Abstract
In previous research, group characteristics have often been measured without taking the individual perspective of the group members into account. Therefore, the influence of individual personality (and other individual-level characteristics) on group characteristic ratings beyond the influence of the actual group remains largely unexplored. Additionally, some studies use group means of individual personality as group characteristics, however, evidence for interrelations or differences between these approaches has not yet been empirically based. In the present study, we employed a sample of 301 individuals from 54 teams, all of which rated both characteristics of themselves and their teams. By averaging both self-ratings and group-ratings within each team, we were able to compare both approaches to group characteristics and found them to likely measure unrelated constructs. We also found influences of individual Extraversion and Agreeableness from the HEXACO model on direct group characteristic ratings beyond the influence of the actual group. Years of work experience and work strain operationalized through burnout symptoms did not predict group characteristic ratings beyond the influence of the actual group and individual personality. Our findings imply that individual ratings of a group characteristic are influenced to a larger degree by the raters’ individual perspectives than by the presumed actual group characteristic itself. Further implications for research applying individual personality to groups are discussed.
Highlights
Individual personality characteristics, such as extraversion or neuroticism, represent stable behavioral patterns of perceiving the world and interacting with it
To assess the extent to which the two approaches for measuring group characteristics measured similar constructs, we ran two linear multiple regression analyses using the aggregated team-level means of the HEXACO dimensions as the predictors and the team-level means of the Group Openness and Cohesion Questionnaire (GOCQ) dimensions Group Openness and Cohesion as the respective outcomes
The adjusted R2 showed that 13.8% of the variance in the group means in the Group Openness scale and 12.2% of the variance in the group means in the Cohesion scale were explained by the group means of the individual personality dimensions
Summary
Individual personality characteristics, such as extraversion or neuroticism, represent stable behavioral patterns of perceiving the world and interacting with it. As a result of this assumption, the role of the individual perspective and what it is influenced by aside from the actual group is usually forgone and there is a lack of research on how individual personality (and other individual characteristics) predict how individuals perceive and rate characteristics of groups they belong to.
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