A process model linking occupational strength to attitudes and behaviors: The explanatory role of occupational personality heterogeneity.

This study proposes a mediated process model that seeks to explain how occupational strength influences personality heterogeneity, ultimately affecting attitudes and behaviors. Specifically, it proposes that strong occupations restrict personality heterogeneity (defined as the extent to which there is variability in incumbents' personalities), which mediates the effect of occupational strength on work-related outcomes. Using a sample of 178,087 individuals employed in 315 occupations, the results indicate that strong occupations (operationalized as having high task significance) had advantageous effects on occupational satisfaction, tenure, and turnover intentions, and these effects were partially mediated by personality heterogeneity. Task significance had a negative effect on personality heterogeneity, and personality heterogeneity led to less favorable attitudes and behaviors. The occupational autonomy operationalization of situational strength also had advantageous effects on incumbents' occupational satisfaction, tenure, and turnover intentions, but these effects were not mediated by personality heterogeneity. In addition, personality distance (defined as the extent to which incumbents were personally different from others in the occupation) adversely affected within-occupation attitudes and behaviors. This study reexamines situational strength theory, shifting the emphasis away from an interaction (behavior = person × situation) to an explanatory process (behavior is a function of personality heterogeneity, which is a function of situational strength). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).