Handbook of Principles of Organizational Behavior - Soltanieh ...

28 MURRAY R. BARRICK AND MICHAEL K. MOUNT
satisfaction in late adulthood, even after controlling for clinicians ’ ratings of extraversion,
openness to experience, and agreeableness. Furthermore, Judge et al. ( 2002 ) conducted a
meta - analysis of the relationship of traits from the FFM model of personality to overall
job satisfaction. The two personality traits that correlated highest with job satisfaction were
neuroticism (negatively) and conscientiousness. In turn, job satisfaction has been shown to
be positively related to job performance, which shows that another way these two traits
relate to performance is through their relationship to job satisfaction.
Commitment
Another attitudinal variable that is closely related to job satisfaction is organizational
commitment, which is of interest to organizations because it predicts who is likely to leave
the organization rather than help the organization reach its objectives. Organizational
commitment refers to a person’s involvement with the organization, feelings of obligation
toward the organization and perceived costs associated with leaving the organization. One
meta - analysis of the influence of affect on job attitudes reports results between organizational
commitment and only two personality traits, extraversion and emotional stability (Thoresen,
Kaplan, Barsley, Warren, and De Chermont, 2003 ). This study shows neurotic individuals
are less satisfied, less committed to the organization, and have higher turnover intentions.
Erdheim, Wang, and Zichar ( 2006 ) found that conscientiousness is also related to one
component of organizational commitment, continuance commitment. They reasoned that
conscientiousness relates to continuance commitment because it represents a general workinvolvement
tendency that provides increased opportunity for an employee to obtain formal
(e.g. pay, promotion) and informal work rewards (e.g. recognition, respect). Conscientious
employees earn more of these rewards, which leads to heightened levels of continuance
commitment because of the costs of leaving an organization. Zimmerman ( 2008 ) supports
this conclusion by showing that these two traits are the best predictors of intent to quit.
Life satisfaction
Conscientiousness and emotional stability are also among the strongest personality - based
predictors of subjective well - being or life satisfaction (DeNeve and Cooper, 1998 ; Steel,
Schmidt, and Schulz, 2008 ). It has been argued that conscientiousness plays a major role
in both job and life satisfaction because conscientious behavior is instrumental in attaining
outcomes such as career success that achievement - oriented people value (McCrae and Costa,
1991 ). Schmutte and Ryff ( 1997 ) concluded that those high in conscientiousness are more
satisfied because they achieve a heightened sense of control and competence through their
diligent and responsible behavior. Thus conscientiousness is instrumental in attaining desired
outcomes and fostering control, which leads to greater life satisfaction.
The effects of emotional stability on satisfaction are complex and are best viewed
from the negative pole (i.e. neuroticism). People who suffer from low emotional stability
experience greater distress and reduced job and life satisfaction because they experience
more adverse events, and react negatively and more strongly when such problems occur.
Neurotic individuals are unable to effectively cope with stress due to their reliance on emotion ­
and avoidance - oriented coping styles. Higher levels of emotional stability result in greater
satisfaction because stable people have more confidence to approach stressful work, have a