THE DOWNFALL OF EXTRAVERTS AND RISE OF NEUROTICS: The Dynamic Process of Status Allocation in Task Groups

THE DOWNFALL OF EXTRAVERTS AND RISE OF NEUROTICS: The Dynamic Process of Status Allocation in Task Groups

http://amj.aom.org/content/early/2012/07/20/amj.2011.0316.abstract

1. Corinne Bendersky⇓ and
2. Neha Shah

+ Author Affiliations

1. C Bendersky, Organizational Behavior, UCLA, Los Angeles, 90095-1481, United States
2. N Shah, Rutgers Business School, Management and Global Business, Rutgers University, Piscataway, 08854, United States

1. Correspondence: Corinne Bendersky, Email: corinne.bendersky@anderson.ucla.edu

Abstract

We advance previous research that has associated extraversion with high status and neuroticism with low status in newly-formed task groups by examining how variations in personality affect status changes over time. By building on research that emphasizes the dark sides of extraversion (e.g., Grant, Gino, & Hofmann, 2011; Judge, Piccolo, & Kosalka, 2009) and the bright sides of neuroticism (e.g., Norem & Cantor, 1986; Tamir, 2005), we challenge the persistence of extraverts' advantage and neurotics' disadvantage in task group status hierarchies. In a field and an experimental study, we find that extraversion is associated with status losses and disappointing expectations for contributions to group tasks and neuroticism is associated with status gains due to surpassing expectations for group-task contributions. Whereas personality may inform status expectations through perceptions of competence when groups first form, as group members work together interdependently over time, actual contributions to the group's task are an important basis for reallocating status.

• Received April 7, 2011.