Well-Designed Work Helps Individuals to Mature Over Time: Evidence from a 20-Year Longitudinal Study

Abstract

Existing research in the field of personality development has long established participation in work or employment as an important contributor for individuals’ personality change or development. It remains relatively understudied as to what specific features or characteristics of one’s work or job could influence the changes of people’s personalities over time and what could be the underlying psychological mechanisms. Building upon the existing personality development research and drawing on the extant research on work design, we propose job autonomy and social support as two important work characteristics that could positively influence the development of individuals’ conscientiousness and emotional stability, two personalities reflecting individuals’ maturity. Using publicly available data from a 20-year longitudinal study, our analyses demonstrated that, within individuals and over 20 years’ time, individuals’ job autonomy was positively associated with conscientiousness (mediated through sense of control) whilst their social support at work was negatively associated with neuroticism (mediated through positive and negative affect), suggesting that well-designed work could help working adults to mature over time. We also found that the beneficial effects of well-designed work on the development of maturity were only observed for individuals with lower (vs. higher) levels of education. We discuss the implications of this study.