Dispositional Versus Situational Factors and Job Attitudes
Individuals have a variety of personality traits, values, and attitudes that they bring with them into the workplace. These characteristics, whether stable or transient, are termed dispositional factors.
Because dispositional factors can be useful in predicting individual behavior and performance across diverse situations, organizations value this information when hiring and promoting employees.
The concepts of personal dispositions often are referred to interchangeably in the literature as traits, personality, and individual characteristics.
Job attitudes research commonly uses situational variables (e.g., pay, work environment, task characteristics) as well as dispositional variables (e.g., conscientiousness, neuroticism) as determinants of job attitudes.
This week, you consider whether job attitudes are affected most by dispositional or situational factors. Support your position using this week's readings.
With these thoughts in mind:
Post your position on whether job attitudes are affected most by situational factors or by a person's disposition, and justify your position. 1.5 pages
Readings
• Bowling, N. A., Beehr, T. A., Wagner, S. H., &Libkuman, T. M. (2005). Adaptation-level theory, opponent process theory, and dispositions:
An integrated approach to the stability of job satisfaction. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90(6), 1044-1053.
Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.
• Bruk-Lee, V., Khoury, H. A., Nixon, A. E., Goh, A., & Spector, P. E. (2009). Replicating and extending past personality/job satisfaction meta-analyses. Human Performance, 22(2), 156-189.