Conference Proceedings

2009 BPS Annual Conference

Conference Venue: Holiday Inn, Brighton Seafront
British Psychological Society

From: 01 Apr 2009
To: 03 Apr 2009

 
Peer-Reviewed

Personality and psychological contracts

C. Heard
University of Hertfordshire

C. George
University of Hertfordshire


It is increasingly acknowledged that fundamental to an understanding of the workplace is the idea that some form of exchange occurs between parties in an employment relationship (Hecker & Grimmer, 2006) [7]. Also, the nature of this exchange process can have a strong influence on organisational outcomes (Rousseau 1989). Progressively, attention is being turned toward the psychological aspects of this employment relationship. Whilst the concept of the psychological contract was first identified in the 1960s, it is only in more recent decades that conceptual and empirical work has advanced on the subject (e.g. Millward & Hopkins, 1998 [7], Rousseau, 1989, Shore & Coyle-Shapiro, 2003 [7]), particularly in response to perceived implications of globalisation and organisational restructuring on the nature of employment and work. Authors have continued to debate how current employment trends, typically characterized by an increase in short-term employment contracts and a loss of job security, have resulted in a ‘redefinition of career expectations and of the nature of the employment relationship’ (Grimmer & Oddy 2007, para. 1). The primary research question was therefore whether there is a relationship between personality type and perceptions of psychological contracts, specifically between transactional contracts and the traits of Neuroticism and Openness and relational contracts and Extraversion, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. The study was a cross sectional correlational design using on-line questionnaries to assess both personality type and type f psychlogical cntract.The study found support for the hypothesis which predicted that in general there would be a relationship between Neuroticism and transactional contract scores. In fact, Neuroticism correlated positively with transactional scores and this was significant at the 0.01 level. These findings therefore support the theory that neurotics may not be likely to seek long term commitments and therefore may focus on more transactional elements of a role. The study also upheld the hypotheses which predicted that there would be a relationship between the traits of Extraversion, Conscientiousness and Agreeableness and relational contract scores. Extraversion correlated positively with relational scores and this was significant at the 0.01 level. These findings support the general theory that extraverts may look beyond the transactional elements of an employment contract for status and recognition. Extraversion also correlated negatively with transactional scores. Higher relational scores correlated positively with Conscientiousness scores, although this was significant at the 0.05 level. Again, these results support the theory which suggests that conscientious individuals tend to focus more on task accomplishment than material gain, so may be more likely to see their psychological contracts as relational. Again, Conscientiousness correlated negatively with transactional scores. Finally, higher relational scores positively correlated with higher Agreeableness scores, significant at the 0.01 level. Therefore this supports the theory that the Agreeableness personality trait encompasses higher levels of trust and modesty, which take time and require relationships to build. However, as researchers are not all convinced of the strength of this personality trait, further research would be required in order to confirm a link. Once again, Agreeableness correlated negatively with transactional scores.The hypothesis which stated that there would be a relationship between Openness and transactional contracts was also supported by a significant finding, as in fact this trait correlated positively with relational contracts and negatively with transactional contracts, although the latter was not significant. This finding is arguably surprising, as it could be thought that transactional contracts would be more preferable to those who enjoy new experiences, although one potential argument could be that relational contracts give opportunities to grow and try new experiences within the same organisation. From an academic perspective, the results are arguably not unexpected, given that this trait is the least universally acknowledged and therefore researched. Finally, the study did find that there was a relationship between a number of individual statements on the PCTI and personality traits. In particular, ten separate relational statements correlated at the 0.01 level with Extraversion, eight with Openness, five with Agreeableness and six with Conscientiousness. Those which correlated significantly with a number of traits tended to focus on personal responsibility and attachment to the organisation. The findings in general were arguably logical. For example, statements with a focus on the employability and value of the employee to the organisation correlated strongly with the trait of Extraversion which itself includes focusing on status and recognition. Also, conscientious individuals tended to score more highly on working hard and taking personal responsibility. Those with a more agreeable nature made personal sacrifices and were personally attached to the role and neurotics didn’t feel the company looked after then sufficiently. It is again only the trait of Openness which shows some potentially surprising results, with significant correlations to high personal commitment to the company and protecting the company’s image. Further research is therefore required in order to better understand any real significance of this correlation.