If personality is stable, does this mean that it does not change? You probably remember how you have changed and evolved as a result of your ownlife experiences, parenting style and attention you have received in early childhood, successes and failures you experienced over the course of your life, andother life events. In fact, personality does change over long periods of time. For example, we tend to become more socially dominant, more conscientious(organized and dependable), and more emotionally stable between the ages of 20 and 40, whereas openness to new experiences tends to decline as weage.Roberts, B. W., Walton, K. E., & Viechtbauer, W. (2006). Patterns of mean-level change in personality traits across the life course: A meta-analysis oflongitudinal studies. Psychological Bulletin, 132, 1–25. In other words, even though we treat personality as relatively stable, change occurs. Moreover, evenin childhood, our personality matters, and it has lasting consequences for us. For example, studies show that part of our career success and job satisfactionlater in life can be explained by our childhood personality.Judge, T. A., & Higgins, C. A. (1999). The big five personality traits, general mental ability, andcareer success across the life span. Personnel Psychology, 52, 621–652; Staw, B. M., Bell, N. E., & Clausen, J. A. (1986). The dispositional approach to jobattitudes: A lifetime longitudinal test. Administrative Science Quarterly, 31, 56–77.Is our behavior in organizations dependent on our personality? To some extent, yes, and to some extent, no. While we will discuss the effects ofpersonality for employee behavior, you must remember that the relationships we describe are modest correlations. For example, having a sociable andoutgoing personality may encourage people to seek friends and prefer social situations. This does not mean that their personality will immediately affect theirwork behavior. At work, we have a job to do and a role to perform. Therefore, our behavior may be more strongly affected by what is expected of us, asopposed to how we want to behave. Especially in jobs that involve a lot of autonomy, or freedom, personality tends to exert a strong influence on workbehavior,Barrick, M. R., & Mount, M. K. (1993). Autonomy as a moderator of the relationships between the big five personality dimensions and jobperformance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78, 111–118.something to consider when engaging in Organizing activities such as job design or enrichment.
