Does psychopathy have an upside in vocational contexts? Applying the triarchic model of psychopathy, we propose that the dimensions of boldness, disinhibition, and meanness have different relations ...to workplace outcomes. Focusing on boldness and in line with socioanalytic personality theory, we propose that political skill moderates the relation between boldness and job performance. Using a sample of 477 target-coworker pairings, we found interaction effects of boldness and political skill on contextual and task performance, and the buffering of counterproductive work behavior. Furthermore, political skill moderated the relation between boldness and adaptive performance. Disinhibition and meanness were positively correlated with counterproductive work behaviors, thereby reflecting the dark core of psychopathy. In sum, boldness is a trait linked to career success in the absence of the other traits that make up psychopathy as a whole. Furthermore, we encourage the use of the triarchic model as an overarching framework in vocational contexts.
The purpose of this study was to examine the relations of two facets of psychopathic personality (i.e., self-centered impulsivity and fearless dominance) with interpersonally directed ...counterproductive work behavior (CWB-I) and contextual performance (CP). Consistent with research on psychopathy, our hypothesis suggested that self-centered impulsivity (i.e., behavioral impulsivity characterized by disregard for rules and responsibilities) would be positively related to CWB-I and negatively related to CP. Using socioanalytic theory, we further suggested that fearless dominance (i.e., an egotistical personal style characterized by self-promotion and prioritization of one’s own needs before those of others) would be negatively associated with interpersonal performance (i.e., high CWB-I and low CP) only when individuals indicated low levels of interpersonal influence (i.e., a dimension of political skill reflecting an ability to adapt one’s behavior in subtle, sophisticated, and situationally effective ways). Results provided strong support for the differential relations of the psychopathic personality dimensions with the criteria of interest. Implications for theory, practice, and future research are provided in light of a number of notable strengths and limitations.
Political skill, a social competence that enables individuals to achieve goals due to their understanding of and influence upon others at work, can play an important role in manager performance. We ...argue that the political skill–manager performance relationship varies as a nonlinear function of differing levels of enterprising job demands (i.e., working with and through people). A large number of occupations have some enterprising features, but, across occupations, management roles typically contain even greater enterprising expectations. However, relatively few studies have examined the enterprising work context (e.g., enterprising demands) of managers. Specifically, under conditions of high enterprising job demands, we argue and find that, as political skill increases, there is an associated exponential increase in enterprising performance, with growth beyond the mean of political skill resulting in outsized performance gains. Whereas, under conditions of low (relative to other managers) enterprising job demands, political skill will have an asymptotic relationship with enterprising job performance, such that the positive relationship becomes weaker as political skill grows, with increases on political skill beyond the mean resulting in minimal performance improvements. Our hypotheses are generally supported, and these findings have important implications for managers, as the performance gains in managerial roles were shown to be a joint function of manager political skill and enterprising job demands.
Both trait activation and socioanalytic personality theories clarify the personality – performance relationship at work. We argue that extraversion needs to be interactively combined with both social ...competency (socioanalytic theory) and an activating context (trait activation theory) to demonstrate effects on a relevant type of work performance. Specifically, the aim of the present study was to examine extraversion's association with adaptive performance when combined with social competency and context (i.e., climate for personal initiative). Our results demonstrate that the three-way interaction (i.e., extraversion×social competency×climate for initiative) has a significant relationship with adaptive performance, such that the extraversion–performance association is strengthened when both social competency and climate for initiative are heightened. Our findings suggest that personality scholars should consider both socioanalytic and trait activation perspectives when investigating performance prediction. We discuss implications, strengths, limitations, and directions for future research.
•We examined predictors of adaptive performance in jobs with changing and dynamic work demands.•We tested socioanalytic and trait activation theories with reference to extraversion.•The study comprised 247 nurse-supervisor dyads.•Interaction of context, personality, and social competency predicts adaptive performance.•Findings support the integration of socioanalytic and trait activation theories.
Based on the socioanalytic perspective of performance prediction (
Hogan, 1991; Hogan & Shelton, 1998), this study tests whether the motive to get ahead produces greater performance when ...interactively combined with social effectiveness. Specifically, we investigated whether interactions of the five-factor model constructs of extraversion and openness to experience (i.e., operationalizations of the getting ahead motive in the socioanalytic framework) with political skill predict sales performance. The hypotheses were tested in a sample of 112 car salespersons, and the results supported the extraversion
×
political skill interaction, but not the openness to experience
×
political skill interaction. For individuals high on political skill, higher levels of extraversion were associated with higher levels of sales. For individuals low on political skill, higher levels of extraversion were associated with lower levels of sales. Implications of the results and directions for future research are provided.
Research on emotion recognition ability (ERA) and psychopathy produces divergent outcomes: While some studies find ERA deficits in persons with psychopathy, others find heightened emotional ...abilities. In this study, we seek to disentangle these inconclusive findings by employing different measures of psychopathy, analyzing them globally as well as on a facet level, and drawing on a newly developed nonlinguistic measure of ERA. We hypothesize that ERA moderates the relation between psychopathy facets representing disinhibition and meanness and counterproductive work behavior directed toward individuals (CWB-I). In a multi-source design with a sample of 477 working adults with at least one coworker rating, we found no relations between the psychopathy facets and nonlinguistic ERA. We did find a moderation effect indicating that individuals high in psychopathy with lower ERA exhibited more CWB-I. Our results suggest that psychopathy does not inherently affect ERA; rather, further cognitive and affective processes need to be taken into account. ERA's mitigating effect might help explain why not all individuals high in psychopathy behave aggressively.
•Correlations between emotion recognition and psychopathy are inconsistent.•Nonlinguistic emotion recognition ability might resolve these inconsistent findings.•Nonlinguistic emotion recognition does not relate to psychopathy across measures.•Emotion recognition ability interacts with disinhibition and meanness.•Impaired emotion recognition ability increases aggressive behaviors in psychopathy.
Previous research has found that the ability to accurately recognize emotions expressed by others correlates with many vocational outcomes. However, these correlations might be due to third ...variables. We hypothesized that ERA for faces would indeed predict occupational status when controlling for age but that this relation would be erased when jointly controlling for General Mental Ability (GMA) and conscientiousness. In our study of 182 gainfully employed individuals, as hypothesized, ERA was positively associated with occupational status when controlling for age. This relation became nonsignificant when we additionally controlled for GMA and conscientiousness; however, ERA and conscientiousness were uncorrelated. Implications and limitations are discussed.
•We study the ability (ERA) to accurately perceive emotions expressed by others.•We hypothesize and find that ERA for faces predicts occupational status.•General Mental Ability and conscientiousness also predict occupational status.•The ERA-career relation is erased when controlling for GMA and conscientiousness.
A two‐study investigation was designed to examine the role of job type (i.e. fit of political skill to work context) as a contextual moderator of the political skill–job performance relationship. ...Specifically, it was hypothesised that political skill operates most effectively in enterprising job contexts, and thus is most predictive of job performance in such contexts, but political skill would demonstrate no relationship with job performance in job contexts that did not emphasise interpersonal interaction and effectiveness. In Study 1, enterprising job demands interacted with political skill to affect job performance. That is, political skill positively and significantly predicted job performance in enterprising job contexts, as hypothesised. Study 2 selected one specific job context (i.e. insurance sales) high in enterprising job demands, and hypothesised that political skill would significantly predict objective measures of insurance sales (i.e. sales volume, performance‐based income, performance‐based commission rate, and performance‐based status). The results demonstrated significant predictive effects of political skill (i.e. beyond age, sex, education level, tenure on the job, and experience in sales) on all four measures of sales performance. Contributions and implications of this research, strengths and limitations, and directions for future study are discussed.
Conscientiousness can be an important personality predictor of sales performance. However, it has been suggested that Conscientiousness may have two faces in the job performance context: the highly ...functioning worker and the nervous low performer driven by angst. Based on the moderated expression model of Conscientiousness in job performance and the apparel store sales context, we tested whether the Fearless Happiness trait, a compound trait of Emotional Stability and Extraversion, positively moderated the relation between salespersons' (N = 251) Conscientiousness and objective individual sales performance over one year in a large nationwide chain of apparel stores (N = 174 units). We found that individuals who possessed elevated trait levels of Conscientiousness and Fearless Happiness were the high-functioning salespersons, individually improving sales performance by more than €20,500 per year above beyond Customer Service Orientation. We discuss implications for the two faces of Conscientiousness in sales performance.
•Fearless Happiness is the compound trait of Extraversion and Emotional Stability•We study the two faces of Conscientiousness in store sales performance•Fearless Happiness moderates the Conscientiousness ̶ sales performance relation
Purpose - Political skill is measured with the political skill inventory (PSI), and the construct is composed of four distinct dimensions. Previous validation studies of the PSI found evidence in ...support of the four-factor structure, but only using self-reports. Furthermore, no efforts have been made to also identify a single, higher-order factor solution through second-order factor analysis. The present research aims to expand on prior work and report on a two-study investigation of both the construct validity and antecedents and consequences of the political skill construct.Design methodology approach - To test construct validity, Study 1 combined self- and other reports of political skill from 467 employees in a confirmatory factor analysis. Study 2 used longitudinal data from 202 employees to constructively replicate Study 1 results and to test hypotheses regarding the antecedents and consequences of political skill.Findings - The results of Study 1 confirmed both a four-factor and a single higher-order factor solution of the political skill construct, thus supporting our hypothesis. Study 2 constructively replicated the Study 1 factorial validity results, and supported hypotheses regarding the dispositional and developmental experience antecedents, career-related consequences, and mediation of these antecedents and outcomes by political skill.Originality value - These two studies test the construct validity of political skill using both self- and other-reports. Further, this is the first research to test the Ferris et al. conceptualization of political skill, by examining its antecedents, consequences, and mediation of the antecedents-consequences relationships.
PDF
