Beyond personality traits: A study of personality states and situational contingencies in customer service jobs

Abstract

Although the interactionist approach has been applied to understanding situational influences on the expression of personality at work, examination of within-person variation in personality trait expression in the workplace is lacking. Using experience sampling methodology, this study examined the moment-to-moment influences of situational characteristics on personality states (i.e., situational contingencies) during social interactions on 56 customer service employees over 10 days at work. At the within-individual level, state Conscientiousness was associated with the immediacy of the task, and state Extraversion and Agreeableness were associated with the friendliness of the other party in the interaction. At the between-individual level, self-monitoring did not moderate the associations between situational characteristics and personality states but predicted the mean level of state Conscientiousness at work over and above trait Conscientiousness. Contrary to expectations, the relationship between state Extraversion and friendliness was weaker in customized service jobs than in noncustomized ones. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.