Conscientiousness and Job Performance 2
The Effects of Conscientiousness on Job Performance
The two variables I chose are conscientiousness and in-role performance ratings. There
has been much research about the relationship between personality traits and job performance.
Most often, any kind of research including personality uses the Five Factor Model of personality,
which includes five dimensions to assess personality (openness to experience, conscientiousness,
extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism). As we learned in class, conscientiousness is the best
of the five personality factors in predicting job performance. I, myself, while searching for
articles, also found many studies substantiating this relationship.
This is an important topic to study from both an organizational level and from an
employee level. From the organizational standpoint, it is important to understand this
relationship to better predict which potential employees will demonstrate the highest
performance. Better performance from employees means more efficiency, which means higher
productivity, which ultimately leads to more money for the company. The relationship between
conscientiousness is also relevant to the employee to understand, given that this is something that
the organization may be using to help assess their usefulness to the company. A person may be
able to use this knowledge to their advantage when applying for new jobs or even to get ahead by
improving their work in their current job.
The relationship between conscientiousness and job performance has been studied for
years. As a result, most of the studies demonstrating simply that there is a correlation between
the two were conducted before 2002. Therefore the more recent studies that I found in scholarly
journal articles go beyond the simple correlation, to explaining the relationship more in depth,
and even using conscientious and job performance in different places than one purely predicting
the other.
Conscientiousness and Job Performance 3
Barrick, Stewart, and Piotrowski (2002) set up a study on the basis that there has
consistently been shown a relationship between conscientiousness and job performance to test
for the mediating effects of striving for status and accomplishment. The idea is basically that
conscientiousness, by definition, implies a desire to exercise self-control and follow the
intuitions of the conscience. Thus conscientious employees have a desire to fulfill their
obligations, i.e. task accomplishment. Therefore it would follow that individuals scoring high on
conscientiousness will report stronger intentions regarding accomplishment striving. Barrick et
al. postulate that these accomplishment striving goals will mediate the positive relationship
between conscientiousness and job performance.
The participants in this study were 164 telemarketing sales representatives. The
personality and accomplishment striving were measured by a variety of questionnaires and
surveys including a personality inventory, a motivational orientation questionnaire, a
demographic form with background information, and a job satisfaction questionnaire. The
participants then received inbound calls and their performance was rated by ratings sheets
provided by the researchers to supervisors and coworkers.
The results found a correlation between conscientiousness and accomplishment striving.
It also found that the conscientiousness-performance relationship is mediated approximately 35%
by accomplishment and status striving, meaning that accomplishment and status striving explain
part of the relationship between conscientiousness and job performance (Barrick, Stewart, &
Piotrowski, 2002). A limitation of the study is that personality measures and motivational
measures were both obtained from self-responses. This suggests that there could be common-
method variance. However, there is basically no other way to obtain intentions other than self-
report, so this possible confound is nearly impossible to avoid completely in this experiment.
Conscientiousness and Job Performance 4
In my second article, Demerouti (2006) conducts a study expecting to show that
conscientiousness plays a moderating role in the relationship between work-related flow and job
performance. This is a different way to look at the relationship between conscientiousness and
job performance than the simple correlation between the two. The article describes work flow as
doing work solely for the enjoyment of doing the work (Demerouti, 2006). According to the
article, highly conscientious individuals retain greater intention-behavior consistency because of
their ambition to achieve their plans. Therefore, the relationship between work-flow and
performance is moderated by conscientiousness. For example, in comparison to those with low
conscientiousness, individuals high in this trait will show the strongest relationship between flow
and performance.
The participants in this study were 113 employees from various sectors and job positions.
The researchers sent out questionnaires measuring job characteristics, work-related flow, and
conscientiousness. In-role and extra-role performances were measured by items on the
questionnaire completed by the participants’ coworkers. The results showed that the hypothesis
was supported in that the interaction between flow and conscientiousness had a significant effect
on in-role performance (Demerouti, 2006). As in the previous study, a possible limitation of this
study is common-method variance because job characteristics and flow items are rated on the
same questionnaire by the employees themselves. Another limitation of the study is that its
cross-sectional design and correlational nature of the data prevents the drawing of a causal
relationship between variables. A more definitive study would use a longitudinal design.
In my third journal article, Douglas, Frink, and Ferris (2004) conducted a study expecting
to find emotional intelligence as a moderator in the relationship between conscientiousness and
performance. Much research has correlated conscientiousness with performance, but many
Conscientiousness and Job Performance 5
studies have shown high variance, an indication of potential moderators (Douglas, Frink, and
Ferris, 2004). Because individuals rely on social skills (emotional intelligence) to respond to a
situation, these skills are necessary to use internal strategy (personality) and turn it into observed
performance. In other words, personality needs social skills in order to realize its full potential.
This study predicts that the presence of social skills is the moderating factor between
conscientiousness and job performance.
The participants in this study were 205 students at universities in the South. They were
placed into groups that attempted to have equal demographics within each one while still
maintaining as much random assignment as possible. The groups had to work to accomplish task
alone and together and received performance scores based on objective exams and peer review.
In addition, each participant filled out personality and emotional intelligence questionnaires.
After analysis, the results supported the predictions and reveal that emotional intelligence
is indeed a moderator for the relationship between conscientiousness and performance. When
subjects were high in emotional intelligence, there was a significant positive relationship
between conscientiousness and performance. When subjects were low in emotional intelligence,
there was actually a negative correlation between conscientiousness and job performance. This
means that for individuals low on emotional intelligence, the more conscientious they were, the
lower their performance ratings were (Douglas, Frink, and Ferris, 2004). A possible limitation of
this study is generalizability. The study used only students, meaning the sample was from a
limited portion of the whole population. However, the experiment tried to simulate “real-world”
conditions as best as possible, meaning in this context that the students’ “job” is class
performance, and the researchers argue that these two constructs are interchangeable because the
labor and decisions are motivated by productivity and goal achievement objectives.
Conscientiousness and Job Performance 6
Based on the findings in these studies that I have discussed, and also on the findings of
previous researchers also discussed in these articles, I expect to find that there is a significant
positive relationship between the personality trait conscientiousness and job performance. All
the evidence that I have encountered seems to say that I will find this trend in the data we collect
in our surveys for class. In our participants, I expect that as conscientiousness increases, job
performance ratings will also increase.
Conscientiousness and Job Performance 7
References
Barrick, M. R., Stewart, G. L., & Piotrowski, M. (2002). Personality and job performance: Test
of the mediating effects of motivation among sales representatives. Journal of Applied
Psychology, 87(1), 43-51.
Demerouti, E. (2006). Job characteristics, flow, and performance: The moderating role of
conscientiousness. Journal of occupational health psychology, 11(3), 266-280.
Douglas, Ceasar, Frink, Dwight Ds, Ferris, Gerald R. (2004). Emotional Intelligence as a
Moderator of the Relationship between Conscientiousness and Performance. Journal of
Leadership & Organizational Studies, 10(3), 2-13.
Conscientiousness and Job Performance 8
Abstracts
Personality and job performance: Test of the mediating effects of motivation among sales
representatives
Research shows consistent relations between personality and job performance. In this
study the authors develop and test a model of job performance that examines the mediating
effects of cognitive-motivational work orientations on the relationships between personality traits
and performance in a sales job (N = 164). Covariance structural analyses revealed proximal
motivational variables to be influential mechanisms through which distal personality traits affect
job performance. Specifically, striving for status and accomplishment mediate the effects of
Extraversion and Conscientiousness on ratings of sales performance. Although Agreeableness
was related to striving for communion, neither Agreeableness nor communion striving was
related to success in this sales job. The importance of the proposed motivational orientations
model is discussed.
Job characteristics, flow, and performance: The moderating role of conscientiousness
The present article aims to show the importance of positive work-related experiences
within occupational health psychology by examining the relationship between flow at work (i.e.,
absorption, work enjoyment, and intrinsic work motivation) and job performance. On the basis of
the literature, it was hypothesized that (a) motivating job characteristics are positively related to
flow at work and (b) conscientiousness moderates the relationship between flow and other
ratings of (in-role and out-of-role) performance. The hypotheses were tested on a sample of 113
employees from several occupations. Results of moderated structural equation modeling analyses
generally supported the hypotheses. Motivating job characteristics were predictive of flow, and
flow predicted in-role and extra-role performance, for only conscientious employees.
Emotional Intelligence as a Moderator of the Relationship between Conscientiousness and
Performance
This study investigates whether the relationship between conscientiousness and
performance , is stronger for individuals who are high on emotional intelligence. The results of
hierarchical moderated regression analyses supported the hypothesis by demonstrating that the
relationship between conscientiousness and work performance is positive for individuals high
(versus low) in emotional intelligence. However, the opposite pattern was found for those low in
emotional intelligence; that is, increases in conscientiousness were associated with decreases in
performance. Implications of these results are discussed, as are directions for future research.