The Big Five Personality Dimensions and Counterproductive Behaviors

TLDR

Little systematic research has examined whether the Big Five predict counterproductive behaviors such as absenteeism, accidents, deviant behaviors, and turnover. Meta‑analysis reveals that conscientiousness predicts deviant behaviors and turnover, extroversion, openness, agreeableness, and emotional stability predict turnover, yet none of the Big Five predict absenteeism or accidents.

Abstract

Little systematic research on personality measures has been directed at investigating whether the Big Five are predictors of counterproductive behaviors such as absenteeism, accidents, deviant behaviors, and turnover. For example, published meta‐analyses did not investigate whether the Big Five personality factors predicted these criteria. The results of the meta‐analyses carried out here showed that conscientiousness predicted deviant behaviors and turnover, and extroversion, openness, agreeableness and emotional stability predicted the turnover criterion. However, none of the Big Five personality measures were found to be predictors of absenteeism or accidents. The implications of these findings for future research and practice are discussed.