Research on personality structure has primarily focused on patterns of covariation between traits, and less emphasis has been put on the organization of relationships between thoughts, feelings and behaviors as they occur within individuals. Over several weeks 115 managers from large Australian companies were assessed multiple times a day employing experience-sampling methodology. Within- and between-person variation in personality responses was analyzed using hierarchical linear modeling and correlation analyses. Findings indicate that analyzing personality as a within-person phenomenon reveals information not well captured by the trait approach. While conscientiousness and neuroticism were negatively correlated at the between-person level, this relationship was reversed at the within-person level. Results are discussed in terms of the distinctness of the within- and between-person structure of personality.
The study of personality structure has long been an important topic in personality research. Much of this research has focused on between-person differences in personality traits and the patterns of covariation among these traits (e.g., McCrae & Costa, 1997). Less emphasis has been put on the organization of relationships between thoughts, feelings and behaviors as they occur within individuals (see Cervone, 2005). However, there is growing evidence that within-person variability (a) represents a large part of the total variability observed in personality responses, (b) is systematic, and, importantly, (c) coexists with between-person stability in these variables (e.g., Fleeson, 2001). In this paper we provide empirical evidence for the distinctness of the between-person and the within-person structure of personality by studying the inter-relationship between two major personality dimensions, neuroticism and conscientiousness, at both the between- and within-person levels of analysis.
This paper makes three contributions. First, it investigates whether the negative neuroticism–conscientiousness relationship observed in between-person studies is merely a description of differences between individuals, or whether it also characterizes the internal psychological structure that individuals possess. Second, by studying the co-variability of two personality dimensions over time and situations this paper draws conclusions about the structure of personality as it unfolds within individuals. This is important, as until recently there has been a strong reliance in the study of personality on between-person analyses; however, between-person analyses provide little insight into the psychological functioning of the individual (Borsboom, Mellenbergh, & Heerden, 2003). Finally, it provides evidence for the generalisability of previous findings on within-person variability in personality responses to non-student samples, and discusses applications of a within-person approach to the study of personality in organizational settings.
Prior studies on within-person variability in personality responses (Borkenau and Ostendorf, 1998, Fleeson, 2001 and Fleeson, 2007) have been limited to student samples in university settings, which typically allow for greater opportunity for expression of personality throughout the day than more structured work environments. It is, therefore, not clear to what extent these findings generalize to non-student samples. We study the relationship between neuroticism and conscientiousness in a sample of experienced managers operating in their natural organizational work environments, using experience-sampling methodology.
We concentrate on neuroticism and conscientiousness for three main reasons: (a) Among the personality dimensions neuroticism and conscientiousness have been shown to have the highest predictive validity in regard to work outcome variables, such as job performance, and, hence, are of high relevance in a work context (Barrick and Mount, 1991 and Barrick and Mount, 2000); (b) The dimensions of neuroticism and conscientiousness refer to affective components (e.g., feeling frustrated) and work-related motivational and behavioral components (e.g., investing effort) that can be expected to vary across different situations at work; (c) Neuroticism and conscientiousness have been shown to be substantially negatively correlated at the between-person level of analysis (Mount, Barrick, Scullen, & Rounds, 2005). The appropriateness of a within-person interpretation for the between-person finding – i.e. when an individual experiences greater neurotic tendencies he or she also tends to act less conscientiously – has not been tested directly.
In our approach we follow Borsboom et al.’s (2003) call for more research on the similarities and differences between the between-person and the within-person structure of psychological constructs. The implicit assumption that the statistical relationship between traits represents the same relationship between associated states observed over time within a person needs to be tested. This is because statistically, any type of relationship at the between-person level can coexist with any type of relationship at the within-person level of analysis (Nezlek, 2001, Schmitz, 2006 and Tennen and Affleck, 1996). Specifically, within a work context with accountabilities and rewards at risk high levels of negative affect (e.g., as a result of working towards deadlines) may be positively related to conscientious behaviors, such as level of effort.
In the next paragraphs we elaborate on the between-person relationship between neuroticism and conscientiousness. We discuss reasons as to why the two personality dimensions might be related, even though conceptually this is not expected. We then move onto findings at the within-person level of analysis that might give some indication about the relationship between state indicators of neuroticism and conscientiousness.
