Major Work Related Aspects of Personality: The Big Five

In a study conducted over sixty years ago, it was found that there are about 17,953 personality-related words in a search of an English language dictionary. Even after combining words with similar meaning, there are 171 distinct traits but the good news is that it's not necessary to consider all of these to understand the role of personality in organisational behaviour. Five key traits have been observed and only they are considered.

Dimension Nature

Extraversion

A tendency to seek stimulation and enjoy the company of other people

Agreeableness A tendency to be compassionate toward others

Conscientiousness

A tendency to show self-discipline, to strivev for competence and achievement

Neuroticism

A tendency to experience unpleasant emotions easily

Openness to experience A tendency to enjoy new experiences and new ideas

These five dimensions relate job performance criteria (job proficiency, training proficiency, and personnel data) to different occupational groups (professionals, police, managers, salespersons, and skilled/semi-skilled).

In a method adopted to analyse the above relations, it is considered that

 Extraversion is a valid predictor across job proficiency and also training proficiency for two groups, i.e. salespersons and managers. Other groups' job performance didn't depend on this dimension.

 Agreeableness is not as important as extraversion in prediction of job performance even in the jobs containing large social component.

 Conscientiousness and Neuroticism (Emotional Stability) are valid predictors of job performance for all groups and conscientiousness shows the strongest association with task performance.

 Openness to experience is a valid predictor for training proficiency.

The effect of these dimensions on job performance is explained in brief.

2.1 Extraversion

This dimension consists of two components

 Ambition (initiative, surgency, ambition, and impetuous)