they made the change, and so it seems likely that Openness contributed
to the decision to start a new career.
Ordinarily , people do not just sign up for the job they want. In -
stead, they have to find a job and convince their prospective employer
that they should be hired. The job search is often a long and potentiallyfrustrating one. Are personality traits involved? A recent review (Kanfer,Wanberg, & Kantrowitz, 2001) concluded that they are indeed and thatthe most important traits are related to Extraversion. Extraverts, it ap -
pears, really are go-getters, willing and able to sell themselves. Perhaps
that is why , in the long run, they end up making the most money (Soldz& Vaillant, 1999).
Once in a job, personality is likely to manifest itself in the way the
job is performed (Hoekstra, 1993). The extraverted bank clerk willspend more time than others chatting with customers; the librarian whois closed to experience may make more efforts to maintain quiet than toencourage reading. And if the gap between the occupational demandsand personal disposition is too large, the individual is likely to quit andfind a different line of work.
Between 1970 and 1990, most industrial/organizational (I/O) psy-
chologists ignored personality traits on the assumption that traits did notpredict job performance. But in 1991 Barrick and Mount published alarge-scale review in which they classified the many personality scalesthat had been used in research according to the FFM. When organized inthis way , a clear pattern emerged: Job performance in almost every cate-gory was predicted by Conscientiousness. Employees who are well-orga -
nized, punctual, and task oriented do well, whether they are managing
corporations or digging ditches. That simple and, in retrospect, rather ob -
vious truth came as a revelation to I/O psychologists and led to the prompt
rehabilitation of trait psychology . Other traits also affect job performance,but they tend to be specific to certain kinds of jobs. Low Neuroticism isimportant for police (Costa, McCrae, & Kay , 1995); Agreeableness isvaluable in the service industry (Costa & McCrae, 1995).
TRAIT INFLUENCES ON THE SELF-CONCEPT
To this point we have been concerned with how personality traits affectthe Objective Biography , seen broadly as the life structure and lifeInfluences of Personality on the Life Course 227