Given the large economic and social costs of work-related accidents and injuries, it is not surprising that organisations strive to reduce them; this creates a need to improve the safety performance of the whole construction industry. Health and Safety statistics in general appear to suggest a levelling off of safety performance across the construction industry as a whole and this implies that improving safety beyond the current level of attainment calls for a radical look at how safety is addressed by the industry. Such a radical approach needs to explore alternatives to current practices in safety improvement. Although it is acknowledged that human factors are involved in 80-90% of work-related accidents and incidents, the focus of safety research in recent years still addresses only organisational and environmental factors, rather than variables at the level of the individual. Occupational personality models suggest that the ability to understand, predict and control incidents could minimize their potential transition into accidents. The safety behaviour of the individual worker forms part of such occupational personality modelling. Understanding the safety behaviour of construction workers should provide opportunities for improvement beyond traditional practices in the quest to improve safety management. The study on which this thesis is based aimed to develop a conceptual framework for improving safety performance on sites. This was achieved by exploring, on the one hand, the relationship between the personality traits of individual workers and their safety behaviour (safety participation, safety compliance and safety motivation), and incident rates on the other. The data for the analysis was drawn from multi-cultural construction workers in Saudi Arabia. The emergence of the Big Five personality model has been widely accepted as a valid and reasonably generalisable taxonomy for personality structure and has been used by numerous researchers as a framework to explore the criterion-related validity of personality in relation to job performance. This study employed the Big Five categorisation of traits to explore the relationship between fundamental dimensions of personality and potential for involvement in accidents and incidents. The principal findings from the study showed a very good level of acceptance by practitioners in Saudi Arabia for the conceptual framework developed for managing safety behaviour. The study also established that some personality traits moderated the effects of safety behaviour for incident rates. In addition, the analysis revealed that individual workers characterised by conscientiousness and openness are least likely to experience incidents, and consequently, accidents and injuries at work. However, individuals characterised by high extraversion, neuroticism and low agreeableness are more likely to be v involved in incidents, and potentially, accidents and injuries. These important findings have significant ramifications for the way safety development and training for construction workers should be addressed in the future. Recommendations from the study culminated in the development of a conceptual framework for improving safety performance which aimed to minimize incidents attributable to the worker. The framework relies on the attitudes and behaviours of employees in proposing mitigation strategies for the construction industry.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between broad and narrow personality traits and life satisfaction for college-aged and adult populations. Hypotheses were several-fold: first, that personality measures would be predictive of life satisfaction; second, that there would be differences in the correlations of Big Five personality traits and life satisfaction for both age groups; and third, that there would be differences between both age groups in the amount of variance in life satisfaction accounted for by three narrow personality traits, i.e., Optimism, Tough-Mindedness, and Work Drive. Archival data were used to compare an undergraduate sample at a Southeastern U.S. university (n=4844), and an adult sample from a database representing working adults (n=7633). Correlation and multiple regression analyses were used for each age group in examining the validity of Big Five and narrow traits and life satisfaction. A Fischer’s z score was used to determine significant differences in the correlations by age. The Big Five and narrow traits were found to be predictive of life satisfaction for both groups, with Emotional Stability and Optimism showing the highest correlation for both age groups. There were significant differences in correlations between the age groups on measures of Extraversion (z=4.64, p<.001), Agreeableness (z=1.92, p=.05), Conscientiousness (z=8.18, p<.001), Openness (z=2.44, p=.01), Work Drive (z=12.82, p<.001), and Tough-Mindedness (z=-2.87, p<.005). Results were discussed in terms of comparing the predictive validity of personality traits and life satisfaction between the two age groups. Study limitations and directions for future research were noted.

Since a few decades ago, world seems flat because of globalization, however, cultural diversity also creates challenges and problems for individuals and organizations. Cultural intelligence (CQ), defined as an individual¡¦s capability to function and manage effectively in culturally diverse settings (Earley & Ang, 2003). CQ can explain why some individuals are more effective than others in culturally diverse situations; therefore, it¡¦s important for everyone. Until now, relatively researches mainly focuses on the influence of CQ. To know antecedents of CQ, this study developing and testing a model including external factor and internal factor, and posits differential relationships among the four CQ dimensions (metacognitive, cognitive, motivational and behavioural), employment cross-cultural exposure, and Big Five personality (Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Emotional stability, Extraversion, and Openness to experience). The results demonstrate employment cross-cultural exposure predicted all of the four CQ dimensions; extraversion and openness to experience predicted metacognitive, motivational and behavioural CQ; and employment cross-cultural exposure has stronger effect on behavioural CQ through moderating effect of conscientiousness.

As the structure of society has changed, there has been a gradual increase in non-profit organizations. People no longer work to only satisfy biological needs, but have started pursuing higher levels of self-actualization by participating in various volunteer activities. This research aimed to investigate the relationships among the big five personality traits, participation motivation, and involvement of the Pingtung County Ligang Squadron Volunteer Firefighters. The main purposes of this study were: (1) To explore the relation of demographic features to the big five personality traits of volunteer firefighters; (2) To explore the relation of the big five personality traits to participation motivation of volunteer firefighters; and (3) To explore whether participation motivation would be associated with involvement. We distributed 185 questionnaires via purposive sampling and received 145 valid questionnaires. The response rate was 80.5%. Reliability, descriptive statistics, independent sample t-test, one-way ANOVA, and regression analysis were employed for data analysis. The results showed that volunteer firefighters' personality traits were correlated with age, education level, and occupation. Among the big five personality traits, conscientiousness and emotional stability were significantly associated with participation motivation. Volunteer firefighters with the firefighting or nursing profession showed greater willingness for continued participation. Implications, limitations, and future directions are discussed.

When first-line service providers are confronted with customers, they are usually demanded by the organization to display certain emotion to meet organization¡¦s service standard, such work condition is known as emotional labor. The purpose of present study was to explore the relationship between emotional management methods (i.e. surface acting and deep acting), the antecedents-personality (i.e. extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to experiences, and neuroticism) and the consequences-burnout (i.e. emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and diminished accomplishment) of emotional labors. To be specific, the study examined the relationships between personalities with two ways of acting and burnout, and also tends to explore what sort of relationship exists between two ways of acting and burnout. To test these hypotheses, self-report data were collected from 186 cosmetics saleswomen through questionnaires. The results suggested that extraversion; agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experiences had significant negative correlation with surface acting but had positive correlation with deep acting, and neuroticism had significant positive correlation with surface but negative correlation with deep acting; surface acting had significant positive correlation with three dimensions of burnout, while deep acting had significant negative correlation with three dimensions of burnout; the results also suggested that emotional management methods had moderating effect on the relationship of personalities and burnout. Implications for future research and service work were also discussed at the end.

Personality plays an important role in various aspects of our daily life. It is being used in many application scenarios such as i) personalized marketing and advertisement of commercial products, ii) designing personalized ambient environments, iii) personalized avatars in virtual world, and iv) by psychologists to treat various mental and personality disorders. Traditional methods of personality assessment require a long questionnaire to be completed, which is time consuming. On the other hand, several works have been published that seek to acquire various personality traits by analyzing Internet usage statistics. Researchers have used Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and various other websites to collect usage statistics. However, we are still far from a successful outcome. This thesis uses a range of divergent features of Facebook and LinkedIn social networks, both separately and collectively, in order to achieve better results. In this work, the big five personality trait model is used to analyze the five traits: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. The experimental results show that the accuracy of personality detection improves with the use of complementary features of multiple social networks (Facebook and LinkedIn, in our case) for openness, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism. However, for extroversion we found that the use of only LinkedIn features provides better results than the use of only Facebook features or both Facebook and LinkedIn features.

Utmattningsdepression till följd av brister i den psykosociala arbetsmiljön är ett ökande samhällsproblem i Sverige. En komplex interaktion mellan individuella och organisatoriska faktorer föranleder denna problematik. Forskning visar att en individs personlighet och brist på feedback i arbetslivet är betydande faktorer vid utvecklandet av en utmatt- ningsdepression. Föreliggande studie ämnade därför att undersöka olika personlighets- typers behov av feedback i arbetslivet, i syfte att bidra till en del av ett förebyggande ar- bete att motverka utvecklandet av utmattningsdepressioner. En kvantitativ studie utför- des hos tre olika organisationer där data samlades in från 143 anställda via en webb- enkät. I ett försök att kartlägga behovet av feedback genomfördes en standard multipel regressionsanalys. De universala personlighetsdomänerna ur “The big five personality- theory” utgjorde de oberoende variablerna vilka studerades i förhållande till den bero- ende variabeln “feedback orientation”. Resultatet av den multipla regressionsanalysen visade att modellen förklarade 8,5 % av individers “feedback orientation” där signifi- kanta enskilda prediktorer utgjordes av neuroticism (p = 0,020) och “agreeableness” (p = 0,010) gällande det totala antalet deltagare. En könsbunden skillnad framkom även i resultatet, där en icke-sigifikant modell uppstod gällande män. Vad gäller kvinnor var “agreeableness” en signifikant prediktor (p=0,001) till “feedback orientation”. Avslutningsvis diskuteras studiens resultat, applicerbarhet och brister, där även förslag till framtida forskning läggs fram. / Occupational fatigue syndrome, also known as burnout, is an increasing societal issue in Sweden.Acomplex interaction between individual and organisational factors may cause this problem. Research has shown that personality and absence of feedback, impact the development of the syndrome. This study aim to examine the need of feedback in different personality types, with the purpose to shed light on some factors which could help to prevent the development of burnout. A quantitative study was initiated at three different organisations and 143 employees were assessed through an online sur- vey. With an attempt to chart the need of feedback, a standard multiple regression ana- lysis was performed. The universal domains of personality from “The big five personality-theory” represented the independent variables that was examined in relation to the dependent variable “feedback orientation”. The results of the multiple regression analysis shows that the model explained 8,5 % of individuals feedback orientation, sig- nificant predictors where neuroticism (p=0,020) and agreeableness (p=0,010), regarding the total number of participants. Furthermore, the results also showed a difference between genders where a non-significant modell appeared for men. Although, when it comes to women ”agreeableness” was a significant predictor (p=0,001) for ”feedback orientation”. In conclusion, the study's results, practical implications and inadequacies are discussed as well as suggestions for future research.

Tidigare forskning menar att det äldsta syskonet anses vara mer auktoritärt, det mellersta barnet minst familjeorienterat och det yngsta barnet mer socialt. Uppväxten kan påverka individens KASAM. Studien undersöker om syskonplacering samverkar med människors KASAM, personlighet utifrån femfaktormodellen samt ser till eventuella könsskillnader. Urvalet bestod av högskolestudenter, varav 145 kvinnor och 80 män. Enkätens material analyserades med tvåvägs variansanalyser. Studien uppvisade ingen signifikant skillnad mellan de tre syskonplaceringarna. En tendens till signifikant interaktion visades mellan könen, där kvinnliga mellanbarn har lägre KASAM än de manliga. Studien visade två signifikanta könsskillnader mellan kvinnor och män. Kvinnorna var mer neurotiska och samvetsgranna än männen. Resultatet uppvisade en tendens till signifikans, gällande att kvinnor hade högre grad av personlighetfaktorn öppenhet än männen. Slutligen konstaterades att syskonplaceringen inte samverkar med individens personlighet eller KASAM, men att det finns vissa personlighetsskillnader mellan könen. Resultatet kan bero på brister i studien, som att familjekonstellation inte tillfrågades deltagarna.

Personlighet påverkar många livsaspekter. Tidigare forskning har visat att politik är en av dessa aspekter. Forskning inom området har konstaterat ett samband mellan personlighet och riktningen av personers politiska orientering samt mellan personlighet och Känsla av sammanhang (KASAM). Däremot fanns en forskningslucka kring relationen mellan KASAM och politik. Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka relationen som de fem grundläggande personlighetsdimensionerna och KASAM har till Politiskt intresse samt Politisk inriktning, men även relationen mellan personlighetsdimensionerna och KASAM. Hundrafemtiofem studenter deltog varav 37 män. Datainsamling gjordes via enkät, som bestod av BFI-44, SOC-13 samt självrapportering av Politiskt intresse och inriktning. Databearbetningen skedde via korrelationsanalys samt regressionsanalys. Studiens resultat visade att personlighet hade ett samband med politik samt KASAM och att KASAM hade ett samband med en högerorienterad politisk inriktning. Eftersom relationen mellan KASAM och politik var relativt outforskad kan resultatet av denna studie ses som ett intressant ämne för framtida forskning.

The personality congruence of supervisors and subordinates and its influence on work outcomes is a relatively new topic in social and behavioral sciences. Most well-known personality theory is Big Five that includes openness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, extraversion and agreeableness traits. LMX theory focuses on the mutual relationship between a supervisor and a subordinate. There is a gap in the literature regarding the mediating role of LMX perceptions of subordinates on the relationship between personality congruence of supervisors and subordinates and affective commitment (AC). The purpose of this cross-sectional design was first to explore the direct relationship between supervisors and subordinates personality congruence and AC of subordinates. The second purpose of this study was to explore the role of LMX as a mediator between the personality congruence of supervisors and subordinates and AC of the subordinates. A cluster sampling method was used to gather 400 supervisor-subordinate dyads from 3 technopolises in Ankara, who completed self-reported questionnaires. A technopolis is a technology science park. Polynomial regression analysis was conducted to measure the congruence level of dyads' personality traits and structural equation modeling was used to analyze the mediating effect of LMX. Results revealed that, LMX has no mediating effect on personality congruence and AC. The results also revealed that there is a significant relation between the agreeableness congruence of supervisors and subordinates, and AC. This information can be used by organizations by pairing up agreeable dyad members to increase affective commitment. The findings of this study may create positive social change by promoting optimum functioning organizations that have committed employees which would affect the society and economy in a positive way.