D.The Big Five Model - Motivation Theory

1. An impressive body of research supports that five basic dimensions underlie all other personality dimensions. The five basic dimensions are:

a. Extroversion. Comfort level with relationships. Extroverts tend to be gregarious,

assertive, and sociable. Introverts tend to be reserved, timid, and quiet.

b. Agreeableness. Individual’s propensity to defer to others. High agreeableness people— cooperative, warm, and trusting. Low agreeableness people—cold,

disagreeable, and antagonistic.

c. Conscientiousness. A measure of reliability. A high conscientious person is responsible, organized, dependable, and persistent. Those who score low on this dimension are easily distracted, disorganized, and unreliable.

d. Emotional stability. A person’s ability to withstand stress. People with positive emotional stability tend to be calm, self-confident, and secure. Those with high negative scores tend to be nervous, anxious, depressed, and insecure.

e. Openness to experience. The range of interests and fascination with novelty. Extremely open people are creative, curious, and artistically sensitive. Those at the other end of the openness category are conventional and find comfort in the familiar.

2. Research found important relationships between these personality dimensions and job

performance.

a. A broad spectrum of occupations was examined in addition to job performance ratings, training proficiency (performance during training programs), and personnel data such as salary level.

b. The results showed that conscientiousness predicted job performance for all occupational groups.

c. Individuals who are dependable, reliable, careful, thorough, able to plan, organized, hardworking, persistent, and achievement-oriented tend to have higher job performance.

d. Employees higher in conscientiousness develop higher levels of job knowledge.

e. Strong and consistent relationship between conscientiousness and organizational

citizenship behavior (OCB)

f. For the other personality dimensions, predictability depended upon both the

performance criterion and the occupational group.

g. Extroversion predicted performance in managerial and sales positions.

h. Openness to experience is important in predicting training proficiency.