Complexity of Activities and Personality under Conditions of Radical Social Change: A Comparative Analysis of Poland and Ukraine

Abstract

In a comparative analysis of Poland and Ukraine, we extend the often-confirmed hypothesis that the substantive complexity of work in paid employment substantially affects (and is affected by) fundamental dimensions of personality. The extended hypothesis encompasses not only the complexity of work, whether in paid employment or in the household, but even the complexity of activities of the unemployed and pensioners. We hypothesize that the complexity of activities in any important realm of life is substantially related to personality. We test this hypothesis under conditions that pose a particularly exacting test-conditions of radical social change. We find that complexity of activities in all these realms is substantially and significantly related to intellectual flexibility, self-directedness of orientation, and a sense of well-being or distress for both men and women. The consonance of these findings with those of earlier longitudinal and simulated longitudinal analyses of the complexity of work and personality strongly implies that the relationships of the complexity of activities and personality are similarly reciprocal, even if the activities are not ordinarily thought of as work.