Personality and social psychologists have long debated the dual influence of personal characteristics and situational contexts on behavior. Traditionally, personality traits have been emphasized, while the assessment of situational influences has received limited attention. This study takes advantage of recent developments in situational assessment to investigate the extent to which personality traits and situational characteristics independently and in combination predict work-relevant behavior.
Sets of multiple regression analyzes were conducted with each of seven work-related behaviors as criteria, using the Big Five personality traits and DIAMONDS situational characteristics as predictors. The results revealed that the combination of personality traits and situational characteristics explained more variation in work-related behavior than their independent effects. Although situational characteristics independently predicted all work-related behaviors, personality traits were not strong predictors of particular behaviors.
These findings highlight the importance of integrating knowledge from both traits and situations to improve our understanding of why people behave as they do. 39 Figure 4: Proportion of variance in behavior attributable to the Big Five Traits and Situational Traits.
Introduction
An analogy can be used to explain how personality traits and situational characteristics can enhance our understanding of human behavior. Nevertheless, studies focusing on a specific situational characteristic have shown the importance of situational characteristics in the work context (e.g., Colbert et al., 2004; Parker et al., 2006). Empirical research on the combined effects of personality traits and broader situational characteristics on work-relevant behavior appears to be scarce.
RQ1: To what extent do personality traits and situational traits independently predict work-related behavior. RQ2: To what extent does the combination of personality traits and situational traits predict work-related behavior. In line with the aforementioned research questions, the current study aims to investigate to what extent personality and situational characteristics independently, and in combination, predict work-related behavior.
To investigate the extent to which situational characteristics augment personality traits for predicting work-related behavior. To investigate the extent to which personality traits augment situational characteristics for predicting work-related behavior.
Literature Review
As such, the RBQ can be useful across a wide range of situations (Funder et al., 2000). The way a situation is perceived will determine which behavior is performed (Rauthmann et al., 2015). In recent years, several situational taxonomies have been proposed, such as the PICTURE text (Parrigon et al., 2017) and Situation 5 (Ziegler, 2014).
The DIAMONDS taxonomy consists of eight broad dimensions on which people perceive, describe and judge psychological situations (Rauthmann et al., 2014). The DIAMONDS taxonomy combines most of the previously identified dimensions of situation characteristics and is similar to the major dimensions of personality, such as the Big Five (Rauthmann et al., 2014). It has been documented as the only available measure that samples situation characteristics in a relatively comprehensive manner (Rauthmann et al., 2014).
This study aims to address a large gap in the literature, as there is minimal empirical research that explains the concurrent influence of both personality and work situation on work-related behavior (Barrick et al., 2013). As already mentioned, Rauthmann et al. 2014) demonstrated that the combination of Big Five personality traits and DIAMONDS situational characteristics explained more variance in behavior than their independent effects.
Method
In this approach, all units in the population do not have an equal chance of being included in the sample (Field, 2018). An email was sent out to the students from the Office of the Director of Student Affairs (DSA) inviting them to participate and explaining the nature of the study. Participants were informed of the voluntary nature of the survey, the expected completion time (under one hour), the potential benefits, their right to withdraw at any time, and the confidentiality of their responses.
A nominal research participation incentive (R100) was offered for successful completion of all aspects of the survey. Of the 17 scales included in the ISP survey, three were appropriate to address the research question of the current study, namely: Brief Behavior Inventory, Big Five. The BBI is an adapted and abbreviated form of the Riverside Behavioral Q (RBQ)—a behavioral assessment tool developed to explore behavior as a manifestation of personality (Furr et al., 2010).
Participants first rated the situation they reported the previous day by placing each statement in one of three categories, including "Uncharacteristic," "Neutral," or "Characteristic," based on how. Before performing inferential analyses, descriptive statistics were used to describe the characteristics of the data and the relevant regression assumptions were assessed. The values of R² and R2Δ were used to determine how much variance in the outcome variable (i.e., work-related behavior) was explained by the predictor variables (i.e., personality traits and situational traits) (Osborne, 2017).
After this, a bare meta-analysis of the obtained regression coefficients (R and RΔ) for each model was performed using Wiernik's (2017) Open Psychometric Meta-analysis computer software (version 1.0.1.). The meta-analysis allowed the interpretation of the mean R value for personality and situations and the mean RΔ value for the incremental prediction of each set of variables. This meta-analysis helped determine whether, across a set of behaviors, personality traits and situational characteristics predict work-related behaviors.
Overall H3 Meta-analytic RΔ assessment of the extent to which situational characteristics increase personality traits in predicting work-related behavior H4a I tried to control the situation. Overall H4 Meta-analytic RΔ that the extent to which personality traits increase situational characteristics in predicting work-related behavior. Personality traits include Conscientiousness, Open-mindedness, Negative Emotionality, Extroversion and Agreeableness; Situational characteristics included Duty, Intellect, Positivity, Negativity, and Sociability.
Results
Mean scores, based on the Big Five Inventory, indicated that participants' mean trait scores were similar across the five subscales. The magnitude of correlations between situational characteristics and Big Five traits was low (|
To test this hypothesis, standard linear regression analyzes were conducted with each behavior as the independent variable and the combination of Big Five personality traits as the dependent variable. The set of Big Five personality traits was entered in block one and the set of situational characteristics in block two. The set of situational characteristics was entered in block one and the set of Big Five personality traits in block two.
The average observed correlations (R) were 𝑅̅ = .41 between situational characteristics and work-related behaviors, and 𝑅̅ = .20 between Big Five traits and work-related behaviors. Situational characteristics increased the Big Five traits in predicting work-related behavior on average by Δ𝑅̅̅̅̅ = 0.24. The Big Five traits increased situational characteristics in predicting work-related behavior by Δ𝑅̅̅̅̅ = 0.03 on average.
Moreover, the set of situational characteristics held incremental predictive power over and above the Big Five personality traits, whereas the Big Five traits did not increase significantly situationally. As can be seen in Figure 4, the combination of personality traits and situational characteristics explained more variance in all work-related behaviors than their individual effects. The R values are those for the combined models, which include both Big Five traits and situational characteristics.
Although the main focus of the current study was to examine the independent and combined contributions of personality traits and situational characteristics to work-related behavior, results indicated variation in effects depending on the behavior being evaluated. Power values for models with only situational characteristics, models with both the Big Five traits and situational characteristics, and models examining the incremental prediction of situational characteristics all ranged from .96 – 1.00. The power values for all models examining the incremental prediction of the Big Five traits over and above situational traits were lower, ranging from .17 to .93 with a mean of .59.
Discussion
Since the Brief Behavior Inventory behaviors and the Big Five traits come. from different typologies, this may have affected the strength of the correlations between the two. When looking at the resulting Beta coefficients for each of the Big Five traits across all work-related behaviors (see Tables 6 - 9 ), different traits were indeed unique predictors of different work behaviors. Furthermore, in developing the DIAMONDS situation taxonomy, Rauthmann et al. 2014) investigated whether the taxonomy possesses strong predictive powers.
Relatedly, each of the Big Five traits was a stronger predictor of work behavior when context was provided (Shaffer & Postlethwaite, 2012). Additionally, future researchers seeking to explain behavior should consider integrative person science and situational effects. Although investigation of interactionism was beyond the scope of the current study, traits and situations have been shown to exhibit strong interactive effects on behavior (John & Robins, in press).
These individual differences in behavior could therefore be explained by their unique perceptions, as opposed to the situation (ie, the encounter) itself. Looking at the size of the bars in Figure 4, it is clear that for certain behaviors, even when personality traits and situational characteristics are considered together, it still does not explain the behavior very well (e.g. “I tried to control the situation” ).First, it is important to note that the generalizability of the results presented is limited due to the use of a practical student subject pool that is unique to a single university.
In this regard, it would be valuable to sample the participants' situational experiences and resulting behavior multiple times and on different days of the week. Respondents may have been insufficiently aware of the situation, their behavior and/or their personality. Ultimately, this advances our understanding towards a more integrative science of the person, where both personality traits and situational traits matter (Mischel, 2004).
Personality and performance at the turn of the new millennium: What we know and where we are going. Further evidence for the validity of the assessment center dimensions: A meta-analysis of incremental criterion-. A model for studying the interaction between the objective situation and a person's construction of the situation.
An estimate of the magnitude of effect sizes: Evidence from 30 years of meta-analysis in management. The presence of members of the opposite sex is an important part of this situation.
