The Perceived Controllability of the Big Five Personality Traits

Abstract

The extent to which a personality trait is perceived to be controllable (e.g., being talkative) may influence bias and discrimination at work for people who have what are thought to be highly controllable characteristics. However, no research has directly measured the perceived controllability of personality traits. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the perceived controllability of the Big Five Personality traits: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience. One hundred and one employees were recruited through email to take an online survey about their perceptions of the controllability of each trait. A repeated-measures one-way ANOVA was used to analyze the data. Results indicated that neuroticism and openness to experience were viewed as less controllable than conscientiousness, agreeableness and extraversion. Further, conscientiousness was viewed as more controllable than extraversion. Overall, neuroticism was viewed as the least controllable trait whereas conscientiousness was viewed as the most controllable. The implications, limitations, and future directions for this research are discussed.