Personality, Weak Signals, and Workplace Relevant Morality

David Dickinson and David Masclet

No 24-19, Working Papers from Department of Economics, Appalachian State University

Abstract: Employers use applicant signals to help solve an important asymmetric information problem in organizations. Educational attainment is the classic example of a job market signal, but weaker signals, such as information on extracurricular activities, personality traits or personal habits/history are also commonly used by employers. In this paper, we conducted controlled online experiments to examine the relevance of using validated Dark versus Light personality trait measures to predict behavior across multiple dimensions of interest to organizations: task effort, honesty, and reciprocity. In complementary fashion, a second study examined how these same behaviors are predicted by two weak signals: regular participation in religious activities (public and private) and a history of time in prison. Our first study indicated that Dark relative to Light types were more likely to cheat and shirk in the honesty task, put forth less task effort (i.e., were less productive), but neither type showed evidence for negative cross-task reciprocity (i.e., a spillover from one task to another). In Study 2, ex-Prisoners were more productive than Religious participants in the effort task, and more likely to have shirked but not cheated in the honesty task. Additionally, ex-Prisoners were more likely than Religious participants to exhibit negative crosstask reciprocity. These findings indicate that both Dark types and ex-Prisoners exhibited behaviors (shirking, or dishonesty, or negative reciprocity) that would be considered undesirable or counterproductive in the workplace, which validates the effectiveness of such traits as behavioral signals. Key Words: Experiment; Personality traits; Honesty; Personnel Economics; Screening; Effort

JEL-codes: C9 D9 M5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://econ.appstate.edu/RePEc/pdf/wp2419.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Personality, Weak Signals, and Workplace Relevant Morality (2024)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:apl:wpaper:24-19

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Department of Economics, Appalachian State University Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by O. Ashton Morgan ().