Do extraversion and neuroticism pay off? Towards an integrated model of personality effects on obtained, expected and accepted wages
- Connections of personality and career success factors like obtained wages are
well documented. Important cognitive wage-related outcomes such as wage
expectations or the acceptance wage, i.e., the minimum acceptable wage for
individuals to take on a job, are neglected by empirical research. This study
proposes an integrated theoretical framework of personality effects on obtained,
expected, and accepted wages. We empirically test this framework using the
German PASS survey data (N = 5.636) of working age that contains personality
measures as well as wage measures. We replicate previous studies that showed
direct effects of extraversion and neuroticism on obtained wages. Extending this
causal chain to expected and accepted wages, we demonstrate that both
personality traits are associated with expected and accepted wages trough an
indirect effect via obtained wages. For extraversion, however not for neuroticism,
we show that even when controlling for obtained wage, a direct effect of this
personality trait on expected and accepted wages prevails. We discuss the results
in terms of relationships of personality to exaggerated wage expectations and
extraversion.