact of job insecurity on
counterproductive work behaviors: The moderating
role of honesty–humility personality trait. The Journal
of Psychology, 149(6), 554–569.
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