An investigation of the personality traits of scientists versus nonscientists and their relationship with career satisfaction

Lounsbury, John W.; Foster, Nancy A.; Patel, Hemali Rakesh; Carmody, Patrick; Gibson, Lucy W.; Stairs, Deborah R.

doi:10.1111/j.1467-9310.2011.00665.x

Cited by 66 publications

(66 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…Our findings suggest those in physical sciences differ in how comfortable they feel in social situations. Scientists have been found to prefer solitary activities (Feist, 2006;Feist, 2013;Wilson & Jackson, 1994), which may stem from their non-affiliative behavior and inclination toward introversion (Lounsbury et al, 2012). This lack of social interest and gravitation away from social activities may explain our largest findings with social skills and cognitive empathy.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 59%

“…Scientists have been found to prefer to be left alone (Feist, 2013;Wilson & Jackson, 1994). In fact, people in science related fields were more prone towards introversion rather than extraversion and being generally outgoing (Feist, 1998;Lounsbury et al, 2012). Thus, this focus toward solitary activities may stifle an interest in other people, possibly explaining empathy differences between physical science and other subjects; however, this may generalize to all science-related fields, which encourage similar types of activities.…”

Section: Empathy and Sciencementioning

confidence: 74%

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Empathy or science? Empathy explains physical science enrollment for men and women

Thomson

Wurtzburg

Centifanti

2015

Learning and Individual Differences

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Citation for published item:homsonD xFhF nd urtzurgD F nd gentifnti @n¡ ee wu£ nozAD vFgF @PHISA 9impthy or sienec impthy explins physil siene enrollment for men nd womenF9D verning nd individul di'erenesFD RH F ppF IISEIPHF Further information on publisher's website: httpXGGdxFdoiForgGIHFIHITGjFlindifFPHISFHRFHHQ Publisher's copyright statement: NOTICE: this is the author's version of a work that was accepted for publication in Learning and Individual Dierences. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A denitive version was subsequently published in Learning and Individual Dierences, 40, May 2015, 10.1016/j.lindif.2015.003. Additional information:Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Those in the physical sciences work to understand relationships among non-social entities and this may come at a cost to their understanding of social relationships. Alternatively, it could be that those in the physical sciences differ in how comfortable they feel in social situations. Prior research had been confined to looking at differences between particular subject majors (e.g., humanities) and physical sciences, leaving open the possibility that people choosing subjects like psychology or biology might differ on empathy. University students (N=404) majoring in humanities, social science, life science, or physical science completed the Empathy Quotient (EQ). Confirmatory factor analysis showed threefactors of the EQ, and these were used in multinomial logistic regression. Empathy differences made a unique contribution to explaining subject major choice. We found that greater levels of empathy predicted membership in social and life sciences, while lower levels of empathy predicted physical sciences enrollment.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 59%

Section: Empathy and Sciencementioning

confidence: 74%

Empathy or science? Empathy explains physical science enrollment for men and women

Thomson

Wurtzburg

Centifanti

2015

Learning and Individual Differences

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“…Loundsbury et al (2012) argue that technically oriented professionals are open to new and radical ideas, very willing to experiment, enjoy variety of tasks, and are inclined to seek out novel experiences. RBSE should be related to overall positive mood because people tend to be more expansive in their thinking and behavior when their mood is positive.…”

Section: Theory and Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emotional and social competencies and perceptions of the interpersonal environment of an organization as related to the engagement of IT professionals

Pittenger

2015

Front. Psychol.

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There is a dearth of research focused on the engagement of information technology (IT) professionals. This study analyzed the relationship between emotional and social competencies and the quality of the IT professional’s perceptions of the interpersonal environment in an organization as they relate to employee engagement. Validated instruments were used and data was collected from 795 IT professionals in North America to quantitatively analyze the relationship between emotional and social competencies, role breadth self-efficacy (RBSE), with the quality of the IT professional’s perceptions of the interpersonal environment, and those perceptions with employee engagement. The study results indicate that specific emotional and social competencies and RBSE relate differently to the quality of the perceptions of the interpersonal environment. The study also reveals how the quality of the IT professional’s perceptions of the interpersonal environment relates to how much they engage in the organization. The findings indicate that the relationship between achievement orientation and the perceived interpersonal environment was positive and the relationship between influencing others and the perceived interpersonal environment was negative. Understanding such relationships offers much needed insight to practitioners and can benefit organizations that wish to increase the engagement of their IT professionals. The findings also can support practitioners to more effectively select and develop talent with the desired motives and traits. By doing so, organizations can experience increased employee satisfaction, engagement, and retention, resulting in higher productivity, quality, and profitability.

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“…A conscientious employee can be expected to be organized, orderly, methodical, detail-minded, dependable, and rule-following way -all of which are required to some degree for IT work. On the other hand, many IT functions, including programming, systems design, troubleshooting, and developing innovative applications, call for flexibility, creativity, and non-routine problem-solving, which are characteristic of low-conscientiousness individuals (LePine, Colquitt, & Erez, 2000;Lounsbury. Foster, Patel, Carmody, Gibson, & Stairs, 2012).…”

Section: Conscientiousnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distinctive Personality Traits of Information Technology Professionals

Lounsbury¹,

Sundstrom²,

Levy³

et al. 2014

CIS

Self Cite

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Drawing on Holland's (1985) vocational theory, Schneider's (1987) ASA model, and the Big Five / narrow traits model of personality, the present study examined key Big Five and narrow traits that distinguish 12,695 IT professionals from 73,140 individuals in other occupations. IT professionals had significantly higher levels of agreeableness and tough-mindedness, and lower conscientiousness, emotional stability, extraversion, assertiveness, customer service orientation, optimism, and work drive. These findings reinforce the functional value and person-occupation fit of this distinctive trait profile for the work of IT professionals in an era of technological and organizational change. Implications are described for future research as well as the recruitment, selection, management and promotion of IT professionals, as well as their training, development, coaching, and mentoring.

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An investigation of the personality traits of scientists versus nonscientists and their relationship with career satisfaction

Cited by 66 publications

References 55 publications

Empathy or science? Empathy explains physical science enrollment for men and women

Empathy or science? Empathy explains physical science enrollment for men and women

Emotional and social competencies and perceptions of the interpersonal environment of an organization as related to the engagement of IT professionals

Distinctive Personality Traits of Information Technology Professionals

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