Timothy A. Judge

The present study linked general mental ability (GMA) to extrinsic career success using a multilevel framework that included time and 3 possible time-based mediators of the GMA-career success relationship. Results, based on a large national sample, revealed that over a 28-year period, GMA affected growth in 2 indicators of extrinsic career success (income and occupational prestige), such that the careers of high-GMA individuals ascended more steeply over time than those of low-GMA individuals. Part of the reason high-GMA individuals had steeper growth in extrinsic success over time was because they attained more education, completed more job training, and gravitated toward more complex jobs. GMA also moderated the degree to which within-individual variation in the mediating variables affected within-individual variation in extrinsic career success over time: Education, training, and job complexity were much more likely to translate into career success for more intelligent individuals.

In response to 2 areas for development in the emotional labor literature—(a) the contemporaneous associations between emotional labor and affective reactions, and (b) whether emotional labor might be more personally costly for some employees than others—this study tested a conceptual model explaining the differential effects of deep and surface acting on job satisfaction and emotional exhaustion via their asymmetrical influences on mood, and whether extraverts fare better when engaging in emotional labor. As expected, surface acting was positively associated with negative mood, and this explained some of the association of surface acting with increased emotional exhaustion and decreased job satisfaction. Contrary to hypotheses, deep acting was unrelated to job satisfaction and was associated with lower positive affect. Extraversion moderated several emotional labor relationships such that, in general, surface and deep acting had more positive (or less negative) effects for extraverts (compared to introverts). Overall, the results support the importance of considering the roles of mood and disposition in the impact of emotional labor.

Core self-evaluations (CSE) is a broad, integrative trait indicated by self-esteem, locus of control, generalized self-efficacy, and (low) neuroticism (high emotional stability). While only a decade old, research on CSE suggests that it explains much of the overlap among these trait measures, while also predicting many work and other applied outcomes better than the individual traits. Individuals with high levels of CSE perform better on their jobs, are more successful in their careers, are more satisfied with their jobs and lives, report lower levels of stress and conflict, cope more effectively with setbacks, and better capitalize on advantages and opportunities. Though research on individual self-concept traits such as self-esteem and locus of control should continue, researchers interested in these traits should consider the advantages of CSE in its relation to success in work and in life.

The authors investigated core self-evaluations and educational attainment as mediating mechanisms for the influence of appearance (physical attractiveness) and intelligence (general mental ability) on income and financial strain. The direct effects of core self-evaluations on financial strain, as well as the indirect effects through income, were also considered. Longitudinal data were obtained as part of a national study, the Harvard Study of Health and Life Quality, and proposed models were evaluated with structural equation modeling. Results supported a partially mediated model, such that general mental ability and physical attractiveness exhibited both direct and indirect effects on income, as mediated by educational attainment and core self-evaluations. Finally, income negatively predicted financial strain, whereas core self-evaluations had both a direct and an indirect (through income) negative effect on financial strain. Overall, the results suggest that looks (physical attractiveness), brains (intelligence), and personality (core self-evaluations) are all important to income and financial strain.

In this study, the authors linked core self-evaluations to job and work success. Utilizing a dynamic design from participants in the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth (NLSY79), core self-evaluations were hypothesized to predict individuals' intercepts (starting levels of success), and their growth trajectories (slope of individuals' success over time) with respect to job satisfaction, pay, and occupational status. Results indicated that higher core self-evaluations were associated with both higher initial levels of work success and steeper work success trajectories. Education and health problems that interfere with work mediated a portion of the hypothesized relationships, suggesting that individuals with high core self-evaluations have more ascendant jobs and careers, in part, because they are more apt to pursue further education and maintain better health.

This study related three personality taxonomies—positive affectivity and negative affectivity (PA and NA), the five‐factor model (the “Big Five”), and core self‐evaluations—to job satisfaction in an integrative test. In a longitudinal design with multi‐source data, results indicated that the traits from all three taxonomies generally were significantly related to job satisfaction, even when the traits and job satisfaction were measured with independent sources. However, when all three typologies were examined concurrently, the core self‐evaluations typology was the only typology that was significantly related to job satisfaction. The study extends research on the validation of these frameworks by assessing convergent and discriminant validity issues, and shows that core self‐evaluations adds to our understanding of the dispositional source of job satisfaction.