Too much of a good thing: Curvilinear relationships between personality traits and job performance.

Abstract

The relationships between personality traits and performance are often assumed to be linear. This assumption has been challenged conceptually and empirically, but results to date have been inconclusive. In the current study, we took a theory-driven approach in systematically addressing this issue. Results based on two different samples generally supported our expectations of the curvilinear relationships between personality traits, including Conscientiousness and Emotional Stability, and job performance dimensions, including task performance, organizational citizenship behavior, and counterproductive work behaviors. We also hypothesized and found that job complexity moderated the curvilinear personality–performance relationships such that the inflection points after which the relationships disappear were lower for low-complexity jobs than they were for high-complexity jobs. This finding suggests that high levels of the two personality traits examined are more beneficial for performance in high- than low-complexity jobs. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for the use of personality in personnel selection.

Personality and the creativity of frontline service employees: linear and curvilinear effects

“…Highly conscientious individuals may become too inflexible and rigid (Le et al, 2011), or too cautious and risk averse (Mount et al, 2008), thus thwarting creative performance. Thus, we offer the following:…”

“…However, this negative relationship between materialism and creativity should attenuate with higher levels of materialism. According to cue utilisation theory (Easterbrook, 1959), there appears to be an optimal range of cue utilisation for each task and, based on the attention as a resource perspective, an optimal level of attention resource is required in order to successfully perform a task (Le et al, 2011). As such, the application of resources beyond a certain level is wasted due to a saturation effect (Le et al, 2011).…”

“…Cucina & Vasilopoulos, 2004;Le et al, 2011;Vasilopoulos et al, 2007). Le et al (2011), for instance, determined that both emotional stability and conscientiousness have a curvilinear relationship with task performance, organisational citizenship behaviour, and counterproductive behaviour. One of the potential problems associated with the lack of research on curvilinear effects is that non-significant findings when studying linear relationships might indeed be the result of non-linear relationships among variables.…”

“…An increase in arousal leads individuals to focus their attention on task-relevant cues and to neglect peripheral ones, resulting in increased response effectiveness. However, increases in arousal beyond a certain threshold reduce response effectiveness because after all irrelevant cues have been excluded, further reductions in cue utilisation exclude relevant ones (see also Le et al, 2011). Hence, as a personality trait increases, an individual's attention increasingly concentrates in a certain direction, but at a very high level, such concentration becomes undue, with attentional resources dedicated to other important stimuli becoming compromised.…”

Developing wellbeing at work: Emerging dilemmas

“…Typically, many of these relations may appear in the shape of a turned U-curve: 'too much of a good thing' (time in our case) may turn the implications to a negative direction (see e.g. Le et al (2011)). This description of reconciliation relates to 'rational-appearing' decision making.…”