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Predicting work-related behaviour from personality traits and situational characteristics
The dual influence of person characteristics and situational contexts on behaviour has long been debated on by personality and social psychologists alike. Traditionally, personality traits have been emphasised, whilst the assessment of situational influences has received limited attention. As a resu...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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Organisational Psychology
2022
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| _version_ | 1867613343962890240 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Wertheimer, Demi |
| author2 | de Kock, Francois |
| author_browse | Wertheimer, Demi de Kock, Francois |
| author_facet | de Kock, Francois Wertheimer, Demi |
| author_sort | Wertheimer, Demi |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | The dual influence of person characteristics and situational contexts on behaviour has long been debated on by personality and social psychologists alike. Traditionally, personality traits have been emphasised, whilst the assessment of situational influences has received limited attention. As a result, there has been little progress in understanding how situational contexts impact individuals' daily organisational behaviour – a key imperative of organisational psychology. This study leverages recent developments in situation assessment to investigate the extent to which personality traits and situational characteristics independently, and in combination, predict workrelevant behaviour. Survey response data from 256 South African participants within the International Situations Project (ISP; Baranski et al., 2017) were analysed. Sets of multiple regression analyses were conducted with each of seven work-related behaviours as criteria, using the Big Five personality traits and DIAMONDS situational characteristics as predictors. Next, barebones meta-analysis (Hunter & Schmidt, 1990) of the resulting multiple correlation coefficients was conducted to estimate the relative predictive power of traits vs. situations, averaged across target behaviours. The results revealed that the combination of personality traits and situational characteristics explained more variance in work-related behaviour than their independent effects. Although situational characteristics independently predicted all work-related behaviours, personality traits were not strong predictors of particular behaviours. These findings highlight the importance of integrating knowledge of both traits and situations to enhance our understanding of why people behave the way they do. Practically, results further suggest that organisations may increase the ability to predict employee behaviour on the job by incorporating measures of situations, in combination with traits, into human resource management applications (e.g., personnel selection and assessment). |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/36588 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | eng |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:34:39.078Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| publishDateRange | 2022 |
| publishDateSort | 2022 |
| publisher | Organisational Psychology |
| publisherStr | Organisational Psychology |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/36588 Predicting work-related behaviour from personality traits and situational characteristics Wertheimer, Demi de Kock, Francois personality Big Five situations situational characteristics Riverside Situational Q-Sort (RSQ) DIAMONDS behaviour Brief Behaviour Inventory (BBI) South Africa The dual influence of person characteristics and situational contexts on behaviour has long been debated on by personality and social psychologists alike. Traditionally, personality traits have been emphasised, whilst the assessment of situational influences has received limited attention. As a result, there has been little progress in understanding how situational contexts impact individuals' daily organisational behaviour – a key imperative of organisational psychology. This study leverages recent developments in situation assessment to investigate the extent to which personality traits and situational characteristics independently, and in combination, predict workrelevant behaviour. Survey response data from 256 South African participants within the International Situations Project (ISP; Baranski et al., 2017) were analysed. Sets of multiple regression analyses were conducted with each of seven work-related behaviours as criteria, using the Big Five personality traits and DIAMONDS situational characteristics as predictors. Next, barebones meta-analysis (Hunter & Schmidt, 1990) of the resulting multiple correlation coefficients was conducted to estimate the relative predictive power of traits vs. situations, averaged across target behaviours. The results revealed that the combination of personality traits and situational characteristics explained more variance in work-related behaviour than their independent effects. Although situational characteristics independently predicted all work-related behaviours, personality traits were not strong predictors of particular behaviours. These findings highlight the importance of integrating knowledge of both traits and situations to enhance our understanding of why people behave the way they do. Practically, results further suggest that organisations may increase the ability to predict employee behaviour on the job by incorporating measures of situations, in combination with traits, into human resource management applications (e.g., personnel selection and assessment). 2022-06-30T14:15:19Z 2022-06-30T14:15:19Z 2022 2022-06-30T13:56:20Z Master Thesis Masters MCom http://hdl.handle.net/11427/36588 eng application/pdf Organisational Psychology Faculty of Commerce |
| spellingShingle | personality Big Five situations situational characteristics Riverside Situational Q-Sort (RSQ) DIAMONDS behaviour Brief Behaviour Inventory (BBI) South Africa Wertheimer, Demi Predicting work-related behaviour from personality traits and situational characteristics |
| thesis_degree_str | Master's |
| title | Predicting work-related behaviour from personality traits and situational characteristics |
| title_full | Predicting work-related behaviour from personality traits and situational characteristics |
| title_fullStr | Predicting work-related behaviour from personality traits and situational characteristics |
| title_full_unstemmed | Predicting work-related behaviour from personality traits and situational characteristics |
| title_short | Predicting work-related behaviour from personality traits and situational characteristics |
| title_sort | predicting work related behaviour from personality traits and situational characteristics |
| topic | personality Big Five situations situational characteristics Riverside Situational Q-Sort (RSQ) DIAMONDS behaviour Brief Behaviour Inventory (BBI) South Africa |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/36588 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT wertheimerdemi predictingworkrelatedbehaviourfrompersonalitytraitsandsituationalcharacteristics |