Extroversion, Psychological Capital, Work Flow and Engagement in Employees

BELÉN MESURADO; MARSHALL VALENCIA

Manila

Congreso; 4to. ASEAN Regional Union of Psychological Sciences - 50to. Psychological Association of the Philippines Convention; 2013

Different researches have shown that personality is an important determinant of individual behavior in the workplace (Penney, David, & Witt, 2011). Extraversion is characterized by sociability, ambition, and positive emotionality (Barrick et al., 2001; Judge, Bono, Ilies, & Gerhardt, 2002). In the work context, partly through these mechanisms, extroverts are likely to be trusted by others and, because they are sociable, they are likely to experience pleasant interactions with others, which should contribute to a positive experience in the workplace (Penney, David, & Witt, 2011). Psychological capital has been defined as an individual?s positive psychological state, characterized by positive psychological resources: (a) efficacy; (b) hope in order to succeed; (c) optimism and (d) resilience (Luthans, Youssef, & Avolio, 2007). It is probable that extraversion could be associated with the different aspect of Psychological capital because it is characterized by positive attitude to life. On the other hand, a current study shows that extraversion is also related to job engagement (Inceoglu & Warr, 2012) and Flow (mental state in which the person is fully immersed in what they are doing, characterized by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity) in children and adolescents (Mesurado & Richaud, 2013). However, there is few evidence of this relation in adults and, especially, in work context. The objectives that this study intends to examine are: (1) the relationships between variables included and (2) the role of psychological capital and work flow as mediators between extraversion and engagement. The preliminary sample included 90 employees, of both sexes, aged 24 to 64 (M = 41; SD = 9.97), from Argentina. Structural equation modeling was run to test the model proposed. The results showed that the theoretical model fit the preliminary data well, χ2 (41) = 59.8, p = .03.; GFI = .90; NFI = .97, RMR = .07. However, all the analyses will be re-run with the complete data set and the final results will be discussed.