Ciemna triada osobowości w środowisku pracy. Perspektywa interakcyjna
The Dark Triad in the Workplace. The interactive perspective

Author(s): Elżbieta Sanecka
Subject(s): Social Sciences, Psychology, Social psychology and group interaction
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Summary/Abstract: The book constitutes the first Polish monograph concerning the issues of coexistence with people with “dark” personality traits in the workplace. The present monograph considers three types of socially harmful personality traits which form the so-called dark triad: Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy. The “dark” personality traits constitute the core of the inquiry and they are analyzed with regard to the attitudes towards work (i.e. job satisfaction and brand loyalty), civic and counter-productive activities in the workplace, as well as (according to the interactive approach) selected characteristics of the workplace.The monograph consists of four chapters. Chapter one presents the two basic approaches to describing personality in the workplace: the trait approach and the interactive approach. In the beginning, the chapter underscores the importance of distinguishing between the “light” and “dark” personality traits in the workplace. Next, the chapter discusses the most important conceptions within the interactive approach to the study of personality in the organizational context, including the theory of personality trait activation in the workplace.Chapter two introduces the taxonomy of the dark triad, which includes three discrete “dark” personality traits, analyzed at the sub-clinical level: Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy. It presents two approaches to the study of the dark triad: the unification approach and the discrimination approach, and situates the dark triad against the other personality models, in addition to enumerating the most important behavioral correlations between Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy. Moreover, it discusses the issue of the functioning of people who possess some of the traits of the dark triad in the workplace, underlining the significance of the potential benefits and costs connected with the presence of people who exhibit high levels of Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy in the business.Chapter three discusses two attitudes towards work, analyzed in the monograph in relation to the traits exhibited by the dark triad: job satisfaction and brand loyalty. The chapter defines both concepts, presents the main categories of their personality and situational conditions, and examines the character of the links between the traits of the dark triad and the aforementioned attitudes towards work.Chapter four focuses on the analysis of two distinctive categories of voluntary actions in the workplace, i.e. civic actions and counter-productive actions. It indicates the main problems with terminology connected with the description of the aforementioned organizational actions and differentiates between three categories of conditions for organizational actions: attitudes towards work, situational factors, personality factors. The chapter is based on earlier research which focuses on the analysis of the interdependence between the personality traits of the dark triad and civic as well as counter-productive actions in the workplace. The three following chapters form the empirical part of the monograph. The first chapter discusses the methodological basis of own research; the second chapter analyzes the results of the study, and the third chapter presents their interpretation. The conducted study has confirmed the majority of the hypotheses considering the direct links between the personality traits of the dark triad, attitudes towards work and organizational actions. It has been shown that two conditions (power within the organization, understood as a formal position at the firm, and interpersonal conflict in the workplace) fulfilled the role of the moderators in the relation between the traits of the dark triad and attitudes towards work and organizational actions. Singular mediational effects of the attitudes towards work with regard to the links between the traits of the dark triad and organizational actions have also been observed. Taking into account the results of the study, modifications to the research model have been proposed, in order to include the direct correlations between situational factors and attitudes towards work and organizational actions. At the end of the monograph, on the basis of the literature on the subject, the author attempted interpretation of the obtained results, pointing to the limitations of the conducted studies and possible future avenues for empirical research

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