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Personality characteristics that are valued in teams: Not always “more is better”?
Author(s) -
Curşeu Petru Lucian,
Ilies Remus,
Vîrgă Delia,
Maricuţoiu Laurenţiu,
Sava Florin A.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
international journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.75
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 1464-066X
pISSN - 0020-7594
DOI - 10.1002/ijop.12511
Subject(s) - conscientiousness , agreeableness , psychology , extraversion and introversion , teamwork , hierarchical structure of the big five , personality , social psychology , big five personality traits , sample (material) , applied psychology , management , chemistry , chromatography , economics
This study investigates the relationships between personality traits and contributions to teamwork that are often assumed to be linear. We use a theory‐driven approach to propose that extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness have inverted U‐shaped relationships with contributions to teamwork. In a sample of 220 participants asked to perform a creative task in teams, we found that extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness were curvilinearly associated with peer‐rated contributions to teamwork in such a way that the associations were positive, with a decreasing slope, up to a peak, and then they became negative as personality scores further increased. We replicated the results concerning the non‐linear association between extraversion, conscientiousness and peer‐rated contributions to teamwork in a sample of 314 participants engaged in a collaborative learning exercise. Our results support recent claims and empirical evidence that explorations of personality–work‐related behaviours relationships should move beyond the linearity assumptions. We conclude by discussing the implications of our research for personnel selection.