Personality change following unemployment.

Abstract

Unemployment has a strongly negative influence on well-being, but it is unclear whether it also alters basic personality traits. Whether personality changes arise through natural maturation processes or contextual/environmental factors is still a matter of debate. Unemployment, a relatively unexpected and commonly occurring life event, may shed light on the relevance of context for personality change. We examined, using a latent change model, the influence of unemployment on the five-factor model of personality in a sample of 6,769 German adults, who completed personality measures at 2 time points 4 years apart. All participants were employed at the first time point, and a subset became unemployed over the course of the study. By the second time point, participants had either remained in employment, been unemployed from 1 to 4 years, or had experienced some unemployment but become reemployed. Compared with those who had remained in employment, unemployed men and women experienced significant patterns of change in their mean levels of agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness, whereas reemployed individuals experienced limited change. The results indicate that unemployment has wider psychological implications than previously thought. In addition, the results are consistent with the view that personality changes as a function of contextual and environmental factors.

Involuntary job loss and changes in personality traits

“…The finding that job loss significantly increases an individual's openness score contrasts previous findings that identify no change in personality traits after life events such as unemployment, divorce, and marriage (Boyce et al, 2015;Schurer, 2012, 2013;Specht et al, 2011). However, unlike previous studies, we restrict our sample to working individuals without any unemployment experience and focus on an exogenous life event, and therefore, we are able to identify causal effects.…”

“…Previous studies identified rather small or no changes in individuals' personality traits, while looking at the average stability of personality traits (Boyce et al, 2015;Cobb-Clark and Schurer, 2012;Specht et al, 2011). Average changes in the population analyzed in previous studies may have absorbed strong effects that are valid only for a fraction of the working-age population.…”

“…They also show that changes in personality traits differ if an individual remained unemployed or had re-entered employment after job loss. However, the study by Boyce et al (2015) cannot rule out reverse causality because prior unemployment experiences that may affect personality traits are not controlled for and because unemployment may be induced by a worker's (change in) personality traits.…”

“…While Specht et al (2011) and Cobb-Clark and Schurer (2012, 2013 look at different life events, including one's first job, marriage, childbirth, and unemployment, Boyce et al (2015) examine solely the influence of unemployment on changes in personality traits using SOEP data. They look at mean-level changes and take into account both the incidence and duration of unemployment.…”

“…Third, we advance findings for Germany (Specht et al (2011) and Boyce et al (2015)) by utilizing an identification strategy that allows us to estimate causal effects. The general unemployment status and any other types of job loss may be endogenous, and individuals' personality traits may be affected by previous unemployment history.…”