Personality and adaptive performance at work: a meta-analytic investigation

Area of Science:

• Organizational Psychology
• Evolutionary Psychology

Background:

• Understanding personality traits that predict adaptive performance is crucial for workplace success.
• Evolutionary perspectives suggest traits like emotional stability and ambition are vital for adapting to novel environments.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate emotional stability, ambition, and openness as predictors of adaptive performance.
• To explore the differential importance of these traits for proactive and reactive adaptive performance.
• To examine the moderating role of job level on these relationships.

Main Methods:

• Conducted a meta-analysis of 71 independent samples.
• Included a total of 7,535 participants.
• Examined emotional stability, ambition (extraversion), and openness as predictors.

Main Results:

• Emotional stability and ambition significantly predict overall adaptive performance.
• Openness was not found to be a significant predictor of adaptive performance.
• Ambition was the strongest predictor of proactive adaptive performance, while emotional stability was key for reactive adaptive performance.
• The influence of ambition and emotional stability on adaptive performance was greater for managers than for employees.

Conclusions:

• Emotional stability and ambition are key personality predictors of adaptive performance in the workplace.
• The specific role of these traits differs, with ambition linked to proactive adaptation and emotional stability to reactive adaptation.
• Job level significantly moderates the impact of these personality traits on adaptive performance.