Date of Award

5-2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Gary N. Burns

Second Advisor

Jessica L. Wildman

Third Advisor

Patrick D. Converse

Fourth Advisor

Abram L. J. Walton

Abstract

The Big Five has emerged as the dominant personality model in the researcher literature (Judge & Bono, 2000), yet there is still debate about how personality should be modeled within the Big Five framework as well as which personality traits relate most strongly to important outcomes across domains (DeYoung et al., 2007; Digman, 1997; Hofstee et al., 1992; Judge et al., 2002). The purpose of this study was to compare complex personality traits as defined by the circumplex personality approach to simple, hierarchical personality traits as defined by the standard personality model approach in relation to other-rated job performance. Overall, the results do not support the value of taking a circumplex approach when looking at the relationship between personality and job performance. When comparing twenty-eight unipolar personality traits against eight complex traits in relation to three dimensions of job performance through relative weights analyses, the complex traits did not relate more strongly to the job performance dimensions. The results from this study contribute to the vast research on personality modeling, job performance, and the bandwidth-fidelity dilemma, suggesting that, when it comes to these research areas, the more parsimonious approach may also be the best approach.

Comments

Copyright held by author

Share

COinS