Resumen de Do personality states predict momentary task performance?: The moderating role of personality variability

Jonas Debusscher, Joeri Hofmans, Filip De Fruyt

• We investigated how state neuroticism and state conscientiousness related to momentary task performance and tested whether these relationships were affected by the extent to which a person varies in his level of state neuroticism/conscientiousness across situations. We hypothesized that state neuroticism relates negatively, while state conscientiousness relates positively to momentary task performance. Moreover, for both personality dimensions, we expected the state personality–momentary task performance relationship to be stronger for employees who behave, feel, and think more consistently across situations. These hypotheses were tested using a 10-day experience sampling study in a large financial institution. Multilevel regression analyses revealed that state neuroticism related negatively and state conscientiousness positively to momentary task performance. Moreover, the relationship between state conscientiousness and momentary task performance was stronger for people lower in situational within-person conscientiousness variability. From a theoretical point of view, our findings suggest that personality states relate to momentary task performance and that this relationship is stronger for people low in situational within-person variability. From a practical point of view, they emphasize the importance of taking into account an employee's state personality levels and the variability herein, in addition to assessing his/her overall trait level of personality.

  Practitioner points Apart from the stable between-person differences in personality (i.e., personality traits), a recruiter should also gain insight into situation-related fluctuations in the candidate's personality states, which will allow the recruiter to determine how this candidate will perform in these situations.

  Recruiters should weigh the information they get from personality assessments differently for people showing low levels of situational within-person (personality) variability compared to those who are high in situational within-person (personality) variability.