The dark side of personality predicts positive and negative work attitudes

a r t i c l e i n f o This exploratory study examined the relationship between positive and negative organisational attitudes and the dark side of personality. In all, 451 employees working in the medical sector completed a number of questionnaires including the Hogan Development Survey and well-established organisational measures. We found that Excitable, Sceptical and Bold dark-side traits were predictors for both positive and negative organisational attitudes , whereas Leisurely was a predictor for positive organisational attitudes and Cautious for negative. We also found that the higher order factor Moving Away from Others was the strongest predictor for both types of work attitudes whereas Moving Against and Moving Towards Others were positive predictors for positive organisational attitudes. Implications and limitations are considered. This study looks at dark-side personality correlates of job attitudes. Job attitudes have an effect on everyone in an organisation, from the employees to the owner. Consequently, it is essential to understand how positive and negative attitudes affect the working environment. In the last fifteen years, there has been an increased interest by I/O researchers in the " dark side " of work experience (Ghaemi, 2011; Spain, Harms, & Lebreton, 2013). There are many studies that have associated certain dark-side traits with work success and failure The dark-side traits are often seen to moderate the relationship between leader emergence and leadership In this study, we use the Hogan Development Survey (HDS) in order to assess the role of the dark side of personality in job attitudes. The HDS is based on APA 4th edition of Axis II and focuses on maladaptive personalities occupying the psychological space halfway between psycho-pathology and normal personality, which means that it allows for a dimensional approach to the research. It has three higher order factors (Moving Away, Moving Against, Moving Towards) that are based on Horney's taxonomy (Horney, 1950) (see Table 1). Researchers have noted the potential but paradoxical benefits of high scores on dark-side traits. Judge et al. (2009) noted that socially undesirable traits can in some (work) situations have positive implications. Harms, Spain, and Hannah (2011) indeed demonstrated this in a longitudinal study of dark-side traits in military cadets over a three year period. Also Zibarras, Port, and Woods (2008) found innovative characteristics in managers related to 'Moving Against People' traits like narcissism and antisocial behaviour. 2. Organisational attitudes The most prominent theoretical model of attitudes is the …