How Personality Affects Wages

Salary Wages and Personality

Personality has been studied to see the effects it has on one’s personality. A study conducted by Daniel Spurk and Andrea Abele, investigated the multiple indirect effects that the Five Factor model of personality had on a professional’s annual salary, while putting into consideration any relevant mediators. The study used a longitudinal survey following 432 participants, covering three points of measurement; personality, mediators (career advancement goals/ self-efficacy) and annual salary (Spurk and Abele, 2011). It took place over 4 years and followed professionals in the early stages of their careers, aged 30-35 (Spurk and Abele, 2011). Findings showed that the big five personality traits had an indirect influence on salary excluding that of one; Openness. Career advancement goals were positively influenced by Conscientiousness and Extraversion, while Agreeableness negatively did so (Spurk and Abele, 2011). Occupational self efficacy was found to be mediated by Neuroticism as well as Conscientiousness. Neuroticism was observed having a negative correlation, while conscientiousness had a positive one (Spurk and Abele, 2011). This meant that Conscientiousness and Extraversion have an indirect positive impact on one’s salary while Agreeableness and Neuroticism have an indirect negative impact. These findings are similar to that of other researchers.

Adrian Furnham and Helen Cheng did a study on factors that influence adult earnings, and found results similar to that of Spurk and Abele, both useing a longitudinal study to test their hypotheses. But instead of covering 4 years of ones’ latter life, Furnham and Cheng looked at ones’ personality at three different stages in their lives; first at birth,...

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...could be because the Netherlands is largely unionised and wages are previously negotiated and determined. Meaning that employers are limited to the amount that wages can be distributed based on personality (Nyhus and Pons, 2005). This suggests that further research is needed in wage gap differences between countries and types of goverments.

In conclusion personality traits have been proven to have an effect on one’s salary. This is because certain personality traits are better suited for certain job occupations. And the result of one’s personality directing them towards occupation’s which complement their lifestyle. However there is room for more research to be conducted. Like testing cross cultural and governmental differences to help better understand the connections as to why personality traits are represented (or lack of) differently in various job contexts.