As a senior graduating this May, I’ve been fixated on finding that perfect job to kick off my career. Applying to jobs and graduate programs has required me to do some soul searching to find out what kind of person I am – Am I extraverted? Do I enjoy working in groups or alone? And the list goes on. As it turns out, answering these questions may be more important than I previously thought.
A recent longitudinal study conducted by George, Helson, and John (2011) studied a sample of 123 women, who, at 21, were all college students given personality tests to determine levels of Extraversion, Openness, and Conscientiousness. Researchers followed up with the women at ages 27, 43, 52, and 61 to examine how measures of personality at age 21 could predict the timing of work, the kinds of jobs chosen, the status and satisfaction with work, and continued work and financial status later in life. This study was embedded within a unique social and historical context. In the mid-60s, when these women were entering the workforce, there were rigid gender stereotypes that rendered many women unable to live up to their full potential in the workforce and instead were expect to marry young, have children, and work in the home. Therefore, in early adulthood, effects of personality on work variables were not seen. However, by the time women were 43, times had changed a bit and the personality predictors followed theory, for the most part.
The results (below) from the study suggest that women with high degrees of the respective personality measures predict some interesting characteristics of work life and career choices:
Extraversion: Work in pursuit of rewards.
- Predicted the choice of enterprising and social work.
- Predicted high occupational creativity, likely through ambition, assertiveness, and interest in external rewards.
- Often rewarded by attaining higher status levels and greater work satisfaction.
- More likely to be self-employed and rate work as part of their identity.
Openness: Work as self-actualization.
- Related negatively to traditional female role commitments of wife and mother.
- Predicted nontraditional relationships, such as living with a female partners.
- The only significant predictor of graduate education obtained by age 43.
- Predicted the choice of artistic and investigative work, and self-employment.
- Positively related to status level at 52 (unexpected result), most likely through creativity.
Conscientiousness: Work as a duty.
- Later start in the work force, probably because of the social context and the encouragement of women as housewives.
- Higher rates of staying in the home and lower rates of divorce.
- Likely to rate work as part of their identity and maintain career.
- Negatively correlated with leadership roles and potential for advancement.
- More likely to marry partners who work more and are more financially secure.
Where we stand at 21 personality-wise is predictive of the types of jobs we pursue, our satisfaction from work, and our characteristics of our family lives. If you’re planning to enter the working world soon, I encourage you to take some time for self-reflection and see where others with your personality most often end up. For example, I’d identify myself as very extraverted and open, which turns out to be good news because the joint presence of extraversion and openness seems to predispose individuals to high levels of achievement in creative occupations. Knowing this now encourages me to seek jobs that will allow me to develop personally, achieve success, and find satisfaction with work even into retirement. For those of you who find yourselves unhappy with what this study discovered, you should continue to aspire to achieve your goals regardless of personality, but it may be important to recognize the importance of becoming more open or displaying more characteristics of extraversion in the workplace if you're interested in gaining positions typically acquired by extroverted and open individuals.
A caveat: these results demonstrate only a relationship between personality traits and workplace characteristics- there is no causal relationship. This means that there is no 100% guarantee that conscientious women will end up in repetitive jobs with no opportunity for leadership, or that extraverted women will end up in high-status, high paying positions. Our values, morals, motivations, and even luck, also greatly weigh into our career choices and opportunities.
- Amelia Russo
George, L. G., Helson, R., John, O. P. (2011). The "CEO" of women's work lives: How big five conscientiousness, extraversion, and openness predict 50 years of work experiences in a changing sociocultural context. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101, 812-830.
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