TY  - JOUR
A1  - Li, Wen-Dong
A1  - Li, Shuping
A1  - Fay, Doris
A1  - Frese, Michael
T1  - Reciprocal Relationships Between Dispositional Optimism and Work Experiences: A Five-Wave Longitudinal Investigation
JF  - Journal of applied psychology
N2  - Previous research on dispositional optimism has predominantly concentrated on the selection effect of dispositional optimism on predicting work outcomes. Recent research, however, has started to examine the socialization effect of life experiences on fostering dispositional optimism development. Extrapolating primarily from the TESSERA framework of personality development (Wrzus & Roberts, 2017) and the literature on dispositional optimism, the current study represents a first attempt to reconcile the 2 seemingly contrasting perspectives. We proposed and examined change-related reciprocal relationships between dispositional optimism and work experience variables including income, job insecurity, coworker support. and supervisor support. Latent change score modeling of data from a five-wave longitudinal study demonstrated that dispositional optimism resulted in decreases in job insecurity, and the decreased job insecurity in turn promoted further increases in dispositional optimism later on. Furthermore, income gave rise to increases ill dispositional optimism at a later point in time. but not vice versa. No significant relationships were observed between dispositional optimism and coworker and supervisor support. The findings provide a cautionary note to the majority of previous research based on cross-sectional and lagged designs that assumes causal effects of dispositional optimism on work outcomes. They also showcase the importance of examining personality change in organizational research and enrich our understanding of a more nuanced dynamic interplay between the optimistic employee and the work environment.
KW  - optimism
KW  - work experience
KW  - career
KW  - personality change
KW  - reciprocal relationship
Y1  - 2019
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000417
SN  - 0021-9010
SN  - 1939-1854
VL  - 104
IS  - 12
SP  - 1471
EP  - 1486
PB  - American Psychological Association
CY  - Washington
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Li, Wen-Dong
A1  - Fay, Doris
A1  - Frese, Michael
A1  - Harms, Peter D.
A1  - Gao, Xiang Yu
T1  - Reciprocal relationship between proactive personality and work characteristics: A latent change score approach
JF  - Journal of applied psychology
N2  - Previous proactivity research has predominantly assumed that proactive personality generates positive environmental changes in the workplace. Grounded in recent research on personality development from a broad interactionist theoretical approach, the present article investigates whether work characteristics, including job demands, job control, social support from supervisors and coworkers, and organizational constraints, change proactive personality over time and, more important, reciprocal relationships between proactive personality and work characteristics. Latent change score analyses based on longitudinal data collected in 3 waves across 3 years show that job demands and job control have positive lagged effects on increases in proactive personality. In addition, proactive personality exerts beneficial lagged effects on increases in job demands, job control, and supervisory support, and on decreases in organizational constraints. Dynamic reciprocal relationships are observed between proactive personality with job demands and job control. The revealed corresponsive change relationships between proactive personality and work characteristics contribute to the proactive personality literature by illuminating more nuanced interplays between the agentic person and work characteristics, and also have important practical implications for organizations and employees.
KW  - proactive personality
KW  - personality change
KW  - work characteristics
KW  - dynamic reciprocal relationship
KW  - latent change score
Y1  - 2014
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1037/a0036169
SN  - 0021-9010
SN  - 1939-1854
VL  - 99
IS  - 5
SP  - 948
EP  - 965
PB  - American Psychological Association
CY  - Washington
ER  -