Five-factor model of personality and job satisfaction: A meta-analysis.
verifiedrich profile · Journal of Applied Psychology · 2002
Judge, Timothy A.; Heller, Daniel; Mount, Michael K.
How this was studied
A meta-analytic synthesis — it pools many primary studies rather than running a single design, so there is no single-study diagram.
What this article reports
The findings we extracted from this work, normalized into Principia’s relationship form (X → Y). Each feeds the synthesized models below.
extraversion → job satisfaction
agreeableness → job satisfaction
conscientiousness → job satisfaction
Models this article informs
The meta-analytic priors this article contributes evidence to — its place in the broader synthesis.
agreeableness predicts job satisfaction
conscientiousness predicts job satisfaction
extraversion predicts job satisfaction
neuroticism predicts job satisfaction
In the authors’ words
The article’s own abstract.
This study reports results of a meta-analysis linking traits from the 5-factor model of personality to overall job satisfaction. Using the model as an organizing framework, 334 correlations from 163 independent samples were classified according to the model. The estimated true score correlations with job satisfaction were -.29 for Neuroticism, .25 for Extraversion, .02 for Openness to Experience, .17 for Agreeableness, and .26 for Conscientiousness. Results further indicated that only the relations of Neuroticism and Extraversion with job satisfaction generalized across studies. As a set, the Big Five traits had a multiple correlation of .41 with job satisfaction, indicating support for the validity of the dispositional source of job satisfaction when traits are organized according to the 5-factor model.
What the literature says about it
Attributed, open-access quotes from other works that cite this article, plus the citation-graph verdict tally. Corroborations and disputes, in one place — the honest-broker view.
supports “For example, personality trait conscientiousness predicts both job satisfaction (Judge et al., 2002) and performance (e.”
supports “This demonstrates the importance of the Big Five Personality (Hui-Fang, 2007; Ian et al., 2009), i.e., the dimensions of conscientiousness and agreeableness in playing a key role to act as determinants of an individual’s job satisfaction (Judge et al., 2002; Klaus, 2012; Christopher et al., 2014).”
supports “For instance, neuroticism is the strongest negative predictor of job satisfaction (Judge et al., 2002) and a threat to marital happiness or marital satisfaction (Karney & Bradbury, 1997; Sayehmiri et al., 2020).”
supports “Connolly and Viswesvaran (2000) and Judge et al. (2002) showed that extraversion and conscientiousness are positively related to job satisfaction, whereas neuroticism is negatively associated with job satisfaction.”
supports “Regarding subjective career success, Judge, Heller, and Mount (2002) reported that agreeableness had positive relations with job satisfaction, and a similar pattern of results was found by Ng et al. (2005).”
supports “This demonstrates the importance of the Big Five Personality (Hui-Fang, 2007; Ian et al., 2009), i.e., the dimensions of conscientiousness and agreeableness in playing a key role to act as determinants of an individual’s job satisfaction (Judge et al., 2002; Klaus, 2012; Christopher et al., 2014).”
supports “Research has found that individuals high in Conscientiousness tend to experience higher levels of job satisfaction [4,19,26,28,29,36].”
supports “Connolly and Viswesvaran (2000) and Judge et al. (2002) showed that extraversion and conscientiousness are positively related to job satisfaction, whereas neuroticism is negatively associated with job satisfaction.”
supports “Connolly and Viswesvaran (2000) and Judge et al. (2002) showed that extraversion and conscientiousness are positively related to job satisfaction, whereas neuroticism is negatively associated with job satisfaction.”
supports “Judge et al. (2002) find in a meta-analysis of studies in this realm that the five factors as a group were significant predictors of job satisfaction across multiple independent occupational samples, with extraversion and neuroticism being the most consistent findings across all groups.”
supports “The negative associations found between Neuroticism and areas of job satisfaction seemed to be consistent in studies regarding the association between Neuroticism and overall job satisfaction [4,19,26,28,29,36].”
supports “, [4,19,26,28,29,36]) and achieve satisfaction in comparison to those who score low in Agreeableness.”
supports “Research has found that Extraversion is negatively associated with job satisfaction [19,26,28,29,36].”
supports “Thus the abundance of neuroticism in individuals with mental health problems is likely to be one of the main factors for lower job satisfaction in line with previous findings [11, 12, 30].”
Ancillary research
Neighbouring works in the citation graph around this article.
- 10.5964/ejop.4075
- 10.6007/ijarbss/v13-i9/18894
- 10.5114/cipp/159942
- 10.1177/21582440241249887
- 10.1080/03004430.2017.1314275
- 10.54729/2789-8296.1043
- 10.3390/bs13060445
- 10.1177/00910260221114788
- 10.2139/ssrn.3991929
- 10.1177/14034948221119639
Assembled from Principia’s registry — bibliographic record, extracted effect sizes, the models they inform, and open-access citing literature.