ABSTRACT
This chapter uses four lessons learned from the person-situation debate of personality and social psychology to review research related to the role of personality traits in work organizations. These lessons include the notions that traits predict behavior only in relevant situations, that traits relate most strongly to behavior when situational cues are weak, that a person’s traits can alter a situation, and that people choose situations that are congruent with their traits. As an illustration of how these lessons can guide future research,we also develop amodel that builds on the first lesson. The model classifies organizational situations and describes how motivational intentionsmediate the effects of personality in cooperative and competitive settings.
