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Assessment Cover Sheet (to be downloaded and completed by the student)

Course Diploma of Higher Education in Psychology

Module code and
PSY008 – Personality
Module name

Batch Code DHPF18

Title of Assignment Personality – A determinant of career success

Name of Tutor Ms. Thirsha de Silva

Word count 2750

Individual assignment Group assignment

Student Code Student Codes

DHPF18009

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Choosing the right profession is one of the crucial part of everyone’s life since

individuals spend 1/3rd of their every weekday at work. As stated by Steve Jobs in his 2005

Stanford Commencement Address “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life and the

only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work.” Therefore to choose the

right job an individual should have an understanding of his or her self, interests and aptitudes,

should have an understanding of different work lines and skills and conditions required to

succeed. The understanding of one’s self means understanding his/her personality. Personality is

a vast concept and cannot be completely explained using a single definition, yet a simple

definition used to describe personality is the constant pattern of thinking, feeling and acting.

Studying the relationship that exist between personality and job success and job satisfaction is

crucial in choosing the right job. During the early 1970s and 1980s there was no interest shown

in the dispositional factors and focus was being directed to organizational or situational factors

that contributed to job satisfaction and success.

Career success can be defined as “the positive psychological and work related

achievements individuals have accumulated as a result of their work experiences (Judge et al.

1995).” Career success is seen as a combination of both extrinsic and intrinsic factors, in which

extrinsic factors refers to factors that are tangible and relatively objective and are measured using

a person’s salary, number of promotions received and occupational prestige and are directly

observable by everyone. On the other hand, intrinsic component in career success is a person’s

job satisfaction level which is very subjective to the person experiencing it. Job satisfaction is

defined as “a positive emotional state resulting from an appraisal of one’s job” (Locke, 1976) or

“the degree to which an individual likes his or her job” [Eason et al. 2015] and it is measured

using individual’s subjective rating of satisfaction with his/her career relative to their own set
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expectations and goals (Jaskolka et al. 1985). To provide a vast understanding of the correlation

between career success and personality it is crucial to consider both subjective and objective

components.

Review of already existing empirical researches explains career success with main focus

being given to sociological factors such as human capital which includes education, training and

work experience; demographics, which includes sex, marital status, age and number of children

of a person, and organizational variables (Tharenou 1997) and less focus being given to

dispositional factors contributing to career success. Psychologists have narrowed down this gap

in research by investigating psychological determinants of career success. When an employment

organization is considered it is common to find that some employees performs exceptional when

compared to others, and what brings about this difference from person to person has different

ways of explaining it, and understanding the effect personality could have on a person’s career

success will help employees who are seeking to increase their own welfare. One such key

explanation for a person’s career success along with job satisfaction is explained in terms of the

relationship it has with a person’s personality. There are vast number of researches done and is

being done till date to explain how a person’s personality plays a key role in career success and

job satisfaction.

One such study conducted by Williamson et al. (2005) to identify the presence of any

significant correlation between different personality traits and career success revealed that 20%

of the reason for differences in job satisfaction experienced among employees were due to 5

variables in personality traits optimism, team work, visionary work style, emotional stability, and

work drive exhibited by individuals. Though there were several researches designed to

understand the type of correlation that exist between personality traits and career success, there
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was no solid framework formed until the Five Personality theory was created. The Big Five

personality trait is one of the predictors of career success that has received widespread

acceptance in personality due to the validity it carries and it is widely used in many researches to

identify the effect personality has on career success.

The Five Factor Model of personality which is also known as “The Big” has emerged as

the most famous personality tool that has reduced all the personality measures into one umbrella

and has been widely used in understanding the most prominent individual differences in

personality (McCrae and John 1992). This model consists of many practical implications in

personnel psychology leading individuals to obtain certain jobs through being attracted to their

jobs of interest and also by leading organizations to select particular individuals. This Five

Factor model has cross-cultural generalizability and this structure has been developed through

factor analytic studies of already existing personality inventories and through analyses of

adjectives that describe traits in different languages (McCrae and John 1992) and was researched

in many sectors of organizational psychology, especially job satisfaction (Barrick and Mount

1991). The first researchers who were credited for replicating this Five-Factor Model of

personality, and are considered the founders of the Five-Factor Model of personality are

Norman, Tupes and Christal. These higher level 5 dimensions that constructs the “Big Five” are

neuroticism, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and openness to experience.

Neuroticism is defined as a predisposition towards negative affective states such as

anxiety, depression, anger, insecure and shame as opposed to being self-confident, calm and cool

(Salgado 1997). Neuroticism is divided into 6 facets namely anxiety, depression, hostility,

vulnerability, self-consciousness and, and impulsiveness. According to research conducted by

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Salgado (1997), it is evident that Neuroticism exhibits a negative correlation with job

performance and satisfaction, especially the extrinsic career success such as income. Costa and

McCrae has also argued that neuroticism is the most permanent trait out of all the personality

measure. Activation theory also suggests that individuals perform poor in job tasks with too little

or too much of external stimulation and therefore lower level of activation itself is enough for

poorer job performance by neurotic individuals and therefore jobs that involves high complexity

and stress levels are not suitable to neurotic individuals. In par with the activation theory, Judge

et al. (1999) has also confirmed through their investigation that Neuroticism and external career

success shares a negative relationship and he also explains that higher level of neuroticism leads

employees to occupy lower management level, and earn a lower salary. He did a set of 3 studies

in which he followed the participants from their early childhood to retirement and this

longitudinal study helped in examining the dispositional effects on career success. The most

common findings from this research are that neuroticism had a negative correlation to external

career success whereas conscientiousness, which is another dimension of big five theory is

positively correlated to objective and subjective career successes.

Organ and Lingl (1995) through their experiment done using 99 employees in United

Kingdom has explained that conscientiousness is a dimension that could be related to job

satisfaction since it characterizes a person to show greater degree of work involvement which in

turn results in obtaining satisfying work rewards. Conscientiousness is demonstrated in 3 facets

namely achievement orientation, dependability, and orderliness. A person with conscientiousness

exhibits characteristics like being responsible, hardworking, self-disciplined and ambitious

(Barrick and Mount 1991), and is also related to controlling impulses and is a key ingredient in
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successful career (McCrae and John 1992). It is not surprising to see why a person who has most

of the aforementioned traits performs well in job since these traits make them to have

counterproductive working hours, good attendance at work, and effective job seeking behaviour.

Another important dimension extraversion refers to the tendency to which a person is

sociable, excitement seeking, assertive, and experience positive affect such as happiness and

consists of traits such as assertive, talkative, and active (Boudreau et al. 2001) and is considered

the second most studied personality trait with job satisfaction. Though extroversion in general is

seen as sociability, it is actually a broader concept that consists of other factors. High level of

extroversion indicates sociability, assertiveness and warmth, whereas lower levels of

extroversion indicates reserved, task-oriented and introverted personality. According to a study

done by Sutin et al. (2009), it is evident that higher levels of extraversion leads to higher income.

However, the relationship between career success and extraversion through different studies

shows outcomes ranging from positively related, negatively related to unrelated. Study done by

Gelissen and de Graaf (2006) showed that Extraversion positively correlates with external career

success, especially income for men and they also explain that traits of extraversion are rewarded

and are valued in higher level leadership positions. Traits like excitement seeking and

assertiveness makes employees with this personality to cope with uncomfortable work situations

easily, make them largely motivated to increase their career bar, and undertake new challenges

with ease. On contrary to this finding, Nyhus and Pons (2005) through the study they conducted

to investigate how influential personality dimensions could be on income and labor market

success has demonstrated that extraversion is negatively related to the income earned. Results

from another study done by Boudreau et al. (2001) using American and European executive
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shows that Europeans managers with higher level of extraversion had high extrinsic success

whereas the American managers who had higher level of extraversion didn’t manage to be

successful in career.

Scollon and Diener (2006) conducted a research using Victorian Quality of Life Panel

Study to examine how individual changes in neuroticism and extroversion affects the job and

personal relationship satisfaction. According to this study it was explained that extravert

individuals show high enjoyment in their jobs while individuals with neuroticism does not show.

Roberts et al. (2003) conducted a longitudinal study on young adulthood individuals to determine

the effect of changes in personality on career success and the positive and negative emotionality

expressed by them at age 18 were associated with higher and lower occupational success when

they reached adulthood at age 26 years. Grant (2013) in his research conducted using Call Centre

representatives have shown that the relationship that exists between sales performance and

extraversion is not linear. He further explains that being an ambivert helps in achieving greater

sales which results in job satisfaction rather than being an extravert or introvert would do.

Another dimension of the “Big Five” which was also experimented as related to job

satisfaction by Organ and Lingl (1995) is agreeableness or likability. According to this research

it was proven that agreeableness exhibits a positive correlation with job satisfaction especially in

terms of work relationships maintained. The traits that are seen as associated with this dimension

of personality are cooperative, forgiving, soft-hearted, trusting, good-natured, and tolerant.

McCrae and John (1992) also explains agreeableness as one’s tendency to be compassionate and
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cooperative. It seems certain that the traits of agreeableness which includes cooperative nature

helps in reaching successful career, especially in jobs that requires teamwork or customer

service. Barrick and Mount (1991) conducted a meta-analytical study through which made it

clear that the dimension of agreeableness is a valid predictor for occupations that involve

management and sales, but is not positively correlated with career success when it comes to

production workers or engineers. Though this experiment shows positive correlation there are

contradicting research finding between agreeableness and job satisfaction. Judge et al (1999) has

found that there is no relationship between being an agreeable personality and intrinsic career

success. On the other hand, they also found one surprising findings from this study which shows

a strong negative correlation between agreeableness and extrinsic career success. Boudreau et al.

(2001) through their study have shown that there is a negative correlation between agreeableness

and extrinsic and intrinsic career success including salary, job satisfaction and promotions for

both European and American executives. It is also evident that more agreeable a person is the

more chances are for being overruled by others in the organization and this in turn leads to lower

income and less satisfaction.

Openness to experience is another higher dimension of personality that has huge impact

on career success and satisfaction. This is characterized by traits of personality like intellectance

and unconventionality. According to Judge et al. (1999) openness has a positive correlation with

career success but this relationship depends also on other variables and when the other variables

are controlled this relationship doesn’t exist anymore. It was also found that openness remained a

key predictor in choosing the jobs and this is positively correlated in choosing jobs that involves
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artistic works and is negatively related to choosing conventional jobs. Judge et al. (2002) has

also found that there is no significant relationship between job satisfaction and agreeableness.

Other than the Five Factor personality model traits there are other traits such as positive

affectivity and negative affectivity that has moderate contribution to career success. Connolly

and Viswesvaran (2000) through their meta-analytical studies has shown that about 10-25% of

the difference that individuals experience with regards to job satisfaction were due to differences

in affectivity exhibited. They have shown that positive affectivity of an employee leads to job

satisfaction. Similarly, a research done on negative affectivity shows that it leads to

understanding situations as threatening. When the working context is considered, negative

affective employees tend to perceive the job negatively and results in experiencing a negative

situation regardless of the actual situations.

Another trait studied by Mathieu (2013) by conducting a study involving self-rating by

employees from a public organization has shown that narcissism shows association with the Five

factor Model of personality, in which it was positively correlated to openness to experience and

extraversion whereas agreeableness had a negative correlation. Narcissistic individuals exhibits

traits like grandiosity, thriving for power and fame, and tendency to see them as more intelligent.

Narcissism has been related to organizations in which it describes the destructive natures of chief

executive officers and politicians. According to Campbell et al. (2011) although narcissism could

attract individuals to jobs and gives success, this success could be very short term and in the long

run this trait results in destructive outcomes to the organization due to the power seeking
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tendency. Along with this trait there are 2 other traits Machiavellianism and psychopathy which

forms the Dark Triad. There exists a relationship between this and Five Factor model which

shows that people high in dark triads are low in agreeableness, positively related to extraversion

and openness.

Other than the personality traits discussed above organizational factors such as privilege,

inheritance and luck also influence the relationship that exists between career success and

personality. A vast number of demographic factors such as age, marital status, gender, ethnic

background, socio-economic status etc. should also be given focus. Tharenou (1997) explains the

importance of occupation skills for better salary and successful career ladder. Human Capital is

also seen as a predictor of career success in which individuals improve their educational levels,

work experience, and training which in turn would help in obtaining better pay-offs. Through

education problem solving skills are increased and productivity at work is also increased. It is

also said that type of industry chosen, size of the organization and the urban area in which the

person is employed contributes towards career success.

On the whole, the early stages of researches on career success had its main focus being

driven to organizational opportunity structures and less attention was given to the possible

dispositional traits that could determine career success. With the high dimensional Five Factor

Model of personality being introduced with the NEO-Personality Inventory, a solid framework

was laid to study the direction of the relationship between personality and career success and job

satisfaction. It could be concluded to an optimum level based on the researches done from
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McCrae and Costa’s time to the current researchers interested in personality, that neuroticism is

negatively correlated to extrinsic career success, conscientiousness which symbolizes

responsibility is positively correlated while extroversion which symbolizes sociability has a

spectrum of results ranging from being positively related to negatively related to not related at

all. Agreeableness also has contradicting findings due to the traits like being cooperative flexible

and tolerant being useful in certain job types and being negatively related to certain job types.

The last dimension openness are both positively and negatively associated with career success.

With these personality traits other demographic and organizational and situational factors work

together in combination to determine the career success and job satisfaction, with researchers on

relationship of personality with career success gaining its popularity with coming years.
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