“Big Five Personality Traits and Performance: A Quantitative Synthesis of 50+ Meta-Analyses”, 2021-10-23 (; similar):
Objective: The connection between personality traits and performance has fascinated scholars in a variety of disciplines for over a century. The present research synthesizes results from 54 meta-analyses (k = 2,028, n = 554,778) to examine the association of Big Five traits with overall performance.
Method: Quantitative aggregation procedures were used to assess the association of Big Five traits with performance, both overall and in specific performance categories.
Results: Whereas Conscientiousness yielded the strongest effect (ρ = 0.19), the remaining Big Five traits yielded comparable effects (ρ = 0.10, 0.10, −0.12, and 0.13 for Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, and Openness). These associations varied dramatically by performance category. Whereas Conscientiousness was more strongly associated with academic than job performance (0.28 vs 0.20), Extraversion (−0.01 vs 0.14) and Neuroticism (−0.03 vs −0.15) were less strongly associated with academic performance. Finally, associations of personality with specific performance outcomes largely replicated across independent meta-analyses.
Conclusion: Our comprehensive synthesis demonstrates that Big Five traits have robust associations with performance and documents how these associations fluctuate across personality and performance dimensions.