When and why proactive employees get promoted: A trait activation perspective.

Although there is a consensus that workplace proactivity is vital for both employees and organizations, little is known as whether proactivity is beneficial for employees to develop leadership capabilities. Drawing from trait activation theory, we theorize that proactive personality could enhance employee promotability through taking charge behavior. We also propose that task structure determines the odds that proactive employees might be promoted. We tested the theoretical model with data from 226 employees and their direct leaders in 26 teams at three time points. The results of multi-level path analysis indicated that the positive relationship between proactive personality and taking charge was stronger in more organic work unit, which in turn, positively related to employees' promotability. These findings provide new knowledge in understanding the impacts of proactive personality and offers important empirical practices for proactivity management for organizations.

Personality, cognitive ability, and academic performance: Differential associations across school subjects and school tracks.

AIM: Personality traits and cognitive ability are well-established predictors of academic performance. Yet, how consistent and generalizable are the associations between personality, cognitive ability, and performance? Building on theoretical arguments that trait-performance relations should vary depending on the demands and opportunities for trait expression in the learning environment, we investigated whether the associations of personality (Big Five) and cognitive ability (fluid intelligence) with academic performance (grades and tests scores) vary across school subjects (German and math) and across ability-grouped school tracks (academic, intermediate, and vocational). METHOD: Multiple group structural equation models in a large representative sample of ninth-grade students (N = 12,915) from the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS). RESULTS: Differential associations across school subjects emerged for cognitive ability, Emotional Stability, and Conscientiousness (math > German); and for Openness and Extraversion (German > math). Differential associations across school tracks emerged for cognitive ability, Conscientiousness (academic > intermediate > vocational) and Agreeableness (academic > intermediate > vocational). Personality traits explained more variation in academic performance in the academic than in the other tracks. CONCLUSION: Most trait-performance relations varied across subjects, tracks, or both. These findings highlight the need for more nuanced and context-minded perspective on trait-performance relations.

Examining conscientiousness as a key resource in resisting email interruptions: Implications for volatile resources and goal achievement.

Within the context of the conservation of resources model, when a resource is deployed, it is depleted - albeit temporarily. However, when a 'key', stable resource, such as Conscientiousness, is activated (e.g., using a self-control strategy, such as resisting an email interruption), we predicted that (1) another, more volatile resource (affective well-being) would be impacted and that (2) this strategy would be deployed as a trade-off, allowing one to satisfy task goals, at the expense of well-being goals. We conducted an experience-sampling field study with 52 email-users dealing with their normal email as it interrupted them over the course of a half-day period. This amounted to a total of 376 email reported across the sample. Results were analysed using random coefficient hierarchical linear modelling and included cross-level interactions for Conscientiousness with strategy and well-being. Our first prediction was supported - deploying the stable, key resource of Conscientiousness depletes the volatile, fluctuating resource of affective well-being. However, our second prediction was not fully realized. Although resisting or avoiding an email interruption was perceived to hinder well-being goal achievement by Conscientious people, it had neither a positive nor negative impact on task goal achievement. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. Practitioner points: It may be necessary for highly Conscientious people to turn off their email interruption alerts at work, in order to avoid the strain that results from an activation-resistance mechanism afforded by the arrival of a new email.Deploying key resources means that volatile resources may be differentially spent, depending on one's natural tendencies and how these interact with the work task and context. This suggests that the relationship between demands and resources is not always direct and predictable.Practitioners may wish to appraise the strategies they use to deal with demands such as email at work, to identify if these strategies are assisting with task or well-being goal achievement, or whether they have become defunct through automation.

Why employees with higher challenging appraisals style are more affectively engaged at work? The role of challenging stressors: a moderated mediation model.

Challenging stressors have been positively linked to various work outcomes. However, the role of individual differences in stress appraisal in shaping the function of challenging stressors and work outcomes has been rarely discussed. Drawing on the individual differences perspective, the authors propose that employees higher in challenge appraisal are more likely to have challenging stressors and are more responsive to such stressors to have a higher positive affect at work. Results obtained from 117 employees supported the hypotheses. The results indicated that challenge appraisal is positively related to challenging stressors. In addition, challenging stressors has a positive association with positive affect at work when challenge appraisal is high but has a null association when challenge appraisal is low. The findings suggest that challenging stressors does not necessarily bring positive work outcomes as suggested in past studies and highlight the importance of considering dispositional tendency in stress appraisal when looking into the function of challenging stressors and work outcomes.

Compete or Cooperate? Goal Orientations and Coworker Popularity in the Knowledge-Sharing Dilemma.

Focusing on two goal orientations (the learning and performance prove-goal orientation), this study proposed a different mechanism for dealing with the knowledge-sharing dilemma. We analyzed data from 257 employee-coworker dyads, finding that the learning goal orientation positively affected knowledge sharing, while the performance prove-goal orientation negatively affected knowledge sharing. In addition, highlighting the importance of coworker influence, our analysis showed that coworker popularity served as social cue to boost the main effects of knowledge sharing. Specifically, the positive relationship between the learning goal orientation and knowledge sharing and the negative relationship between the performance prove-goal orientation and knowledge sharing were stronger when coworker popularity was higher. These findings contribute to articulating theoretical directions at the individual level for addressing the dilemma associated with knowledge sharing. Furthermore, they offer practical implications by emphasizing the ongoing importance of considering the influence of coworkers, who serve as crucial exchange partners during task execution.

Mindfulness and academic procrastination among Chinese adolescents: a moderated mediation model.

Background: While previous studies have linked mindfulness to reduced academic procrastination, the mechanisms involved remain under-explored. This study deepens the understanding by investigating how learning vigor mediates the mindfulness and procrastination relationship, and how harsh parenting influences this mediation. Methods: This study, adopting a positivist research approach, utilized a cross-sectional design. Data were collected from 800 students at three middle schools in Henan Province, China, through cluster random sampling. This approach yielded 800 questionnaires. The participants sequentially completed four questionnaires: the Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale, the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale-Student, the Aitken Procrastination Inventory, and the Harsh Parenting Questionnaire. After removing 67 invalid questionnaires due to incomplete responses and patterned answers, a total of 733 valid questionnaires were obtained, with 53.3% girls and an average age of 13.12 years (SD = 1.01), leading to an effectiveness rate of 91.63%. Upon data collection, SPSS 26.0 software was used for correlation analysis, mediation analysis, and moderated mediation analysis to assess the relationships between variables. Results: (1) Mindfulness negatively predicts academic procrastination; (2) Learning vigor serves as a mediator in the relationship between mindfulness and academic procrastination; and (3) Harsh parenting moderates the relationship between mindfulness and learning vigor. Specifically, the positive impact of mindfulness on learning vigor is more pronounced in individuals experiencing lower levels of harsh parenting compared to those with higher levels. Conclusion: This study reveals that mindfulness significantly protects against academic procrastination in adolescents, with 52.27% of this effect mediated by increased learning vigor. Additionally, it shows that high levels of harsh parenting weaken mindfulness's positive impact on learning vigor, tempering its overall protective influence on procrastination. These insights, which apply Trait Activation Theory to educational psychology, not only deepen our understanding of the dynamics between mindfulness and procrastination but also have important implications for addressing academic procrastination in Chinese adolescents.

Group strength in safety performance: the effects of group characteristics on individual personality expression in high-speed railway operators.

Objectives. In diverse working situations, the predictive effect of individual personality on job performance is not always the same. Thus, how to best understand and use personality in the workplace has been an important issue in recent years. Methods. Based on trait activation theory, the present study provides initial evidence from high-risk organizations (high-speed railway organizations) regarding interactionist effects of group-level characteristics on the relationship between individual personality (Big Five model) and safety performance (both safety compliance and safety participation). Data were obtained from a sample of high-speed rail operators from nine railway bureaus (N = 1012 from 86 working groups). Results. The results indicate that group conscientiousness, agreeableness and neuroticism enhance the relationship between individual personality and safety performance, while group openness weakens the relationship between individual personality and safety performance, and group extraversion has no effect on their relationship. Conclusion. These results suggest that high-risk organizations should focus not only on individual factors but also on the interactions between individual factors and group situations in individuals' safety performance.

The downside of managers: The moderator role of political skill & deceptive situation.

Relying on the trait activation theory and socioanalytic theory, this study investigate conditions that activate or restrain a manager's dark triad, which can predict exploitative leadership. First, we examine the interacting effect of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy with deceptive situation cues at work. Then, we investigated the effect of a manager's political skill - into the emergence of exploitative leadership. A multisource data were collected across two studies administered first to employees then to their corresponding managers (N = 150). Structural equation modeling were used to test hypothesis. The study's findings show that the interaction of deceptive conditions with the dark triad is the most predictive of exploitative leadership, while managers' political skill was found to have a neutralize effect. The present study provides an effort to identify a potential cause and a solution to manager's exploitative behavior at work. Implications for the dark triad literature, theories underlying it, and exploitative leadership are discussed.

Trait resilience and resilient behavior at work: The mediating role of the learning climate.

Although the positive effects of resilience at work are well documented, the mechanisms that explain the translation of trait resilience into resilient behavior at work remain unclear. Drawing on person-environment fit theory in conjunction with trait-activation theory and utilizing two-wave data of Dutch employees, we investigated whether and which learning-supportive environment (i.e., a perception of learning climate) mediates the effects of trait resilience as a personal characteristic on behavioral resilience at work. Our results indicate that an appreciation learning climate as well as a facilitating learning climate mediate the relationship between trait resilience and resilient behavior at work. Taken together, this study suggests that managers should be cautious encouraging perceptions of error avoidance within their organizations.

The stimulation mechanism of students' entrepreneurial intention in entrepreneurship course: A trait activation theory perspective.

This study examines the extent to which flow experience inhibits/enhances the effects of students' creativity on their entrepreneurial intentions. This study provides evidence to support the contention that flow experience moderates the relationship between creativity and entrepreneurial intention by reference to a field survey of 226 Chinese college students in six college classes. Adopted by a hierarchical regression, this study found that creativity has a significant positive impact on entrepreneurial behavior. Within the subdimensions of flow, Intrinsic work motivation and Work enjoyment plays a significant positive moderating role in the relationship between creativity and entrepreneurial behavior, while absorption does not have such moderating effect. These findings reveal the process and mechanism by which creativity affects entrepreneurial intention and the associated psychological contingency factors.

How Followership Boosts Creative Performance as Mediated by Work Autonomy and Creative Self-Efficacy in Higher Education Administrative Jobs.

Followership is an important but understudied domain. This study adopted a follower-centric perspective to examine the internal process by which followership affects creative performance via work autonomy and creative self-efficacy. The study employed a 3-wave survey of 341 employees of a Taiwanese university to achieve the research purpose. This study showed that effective followership (Time 1) is positively associated with employees' work autonomy (Time 1) and creative self-efficacy (Time 2). Work autonomy and creative self-efficacy mediate the relationship between effective followership and creative performance (Time 3). This study's empirical findings provide an improved way of measuring followership and broaden our understanding of how followership triggers intrinsic motivation to facilitate creative performance.

Evaluation of Employee Empowerment on Taking Charge Behaviour: An Application of Perceived Organizational Support as a Moderator.

Purpose: Based on trait activation theory, this study validates the boundary effect of perceived organizational support (POS) on employee empowerment (EE) to sustain employee's taking charge behaviour (TCB). It hypothesizes that EE has a strongly significant and positive relationship with TCB when POS is high. Methodology: The authors selected a time-lagged cross-sectional study and collected data from two sources in manufacturing firms in China where 290 team members and 56 supervisors participated in the survey. In a questionnaire, team members self-reported employee empowerment, taking charge behaviour, and perceived organizational support, whereas supervisors rated employees' taking charge behaviour at individual-level to avoid common method bias. In addition, for meeting the study objectives statistically, we used SPSS-Process Macro for hypotheses testing. Findings: The study findings were significant, in which employee empowerment demonstrated positive relationship with TCB under the boundary condition of POS but under low POS. This empirical result endorses that employee empowerment accelerated by perceptions of low organizational support demonstrates a positive impact on the development of taking charge behaviour. Practical Implications: Receivers' reactions to organizational support are not constantly positive; sometimes, they might feel vulnerable or incapable, and sometimes "overhelped". Our study outcomes extend these streams of work by concentrating on support from the organization and authenticating an exclusive outline associating employee empowerment with perceived organizational support on employee's taking charge behaviour- specifically organizations might, rather counterintuitively, attain greater levels of empowered employee's taking charge behaviour by delivering less is more-oriented organizational support programs. More specifically, it is not always high, but sometimes low POS performs as a resilient situational factor or contextual moderator that is capable of activating and encouraging employee empowerment on their taking charge behaviour. Originality/Value: This study highlights the importance of taking charge as trait-relevant behaviour by empowered employees (a trait in our case) and organizational support as a trait-relevant cue for sustainable performance in the manufacturing industry of China.

The Antecedents and Consequences of Workaholism: Findings From the Modern Japanese Labor Market.

The present study examined the direct and indirect (via workaholism) relationships between competitive work environments and subjective unhealthiness. It also examined the effects of adjusting for cognitive distortions in the relationship between a competitive work environment and subjective unhealthiness and between a competitive work environment and workaholism. Data were collected from 9,716 workers in various industries, occupations, and positions. The results show that competitive work environments were positively related to subjective unhealthiness, both directly and through workaholism. Furthermore, cognitive distortions moderated the positive effect between a competitive work environment and workaholism, and the positive relationship was stronger when cognitive distortions were high (as compared to low). This study has important and practical implications for companies that are increasingly concerned about the health of their employees.

On second thought the influence of a second stage in the ultimatum game on decision behavior, electro-cortical correlates and their trait interrelation.

Previous EEG research only investigated one stage ultimatum games (UGs). We investigated the influence of a second bargaining stage in an UG concerning behavioral responses, electro-cortical correlates and their moderations by the traits altruism, anger, anxiety, and greed in 92 participants. We found that an additional stage led to more rejection in the 2-stage UG (2SUG) and that increasing offers in the second stage compared to the first stage led to more acceptance. The FRN during a trial was linked to expectance evaluation concerning the fairness of the offers, while midfrontal theta was a marker for the needed cognitive control to overcome the respective default behavioral pattern. The FRN responses to unfair offers were more negative for either low or high altruism in the UG, while high trait anxiety led to more negative FRN responses in the first stage of 2SUG, indicating higher sensitivity to unfairness. Accordingly, the mean FRN response, representing the trait-like general electrocortical reactivity to unfairness, predicted rejection in the first stage of 2SUG. Additionally, we found that high trait anger led to more rejections for unfair offer in 2SUG in general, while trait altruism led to more rejection of unimproving unfair offers in the second stage of 2SUG. In contrast, trait anxiety led to more acceptance in the second stage of 2SUG, while trait greed even led to more acceptance if the offer was worse than in the stage before. These findings suggest, that 2SUG creates a trait activation situation compared to the UG.

Narcissistic Enough to Challenge: The Effect of Narcissism on Change-Oriented Organizational Citizenship Behavior.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations need to effectively manage changes, and employees need to proactively adapt to these changes. The present research investigated when and how individual employees' narcissism was related to their change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior. Specifically, based on a trait activation perspective, this research proposed the hypotheses that individual employees' narcissism and environmental uncertainty would interactively influence employees' change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior via felt responsibility for constructive change; furthermore, the effect of narcissism on change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior via felt responsibility for constructive change would be stronger when the environmental uncertainty prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic was high rather than low. Two studies were conducted to test these hypotheses: an online survey of 180 employees in mainland China (Study 1) and a field study of 167 leader-follower dyads at two Chinese companies (Study 2). The current research reveals a bright side of narcissism, which has typically been recognized as a dark personality trait, and enriches the understanding of the antecedents of change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior. This research can also guide organizations that wish to stimulate employee proactivity.

Character Strengths Are Related to Students' Achievement, Flow Experiences, and Enjoyment in Teacher-Centered Learning, Individual, and Group Work Beyond Cognitive Ability.

While character strengths have been found to predict educational outcomes beyond broad personality traits and cognitive ability, little is known about their differential contribution to success and positive learning experiences in different school settings. In this study, we use trait activation theory to investigate the relationships of students' character strengths with achievement, flow experiences, and enjoyment in different learning situations (i.e., teacher-centered learning, individual tasks, and group work). In studying these relationships, we controlled for psychometric intelligence. Secondary school students (N = 255; 46.3% male; mean age = 14.5 years) completed a self-report measure of character strengths, the VIA-Youth (Park and Peterson, 2006b). Cognitive ability was assessed using a standardized intelligence test (PSB-R; Horn et al., 2003) at baseline. Three months later, students completed the Flow Short Scale (Rheinberg et al., 2003) adapted to the three learning situations and indicated their typical enjoyment of these situations. Both the students and their teachers (N = 18; 50% male; mean age = 44.8 years) provided ratings on school achievement in each of the three learning situations. Results indicate that, as expected, (a) certain character strengths (love of learning and perseverance) show consistent relationships with achievement and positive learning experiences (flow and enjoyment) above and beyond cognitive ability across all learning situations, whereas (b) other character strengths show differential trait-outcome relationships (e.g., the character strength of teamwork was predictive of achievement and positive learning experiences in group work). Taken together, these results suggest that different character strengths play a role in different school situations and that their contribution to explaining variance in educational outcomes is incremental to the contribution of cognitive ability.

How Our Work Influences Who We Are: Testing a Theory of Vocational and Personality Development over Fifty Years.

This study examines the developmental influences of occupational environments on personality traits from childhood to adulthood. We test aspects of a theory of vocational and personality development, proposing that traits develop in response to work experience following corresponsive and noncorresponsive mechanisms. We describe these pathways in the context of situations of vocational gravitation and inhabitation. In a sample from the Hawaii personality and health cohort (N = 596), we examined associations of childhood and adulthood personality traits, with occupational environments profiled on the RIASEC model. Mediations tests confirmed that work influenced personality development from childhood to adulthood for Openness/Intellect. We observed multiple reactivity effects of occupation environments on adulthood traits that were not associated with corresponding selection effects.

The paradox role of extraversion in the cross-cultural adjustment process of Asian expatriates.

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study is to present a broad-brush picture based on empirical evidence on the role of hindrance stressors, motivation, and cultural novelty in expatriate adjustment. Drawing on trait activation theory, this study examines the moderating role of extraversion in enhancing cultural adjustment to achieve positive work engagement and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) by expatriates. METHODS: We gathered data using a sample of 458 eastern expatriates with current international assignments in different countries around the world. They completed questionnaires sent to them using online platforms for expatriates. RESULTS: The results reveal that hindrance stressors and intrapersonal motivation significantly predict adjustment. Adjustment plays a partially mediating role in achieving OCB and expatriate work engagement. However, this work engagement is stronger when adjustment is used as a mediating factor. Surprisingly, our results provided paradox role of extraversion in predicting adjustment which was somewhat in contradiction to our hypothesized direction of moderating effect. CONCLUSION: Our research puts forward strategies for international business organizations when assigning business expatriates, especially in novel cultures. Our research provides valuable information about expatriates' context for international organizations planning for the accomplishment of their assignments in distant cultures.

The Primacy-of-Warmth Effect on Spontaneous Trait Inferences and the Moderating Role of Trait Valence: Evidence From Chinese Undergraduates.

Research has shown that warmth and competence are the fundamental content dimensions underlying social judgment, and warmth judgments are primary. However, the overwhelming majority of research concerning "primacy-of-warmth" rests on trait judgment or lexical recognition, and little attention has been paid to spontaneous trait inferences (STIs) that are made on exposure to trait-implying behaviors. Two studies were performed to examine the primacy-of-warmth effect on STIs and to further explore whether trait valence moderates the effect. Consistent with our expectations, the results of Experiments 1 and 2 (for spontaneous trait activation and spontaneous trait binding, respectively) consistently demonstrated the primacy-of-warmth on STIs. Participants were more likely to draw STIs from behaviors implying warmth traits than those implying competence traits. Moreover, the primacy-of-warmth effect on STIs was moderated by trait valence. In concrete terms, participants were more likely to draw STIs from negative warmth behavioral sentences than negative competence behavioral sentences, whereas participants draw STIs from positive warmth behavioral sentences and from positive competence behavioral sentences equally. An original contribution made by our study is that we obtained the primacy-of-warmth effect on STIs, providing further evidence for the primacy-of-warmth effect in the domain of implicit social cognition.

The Moderating Effect of Psychological Contract Violation on the Relationship between Narcissism and Outcomes: An Application of Trait Activation Theory.

We use trait activation and psychological contracts theories to build the argument that narcissism is a personality trait that will manifest itself in the form of exit and neglect when employees experience psychological contract violation. To test our hypotheses, we surveyed 262 employees from a wide array of industries working in different organizations at two points in time. Our results indicate that violation moderated the relationship between narcissism and exit such that narcissistic employees who experienced high levels of violation had higher levels of exit. However, we did not find support for our prediction regarding neglect. The findings suggest that the importance of narcissism at work may be contingent on the situation. Our study contributes to research on narcissism in the workplace, trait activation theory, and the role that individual differences play in shaping employee responses to psychological contract violation.