PSYC 305A:

Personality Psychology
Week 13: Applications of Personality II
Friedrich M. Götz, Ph.D.
Yilin Guo
Gordon Heltzel
Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia
Welcome Back
 Today’s Learning Goals
• (1) Discuss the personality predictors of getting a job
• (2) Discuss the personality predictors of excelling at a
job.
• (3) Discuss the personality predictors of start-up
success.

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What Gets Us A Job?

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 The Two Biggest Predictors (Robbins & Judge, 2018)

• Conscientiousness
• Higher networking intensity
• Higher job search intensity
• More interview call backs
• More job offers
• Better time management while
looking for a job
• Extraversion
• Higher networking intensity
• Higher job search intensity
• More interview call backs
• More job offers

These effects persist even after controlling for demographic characteristics

and how long people have been searching for a job 5
 What Else Matters?
• Other personality predictors of successful job searches:
• Proactive personality
• Positive affect
• Self-efficacy
• Self-esteem

"There are enough things that happen throughout the day that
that I can spend all my time reacting, but I choose instead
to proactively work on the things I want to see happen”
Mark Zuckerberg 6
Personality Versus Other Factors

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What Makes Us Thrive At A Job?

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 Some Old Friends (Robbins & Judge, 2018)

• Non-Big Five predictors of work success:

• Self-efficacy
• Proactive personality
• Greater job performance
• Less oversight required
• Higher jo satisfaction
• Higher occupational commitment
• More networking at work “You miss 100 percent of
the shots you don’t take.”
• Greater overall career success
Wayne Gretzky 9
 Extraversion
• Associated with:
• Better management performance (Funder, 2019)
• Effective leadership (Robbins & Judge, 2018; Soto, 2019, 2021)
• More occupational involvement, commitment and satisfaction
(Robbins & Judge, 2018; Soto, 2019)
• Reduced burnout (Robbins & Judge, 2018)

• Extraverts do best in jobs with much interpersonal interactions

• Potential downsides: extraverts can sometimes come off as self-
aggrandizing, egoistic or too dominating
• If people fake counterdispositional extraversion levels at work, it can
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quickly deplete their energy (Ritz et al., 2023)
 Openness
• Associated with:
• Better management performance (Funder, 2019)
• Effective leadership (Robbins & Judge, 2018)
• Better coping with organisational change (Robbins & Judge, 2018)
• Greater adaptability (Robbins & Judge, 2018)
• Less work-family conflict (Robbins & Judge, 2018)

• BUT: Openness is also associated with unemployment (Beck &

Jackson, 2022)

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 Neuroticism
• Associated with:
• Worse management performance (Funder, 2019; Robbins & Judge, 2018)
• Lower job satisfaction (Robbins & Judge, 2018; Soto, 2019)
• More frequent intentions to quit (Robbins & Judge, 2018)
• Greater work-family conflict (Robbins & Judge, 2018)
• More counterproductive work behaviours (Robbins & Judge, 2018)
• Elevated burnout (Robbins & Judge, 2018)

• Higher likelihood of unemployment (Beck & Jackson, 2022)

• Less motivation (Robbins & Judge, 2018)
• Less occupational commitment (Soto, 2019)
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• Fewer organisational citizenship behaviours (Robbins & Judge, 2018)

 Agreeableness
• Associated with:
• Good leadership (Soto, 2019)

• More organisational citizenship behaviours (Robbins & Judge, 2018)

• Better liked (Robbins & Judge, 2018)
• More likely to help colleagues (Robbins & Judge, 2018)
• Greater job satisfaction (Robbins & Judge, 2018)
• Less work-family conflict (Robbins & Judge, 2018)

• Less likely to quit their job (Robbins & Judge, 2018)

• Reduced burnout (Robbins & Judge, 2018)

• AND YET: Agreeableness is associated with lower overall

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career success and lower salaries
 Why Agreeableness May Not Pay
• Reasons for less career success (Robbins & Judge, 2018):
• Considering themselves less marketable
• Less willing / able to assert themselves
• Reasons for lower salaries (Robbins & Judge, 2018):
• Bad at negotiations
• More likely to select into “caring” industries with lower
salaries (education, health care)
• More likely to select into non-profit and public sector
jobs
• Less likely to push for leadership roles and promotions 14
Is Disagreeableness Any Better?

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 The Dark Triad At Work
• Machiavellianism
• No relationship with overall job
performance
• More persuasive and less likely to
be persuaded
• Act more aggressively
• Manipulative style leads to short-
term advantages, but earns them a
bad reputation in the long-run
• Employees are less likely to buy
ethical leadership styles from
Machiavellian leaders
(Robbins & Judge, 2018)
• Narcissism
• Unrelated to job effectiveness
• Unrelated to organisational
citizenship behaviours
• Tend to think they are overqualified
for their jobs
• Not very receptive too feedback
• But: work hard to earn rewards; can
be very charismatic; may have
higher work enjoyment
• Psychopathy 16
• Unrelated to job performance
 Disagreeableness at Work
• When people scoring high on the Dark Triad traits reach leadership
positions, their leadership styles are typically selfish, impulsive,
exploitative, and toxic (Funder, 2019)

• BUT: Two longitudinal studies: People with disagreeable personality

do not have an advantage in pursuing power at work (Anderson et al.,
2020)
• Why? Effects cancel each other out!
• Pro: Disagreeable people are intimidating which may elevate
power
• Con: They have poor interpersonal relationships which offsets
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any possible power advantage their behaviour may have offered
 Conscientiousness
• More important for work success than any other trait
• Associated with:
• Better management performance (Funder, 2019)
• Overall job success (Funder, 2019; Robbins & Judge, 2018)
• Fewer absences at work (Funder, 2019)
• More organisational citizenship behaviours (Funder, 2019)
• Fewer turnover intentions (Robbins & Judge, 2018)
• Less counterproductive work behaviours (Robbins & Judge, 2018)
• Higher adaptability (Robbins & Judge, 2018)
• Higher levels of job knowledge (Robbins & Judge, 2018) 18

• Greater career success of one’s spouse (Funder, 2019)

Any Downsides?

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 Pitfalls of Conscientiousness
• Extremely conscientious people…
• Are more likely to become workaholics (Soto, 2021)

• Can be too deliberate and perfectionistic which

leads to diminished happiness and performance at
work (Robbins & Judge, 2018)

• May be too focused on their own work to help

colleagues (Robbins & Judge, 2018)

• Tend to be less creative (Robbins & Judge, 2018)

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 Personality & Start-Up Success
(Freiberg & Matz, 2023)
• Study examined 10,541 founder–start-up dyads (focus on technology start-ups)
• Founder personality was assessed through founder tweets (2 years before founding)
• Start-up outcomes were extracted from public database

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 Personality & Start-Up Success
(Freiberg & Matz, 2023)
• Openness: more likely to secure funding
• Conscientiousness: raise more money, but
attract fewer investors and less likely to
monetise start-up (through IPO or
acquisition)
• Extraversion: no clear association
• Agreeableness: more likely to secure
funding
• Neuroticism: less likely to secure funding,
raise less money, fewer investors, less
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likely to monetise start-up
Due TOMORROW (11.59pm, Canvas):
Personal Reflection
In your own words, summarise the 3 most important points that you take
away from this week’s lectures on applications of personality in the domains
of relationships and work.

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THANK YOU! That’s all for today!
Enjoy the rest of your day and see
you on Friday!

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