Personality Strength and Situational Influences on Behavior

Abstract

Notwithstanding a recent flurry of organizational research on the construct of "situational strength," research on the other side of the coin-"personality strength"-has rarely been conducted in organizational settings, has been scattered across multiple disciplines, has been called different things by different researchers, and has not yet been used to test theoretical propositions paralleling those in recent organizational research on situational strength. In the present review, drawing from several disparate research literatures (e.g., situational strength, personality states, traitedness, cross-situational consistency, scalability, appropriateness, selfmonitoring, interpersonal dependency, hardiness, attitude strength, and self-concept clarity), we (a) define personality strength and contrast it with personality trait, personality strengths (plural), and layperson conceptualizations of the terms "strong personality" and "weak personality," (b) briefly discuss the history of research related to personality strength, (c) identify a common prediction, emanating largely independently from several literatures, regarding the interactive effect of personality traits and personality strength on behavior, (d) articulate three novel predictions regarding the impact of personality strength on within-person situational and

Integrating Personality and Social Networks: A Meta-Analysis of Personality, Network Position, and Work Outcomes in Organizations

“…The finding that self-monitoring played a significant role in predicting indegree centrality and brokerage after controlling for the Big Five traits extends prior studies that neglected to take into account the Big Five personality variables (e.g., Mehra et al 2001. As such, our meta-analysis provides further insights into self-monitoring theory by establishing this personality variable as a distinct construct from the Big Five traits in the field of social network research, thereby responding to a recent call in the management literature for self-monitoring to be differentiated from extraversion (Dalal et al 2015). Further, our meta-analysis also advances knowledge concerning how the Big Five personality factors, which still receive limited scholarly attention in social network research, affect people's attainment of structurally advantageous network positions.…”

“…Integrating and differentiating these two approaches to personality enriches our understanding of how personality relates to the occupation of key network positions. In particular, we address the apparent confusion between the traits of selfmonitoring and extraversion noted in a recent review (Dalal et al 2015). In the social network domain, our research helps clarify whether network advantage inheres in indegree centrality (the number of incoming ties an individual receives from others) or brokerage (the extent to which an individual is connected to people or clusters of people who are not connected) , Burt 2005.…”

Revisiting the neuroticism – performance link: A dynamic approach to individual differences

“…In response to this, personality scholars are increasingly adopting an integrative approach to personality. According to this approach, personality should not be equated with a set of scores on several trait dimensions, but attention should also be given to momentary expressions of those traits (Dalal et al , ; DeYoung, ; Fleeson, ; Furr, ; Shoda, LeeTiernan, & Mischel, ; Vallacher, Nowak, Froehlich, & Rockloff, ).…”

“…Research shows that people not only differ in their baseline, but also in the consistency of their trait‐relevant behaviours (Dalal et al , ). Moreover, individual differences in variability in trait‐relevant behaviour appear to be stable over time and can therefore be used to characterize individuals (Jones, Brown, Serfass, & Sherman, ), whereas personality variability has generally been found to be independent from the baseline, neuroticism is an exception to this rule as it is intrinsically linked with behavioural, cognitive and affective consistency by definition.…”

Supplier Development for Sustainability: Contextual Barriers in Global Supply Chains

“…Strong situations provide signals related to requirements, thereby restricting the range of appropriate behaviors and leaving little room for individual deviation in situations in which people with different personalities and cultural backgrounds are involved (Meyer et al, 2010). Situational strength can be fostered through incentives and sanctions (Dalal et al, 2015). Therefore, extant inter-organizational SDS measures, such as monetary incentives (e.g., contract prolongations or purchase volume increases), non-monetary awards and recognitions, a shared mission, and common goals (Wagner, 2006;Routroy and Pradhan, 2013), also create situational strength.…”