Open AccessWhen openness to experience and conscientiousness affect continuous learning: A mediating role of intrinsic motivation and a moderating role of occupation 1
Author(s) -
WATANABE SHINICHIRO,
TAREQ MOHAMMAD,
KANAZAWA YUICHIRO
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
japanese psychological research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.392
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1468-5884
pISSN - 0021-5368
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-5884.2010.00447.x
Subject(s) - conscientiousness , psychology , openness to experience , social psychology , perspective (graphical) , mediation , personality , moderation , affect (linguistics) , mechanism (biology) , moderated mediation , trait , intrinsic motivation , big five personality traits , extraversion and introversion , philosophy , communication , epistemology , artificial intelligence , computer science , political science , law , programming language
Research on the effects of personality on work behaviors has adopted either the motivational meditation perspective or the person‐situation interaction perspective. This study attempted to integrate both of the perspectives in a single causal model. Specifically, using data collected from systems engineers and car salespeople in Japan, we investigated the mediating role of intrinsic motivation in the links from openness and conscientiousness to continuous learning, and the moderating role of occupation on the mediation mechanism. The results indicated that, for systems engineers, the effects of those personality traits on continuous learning were completely mediated via intrinsic motivation. For car salespeople, however, the trait effects on the outcome variable are direct, rather than transmitted through intrinsic motivation. The meanings of the findings and directions for future research are discussed.