Revisiting the personality-performance link: A dynamical systems approach (FWOAL751)

Studies on the personality-performance relationship have traditionally focused on relating stable individual differences in habitual patterns of behavior, thought, and emotion (i.e., personality traits) to stable individual differences in habitual patterns of performance (i.e., overall performance). Whereas this approach has undoubtedly advanced our understanding of the relationship between personality and performance, it is at odds with a recent call in the literature to conceptualize personality in a more dynamic and integrative way. In the present proposal, we respond to this call by developing the PersDyn model (Personality Dynamics model), a novel theoretical framework that not only describes individual differences in (a) habitual pattern of behavior, thought, and emotion (i.e., baseline level), but also in (b) the extent to which behaviors, thoughts, and emotions vary (i.e., level of variability), and in (c) the swiftness with which they are pulled back in the direction of the baseline once they have deviated from it (i.e., attractor strength). Building on this dynamical systems framework, we propose a series of diary and experience sampling studies that examine how baseline Neuroticism (N) and conscientiousness (C), the level of variability in N and C, and attractor strength of N and C relate to habitual (i.e., overall performance) and dynamic (i.e., baseline task performance, performance variability, and performance attractor strength) indices of task performance.

Keywords:non-profit organisations, talent management, rating scales, sleep, social neuroscience, attention, implicit learning

Disciplines:Social psychology not elsewhere classified