A STUDY OF THE IMPACT OF
EXTROVERSION AND GENDER IN
CREATING HEALTHY WORK-LIFE
BALANCE
Katarzyna M. Kotowska University of Amsterdam Bachelor of Business Administration Specialisation - Management in the Digital Age
Statement of Originality
This document is written by Student Katarzyna Kotowska who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.
I declare that the text and the work presented in this document are original and that no
sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.
The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.
Abstract
Individuals establish a lower psychological link with their work and daily tasks, as a result of the changing environment of work, occurring in recent years. More and more people shift to working from home, and this distorts our perceptions of our work life and out-of-work life, resulting in out-of-work-life imbalance. This research aims to observe whether different personality traits or personal characteristics play a role in how individuals deal with how one establishes work-life balance and whether certain individuals have a higher ability to
establish it. This study focused on analysing the impact that extroversion and gender have on work-life balance satisfaction by administering a survey. Statements from the original
HEXACO self-administered questionnaire were used to measure levels of extroversion of an individual. For the purpose of measuring work-life balance, the original 5-point statement survey by Valcour (2007) was used. The study found evidence for the positive impact that extroversion has on one’s work-life balance. This provides further support in our
understanding of the impact that one’s personality traits have on the way they portray their life, and how differently they manage to balance the different domains of their life. Gender and age were found to have no impact on this link. It is important to mention that the results of this study could have been affected by the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic taking place in the world, therefore, this study should be conducted again in the future after the pandemic, to control for this potential negative impact.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
INTRODUCTION………...1
LITERATURE REVIEW...………...3
Work-Life Balance………..3
The various definitions of Work-Life Balance………...3
Today’s world of work………...5
The Role of Personality in Work and Life………..7
The Link Between Personality and Work-Life Balance………7
Gender link……….9
METHODOLOGY………12
Participants………12
Materials and procedure………13
Extroversion………...…..13 Work-Life Balance………...13 Gender………...13 Control variables………..13 Data Analysis……….14 RESULTS………..15 DISCUSSION ………...18
Limitations and recommendations for future research………...22
LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
1 Means, standard deviations, and correlations………...……15 2 Regression Model Summary for Extroversion and Age predicting Work-Life Balance…...16 3 A linear model of predictors of Work-Life Balance……….17
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
1 Visualisations of hypotheses………..……….11 2 Moderation effect of Gender on the relationship between Extroversion and Work-Life
Introduction
Personality plays an important role in a person’s day-to-day life. Thus, it also has a crucial role in our work life. Research has shown the critical importance that personality plays in the work environment, and how performance in the workplace is related to one’s personality. As a result, many companies take upon themselves to perform personality tests on potential candidates, to find the right fit of an employee, for the particular job they are to perform (Sosnowska, Fruyt & Hofman, 2019).
A clear result of high employee conduct, in the sense that an individual performs well in their day-to-day tasks, is satisfaction. However, on the side of the employee, this
satisfaction is obtained as a result of different factors that impact one’s perception of the job they complete as being “satisfactory” or “unsatisfactory”. These factors can be broken down into external and internal factors. According to Weiss and Merlo (2015), job satisfaction can be categorized by numerous factors ranging from emotions, moods, engagement, and
commitment, as well as ones relating to actual aspects of the job, such as pay, supervision, co-workers, etc. The latter has a long history of being observed in a substantial number of organisations. One way in which this is done is by using a survey that asks employees to record their opinions on particular facets they experience in their usual workdays. The most popular surveys used are the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ; Lofquist & Dawis, 1969), and the Job Descriptive Index (Smith, Kendall & Hulin, 1969). The former being a questionnaire assessing 20 different factors of job satisfaction, and the latter being much smaller in assessing factors, as it only looks at five. The idea behind breaking down factors into “internal” and “external” ones, is to show that there are elements which we are in control of (internal factors), but also factors which we cannot control (external factors). The way our co-workers perform, or how our supervisor acts toward us on a “bad day”, is out of our control. We have full control of the internal factors, based on how we allow them to impact
us. For example, if you are having a bad day at work, you acknowledge this fact but do not let it impact your overall opinion of what you do at work every day.
Research shows that certain personality traits have a large impact on how internal and external factors interplay. According to a model proposed by Hackman and Oldham (1976), we can observe that there is a link between these internal and external factors. The model focuses on three elements that are evaluated in-depth. These factors are: 1. “psychological states of employees that must be present for internally motivated work behavior to develop”, 2. “characteristics of jobs that can create these psychological states” and 3. “attributes of individuals that determine how positively a person will respond to a complex or challenging job” (p. 250). Therefore, it is both the internal and external factors that have an impact on motivation to work and satisfaction from the work we do. Proper satisfaction can only be achieved when the two areas are adequate and gratifying in the person’s mind. Satisfaction, however, is a very individual opinion and judgement. Some people are satisfied faster than others, and this can be largely impacted by one’s character or personality. Existing research on the topic of personality and its overall impact on job satisfaction shows that there is a positive relationship between the two (Barrick, Mount, & Li, 2013). The reason behind this interaction, according to Barrick et al. (2013) in their study on the role of personality, is the theory of purposeful work behaviour. In particular, they showed that one’s personality is the driver toward achieving certain goals, having a purpose, and striving for meaning in what one does during their day-to-day tasks at work. One such personality trait which has an impact on job satisfaction is extroversion.1 According to Helle et al. (2018), extroverts are warm,
gregarious, assertive, active, excitement-seeking, and expressing positive emotions. These defining characteristics of extroverts can be assumed to have an impact on persons work,
1Emphasis is only being placed on looking at one personality trait. This is largely due to the fact that if all personality aspects would have
since one naturally projects their character while communicating or exerting any kind of activity which would involve their personality taking charge whether at work or in their day-to-day life.
Much research has been conducted in the field of extroversion, and its impact on job satisfaction, and it has been shown to have a positive impact (Harari, Thompson, &
Viswesvaran, 2018). Therefore, an interesting aspect that could be linked to job satisfaction is work-life balance. Since personality traits can impact job satisfaction, it would be reasonable to assume that it would also impact the satisfaction with the way one achieves certain levels of balance between work and daily life, defined by literature as “work-life balance”.
According to Mustosmäki, Anttila, Oinas, & Nätti (2011) “job quality and opportunities for balancing work with other spheres of life are considered essential for retaining and attracting workers” (p. 17), and therefore it is an interesting aspect of research to look further into, and develop it with the relation toward the personality trait of extroversion.
Literature review Work-Life Balance
The various definitions of Work-Life Balance. It is important to emphasise that
work-life balance can be seen as a result of one’s actions and perceptions of oneself and their environment, which is the focus of this study. However, it can also be seen as a way of measuring job quality (Mustosmäki et al., 2011). Mustosmäki et al. (2011) argue that work-life balance can be defined in many different ways. One such dimension that has an impact on work-life balance is work-family conflict, and many theorists focus on this concept when talking about work-life balance. The conflict comes about when an
individual decides to set direction or prioritise work over family, or the other way around. When emphasising the importance of one over the other, certain conflicts can arise
ability to balance work and life (family life, or social life, or any other aspect of life which is outside of work). Not everyone has a family (children or a spouse living in the same place) to come back to from work every day, but everyone needs a way of balancing their work life and out-of-work life. So, even though one may not have a family, the emphasis on balance is still crucial. Another theory that offers a different perspective on work-life balance is one by Frone (2003), who takes more of a multidirectional approach. He believes that there is work-to-family facilitation, but there is also family-to-work facilitation, and such facilitation can take positive or negative directions. According to Voydanoff (2004), time-based and strain-based demands at work, have a strong and positive impact on work-family conflict. On the other hand, when it comes to work-family
facilitation, factors such as enabling resources and psychological rewards tend to have a strong and positive relationship. Mustosmäki et al. (2011) additionally argue that work-life imbalance can be related to long or unsocial working hours, work pressures, and
employment insecurity. Lack of these factors in one’s life would, therefore, be concluded as a positive ability to manage one’s work and out-of-work life.
Certain theories (Gallie & Russell, 2009) dwell on explaining the impact that the nature of work has on the work-family imbalance. When more discretion or higher skills are demanded of a worker in his day-to-day work tasks, this can have a negative
implication on one’s ability to cope with the overwhelming sense of power that one has in the organisation. Other factors that can play a role are the pressure of the tasks that one has to complete, or coping with demands coming from one’s bosses. Such pressure can naturally have a negative effect on the relationships one has at home. On the other hand, this theory can be challenged by other findings (Grzywacz & Marks, 2000), which suggest that:
work and family factors that facilitated development (e.g., decision latitude, family support) were associated with less negative and more positive spillover between work and family, while work and family barriers (e.g., job pressure, family disagreements) were associated with more negative spillover and less positive spillover between work and family (p. 111).
These findings additionally suggest that having higher autonomy with tasks actually creates a positive impact on how work and family interplay. Furthermore, highly negative events, whether at work or home, create a largely negative impact on one’s life. On the other hand, highly positive events at work or home, lead to highly positive
perceptions of one’s overall life satisfaction in a sense. Nonetheless, the changing environment of the world of work today has impacted the way we look at our work-life and out-of-work life. At times, it is hard to define a clear boundary between the two, when one’s work is so demanding, that it ends up intruding with one’s personal, social, or family life, such as checking your emails on the weekend, or having work calls while on a family holiday.
Today’s world of work. In today’s world, we strive to meet the demands of our
bosses and work as hard as possible. We do this with the aim of it paying off in the means of having more money, and a clearly defined position in the social hierarchy. According to Guest (2002), this has brought up three important issues that affect work-life balance. First, the issues relate to the everchanging world of work. This includes “advances in information technology and information load, the need for speed of response, the importance attached to quality of customer service and its implications for constant availability and the pace of change with its resultant upheavals and adjustments” (p. 257) which all result in an increase in time that we have to put into the work we do. The technological advancements of our
world have allowed for work environments to be established anywhere, as it is now possible to hold video conferences with your colleagues even from your bed. It has been found that there has been a 300% increase in home workers over the past 3 decades in the US (Mateyka, Rapino & Landivar, 2012). In the years 1997-2010, a drastic increase of 4 million individuals has been acknowledged to be currently working from home (Mateyka et al., 2012). As
employees are often given this opportunity, the lack of such flexibility in the company may cause employees to exert a higher willingness to leave the firm (SHRM, 2008). It has become evident in the recent years that employees who are given more flexibility as to how they are to complete their tasks or the choice as to where to work (from home or the office), have more willingness to work for such an organization (Halpern, 2005). Secondly, there are issues that relate to our out-of-work, personal life. Guest (2002) argues that as a result of an imbalance in the right prioritization of one’s overall life duties, this second aspect suffers. According to the author, the reasons behind this are “affluence, the growth of single-parent families, the privatization of family life and the lack of local resources and facilities” (p. 257) resulting in less importance being placed on the private life, or simply being unable to
balance this aspect of life. This, in turn, results in a work-life imbalance of a kind, where the individual has to choose between what they place a higher degree of importance on. In addition, relating back to the already mentioned theory by Greenhaus & Beutell (1985), who argue the theory of giving direction to parts of life. When an individual gives a certain direction to their life, emphasizing the importance of one factor over the other (in this case the individual is emphasizing work over life, or the other way around), certain imbalance and conflict can arise as a result. The third aspect relates to the approach and the significance of an individual, in what they do at work. “The changing nature of the psychological contract at work; turbulence in organisations has made it less feasible to offer secure progressive careers and therefore to justify why workers should be committed” (Guest, 2002, p. 257-258). The
theory of psychological contract was developed by Argyris (1961). According to his theory, employees who are guided and led by positive leadership, exert positive work outputs in the organisation. The psychological work contract is the relationship between the employer and his employees. In that, an effective psychological work contract results in high productivity as well as low-level resentment or unhappiness among employees (Rajalakshmi & Naresh, 2018). Guest (2002) argues that people have less willingness to show full commitment to their daily activities at work. It seems that individuals establish a lower psychological link with their work and daily tasks, as a result of this changing environment of work. It is therefore beneficial to see whether that is the case for all individuals, or whether different personality traits or a person’s characteristics play a role in how individuals deal with such issues.
The Role of Personality in Work and Life
The Link Between Personality and Work-Life Balance. Existing theories relating
to personality and work-life balance satisfaction do not fully explore the link between each trait and work-life balance. An example of a study that looked into this relationship was a study conducted by Padmasiri and Mahalaekamge (2013), who observed what personality trait mix, from the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, cause the highest work-life balance among University of Kelaniya academic staff. Even though this model of personality has poor
research support due to its lack of reliability and relevance, the findings can still be somewhat relevant to show think link. The results of the study show that extroverted individuals, with the additional qualities of sensing, feeling, or thinking and in certain cases ones who use their intuition, seem to achieve the highest work-life balance. Padmasiri and Mahalaekamge (2013) emphasise the importance of extroversion, intuition, and feeling factors, playing a role in properly conducting one’s particular task. They additionally emphasise the importance of
the “Sensing” factor, in that it enforces the capabilities of an individual for work-life balance. Their findings also go further to analyse the type of satisfaction achieved amongst the
participants among 4 different factors – work, family, social, and self. Their findings show a recurring pattern, that extroverted individuals, always scored the highest on all of these dimensions mentioned.
On the other hand, a study conducted by Leka and De Alwis (2016), who investigated the impact of personality traits on work-life conflict found that extroversion does not have a significant impact on work-life conflicts. However, it was discovered to be a relevant predictor of time-based conflicts. Extroverts feel the need to be sociable, in all domains of their life, and spend time socialising with their families, friends as well as colleagues from work. Therefore, conflicts can arise when they need to make decisions about allocating their time to each of these domains. Baer, Jenkins, and Barber’s (2014) findings provide evidence to suggest that the extent to which an individual is extroverted, is an important factor in determining the relationship between work-to-home conflict and work-related resource depletion (such as job burnout, low engagement and low satisfaction with balance). They suggest that extroverts are better at coping with work spilling over into their out-of-work life and are better at controlling their reactions to this spill over. Introverts are found to have lower satisfaction with their work-home balance, have more work burnout as well as less work engagement. Michel, Clark, and Jaramillo (2011) found further support for this claim, finding that “individuals high in extraversion and openness perceive more positive spill over between work and nonwork domains” (p.193). They suggest that this is due to the reason that extroverts are naturally very sociable and exert more positive emotions (Watson & Clark, 1997), and as a result, they would naturally be more prone to experience more positive spill overs than negative ones.
This can lead to the conclusion that extroversion has a significant impact on work-life balance satisfaction, specifically in relation to the environment. In the case of the current research, it will focus on different types of work environments, where people have experience working part-time, or full-time, and in different functions or positions. This aims to give a broader overview of whether extroversion has an impact on everyone’s work-life balance, or whether it only plays a role in certain jobs and functions.
In summary, this research wants to determine whether individuals who are extroverted are better able to deal with the stress of their work, and therefore would not project their unsatisfaction/stress into their personal life, and as a result, being more satisfied with their overall work-life balance and personal life, and capable to find this balance
between both. This research aims to answer the question “To what extent does the personality trait of extroversion have an impact on individual’s work-life balance?”. A clear link is evident in the model proposed (Figure 1). The hypothesis is as follows:
H1: Extroversion will have an overall positive impact on work-life balance, as a result of the different characteristics, that allow for an extroverted individual to draw satisfaction from the different activities he takes part in (work, family, social events), in his life.
Gender link. As previously established, the work environment has gone through a
rapid change in the past years. Thus, it enforces the importance of competitiveness amongst people, and organisations, in their overall performance. Multiple studies (Niederle and Vesterlund, 2007; Gneezy et al., 2003; Gneezy and Rustichini, 2004) focused on analysing the correlation between gender and competitive behaviours. All the studies found that men project a higher degree of competition, compared to women, in most tasks (Kamas & Preston, 2012). This propensity to act more competitively stems mainly from subjective
factors about oneself, such as “confidence in one’s own skill and fear of failure” (Comeig & Lurbe, 2017, p. 149). Similarly, Croson and Gneezy (2009) reviewed how gender impacts three dimensions that they observed. They found significant differences in “risk preferences”, “social preferences”, as well as “competitive preferences” (p. 467). All of these factors relate to how individuals act in certain situations. This could be linked with one’s personality, which in this case would be looking into how extroverted males or females, cope with managing and balancing their work and life. As defined by Helle et al. (2018), extroverted individuals are ones who are assertive, and excitement-seeking, which could be linked to this kind of competitive dimension, which males are found to express more than females.
According to Weathington and Moldenhauer (2008) and Li, Lan, and Ju (2015), extroverted males exert higher results on dimensions of self-reported leadership, as well as self-reported well-being. According to Weisberg, DeYoung, and Hirsh (2011), men tend to be more assertive, whereas women score higher on warmth when it comes to the dimensions that predict whether an individual possesses characteristics that show one’s being extroverted.
Males are more competitive, and therefore seek more chances to attempt to achieve higher results, and always be more successful in what they do, which could pay off
negatively on how they try to balance their work-life and out-of-work life. On the other hand, extroverted women would, therefore, be thought of as scoring higher on the work-life balance dimension, because they are less competitive, therefore they do not take up as many
competitive possibilities in the workplace, which would positively impact their satisfaction with their work-life, and therefore have a higher possibility of achieving a better work-life balance. Especially, looking at the different gender roles throughout history, where the man (historically) was the one who goes to work, and takes care of the family from more of the work perspective (i.e. he has to work hard, to earn money, to be able to sustain his family), whereas the woman was the caretaker at home, taking care of the home and children.
Possibly, this could be another reason for women to score higher on work-life balance, because their role has been emphasised more toward the “life” dimension, as opposed to “work”, and for men, it is the other way around. The second part of the model answers the question of: “To what extent does extroversion, moderated by one’s gender, have an impact on individual’s work-life balance satisfaction?” Therefore, the second hypothesis is as follows:
H2: Extroverted males will score lower on work-life balance satisfaction.
In summary, it would be interesting to look into whether these findings would be any different if the moderating effect of gender would have been added. Not much research has been done into the field of such an effect, however, according to a study conducted by Whitman (1929), there is a certain and visible effect. A study conducted by Yuan, Jijun, and Chengting (2015), found support for the moderating effect of gender on the relation between extroversion and subjective well-being to be significant. Thus, showing that the effect is higher for men, rather than women. Therefore, this effect would also be interesting to analyse further, to establish its impact on the individual’s work-life balance in correlation with their personality characteristic. Therefore, the existing model (Figure 1) has the addition, wherein the moderating effect of gender is implemented.
Methodology Participants
The survey used was run on 180 participants, who were mainly recruited through
personal invitations via email, but a large portion of the participants was also found via social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram or WhatsApp. One survey was removed, as it was only 61% complete, and was lacking all the crucial data needed to be analysed. The calculated response rate was 72%. However, it is tough to calculate the response rate of the participants, since the survey was largely sent out on social media groups (LinkedIn, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, etc.) amongst other channels such as a direct message or email. It is therefore assumed that each member of the 5 people group reached out to
approximately 50 individuals. There were no particular exclusion criteria for the individuals, other than the fact that the candidates had to be working professionals at the time. Thus, meaning that anyone who is of the legal age to work, and is currently employed, whether it is part-time, full-time, freelancer or anyone else of such sort, was included in the sample, and the research made sure to specify that only such individuals are permitted to take the survey. The only other criteria which were involved was the fact that the participants had to be fluent English speakers, or have a good understanding of the language, as the survey was conducted entirely in English. The subjects also participated voluntarily. Out of the 179 participants, the sample included 87 males (48.6%) and 88 females (49.2%). Four participants did not specify their gender, which is why the number of participants does not add up to the original 179 mentioned. Participants ages ranged from 15 to 67 years old, with the mean age being 26.74, (SD = 9.159, 174 participants specified their age). It was discovered that approximately 5% of the data from the dataset gathered was missing.
Materials and Procedure
Extroversion. To measure how the participants’ score on the variable of extroversion,
questions relating to this personality trait were taken out of the HEXACO 60 – point survey (Lee & Ashton, 2009), which is a self-reported questionnaire, where participants rate
themselves using a 5-point Likert scale, with responses ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). The original HEXACO questionnaire has statements relating to six different personality domains such as Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, Extroversion,
Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness. However, for the purpose of this research, only the 10 questions relating to the extroversion dimension were extracted and used
(Cronbach’s alpha = 0.805).
Work-Life balance. To measure work-life balance, the 5-statement questionnaire
administered by Valcour (2007) was used. Participants were asked to rate their satisfaction on a 5-point Likert scale, where the possible responses ranged from extremely dissatisfied (1) to extremely satisfied (5) (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.887).
Gender. This variable was ranging on a scale, which was recoded. Since none of the
participants chose the option “other”, males were coded as “0” and females as “1”.
Control variables. To exclude other effects on the hypotheses being tested, a control
variable was added. The variable taken into account was age, which was further used in the analyses. According to Chaudhuri, Reilly & Spencer (2015), there is a significant link between gender and age on job satisfaction. Therefore, it was decided to take this variable into account, as possibly there could be a relevant interaction that needed to be controlled.
The questions from the HEXACO survey as well as the ones relating to work-life balance were incorporated into a Qualtrics survey, which was sent out to individuals digitally.
Data analysis
The data were analysed using SPSS software. The descriptive analyses which were incorporated were means, proportions, as well as standard deviations. The data was checked to meet all the assumptions relating to the data in order to be working with relevant and valid results. The tests which were run can be found in Appendixes 1-4. Based on the analysis of skewness and kurtosis scores (Appendix 1), as well as frequency distribution (Appendix 2) and P-P plots (Appendix 3) of the two scale variables used – Extroversion and Work-Life Balance2, normality of the data was assumed.
The variables were tested for outliers using box plots (Appendix 4). Upon analysis of the outliers which were identified by the box plots, it was decided that none of them will be deleted because removing them from the sample would not affect the significance of the result.
The analysis also looked at the different correlations between variables. Next, a linear regression was run in order to predict the relationship of the independent variable, to the dependent variable, as well as the impact of the control variable on this relation. To check the moderation interaction effect, a PROCESS Macro Model 1 of Hayes (2018) was run on the interaction between extroversion and gender, controlling for age.
Results
Table 1
Means, standard deviations, and correlations
Variables M SD 1 2 3 4 1.Age 26.76 9.16 - 2.Gender .50 .50 -.124 - 3.Extroversion 3.52 .66 .208* * -.283** - 4.Work-Life Balance 3.70 .81 -.105 .054 .252* * - **p < .01
Correlations between the variables were checked. The results which can be seen in Table 1 showed a weak positive correlation between the independent and dependent variables (work-life balance and extroversion) (r = .252; p = .001). In other words, those individuals who scored high on extroversion, have higher levels of work-life balance. There was also a weak positive correlation between extroversion and the control variable – age (r = .208; p = .007). Signifying that an individual’s high extroversion, varied with the age of the participant, in that on average older participants were more extroverted than younger participants. And a weak negative correlation between extroversion and gender, the moderator variable (r = -.283; p = .000). Meaning in this case, that men on average had higher levels of extroversion than women.
To test hypothesis 1 - “Extroversion will have an overall positive impact on work-life balance” a linear regression was run (Table 2). Linear regression determines whether
Table 2
Regression Model Summary for Extroversion and Age predicting Work-Life Balance.
B β t p Model 1 Constant 3.94 [3.56, 4.32] 20.31 .000 Age -.01 [-.02, .00] -.10 - 1.33 .185 Note. R² adjusted = .005 Model 2 Constant 2.88 8.38 .000 Age [2.20, 3.56] -.01 -.16 -2.12 .036 [-.03, -.00] Extroversion .34 .28 3.66 .000 [.16, .52] Note. R² adjusted = .074
The adjusted R² of the model 1 consisting of only the control variable and the
dependent variable, was .005 meaning that only 0.5% of the variance in work-life balance can be explained by this model. However, it is not significant (p >.05). Therefore, the focus is shifted toward a second regression analysis model, consisting of the independent variable, as well as the control variable (Table 2). The adjusted R² was 0.074, meaning that the
extroversion variable, allows explaining 7.4% of the variance in work-life balance, which is higher than the model consisting of only the control variable, by 6.9% (p < .05). Here, as work-life balance increases by one standard deviation, extroversion increases by .279 points on the scale (b = .279, t = 3.662, p = .000). Therefore, it can be assumed that some support was found for hypothesis 1, in that there is an impact of extroversion on work-life balance.
To test hypothesis 2 – “Extroverted males will score lower on work-life balance satisfaction”, PROCESS Macro Model 1 of Hayes (2018) was run (Table 3).
Table 3
A linear model of predictors of Work-Life Balance
b SE β t p Constant .75 [3.69, 4.44] .19 21.33 .00 Extroversion (centred) .38 [.16, .54] .10 3.55 .00 Gender (centred) .36 [-.07, .43] .13 1.45 .15 Extroversion * Gender .47 [-.15, .62] .19 1.20 .23 Note. R² = .11
The variables were mean centred to make the interpretation of the model easier. The results of the regression found no support for hypothesis 2. They showed no significance of the interaction effect between extroversion and gender (b = .47, SE β = .19, t = 1.2, p = .23, 95% CI = [-.15; .62]). In other words, there was an overall main effect of extroversion on work-life balance, however, there was no interaction effect visible, signifying that
extroversion affected individual’s work-life balance similarly for both women and men. The lack of the interaction effect was additionally plotted on a graph to allow for better
visualisation of the result.
Figure 2. Moderation effect of Gender on the relationship between Extroversion and Work-Life
Discussion
This study focused on the role of extroversion and gender in the work-life balance satisfaction of employees. Explicitly, the main aim was to explore the extent to which the relationship between extroversion and work-life balance existed, and further, whether it was impacted by gender. The specific research questions relating to the two assumptions were “To what extent does the personality trait of extroversion have an impact on individual’s work-life balance?”, and building on the first research question, “To what extent does extroversion, moderated by one’s gender, have an impact on individual’s work-life balance satisfaction?”. It was expected that extroversion will have an overall positive impact on work-life balance, as a result of the different characteristics, that allow for an extroverted individual to draw satisfaction from the different activities he takes part in (work, family, social events), in his life. And following up on this prediction, it was additionally believed that extroverted males will score lower on work-life balance satisfaction, due to the
assumption that they tend to possess different personality characteristics and factors, which could impact their ability to balance work and out-of-work life properly.
In line with these predictions, the study found that extroversion was positively related to work-life balance. This provides support for the claim that highly extroverted individuals are capable of having higher work-life balance satisfaction, supporting previously developed theories on this topic. This link was expected, as it was believed that individuals who are extroverted, possess better characteristics to allow them to excel at managing the spill over of their work-life into their out-of-work life (Baer et al., 2014; Watson & Clark, 1997). As a result, such individuals can effectively manage the way that the two settings impact their overall satisfaction with their life (Michel et al., 2011). Especially in highly supportive environments, which would allow for the individuals to better cope with the two domains, extroverted individuals find themselves to be more engaged, motivated, and as a result, more
satisfied. On the other hand, following this line of reasoning, introverted individuals do not possess such strongly established traits that would enable them to properly manage and cope with their life in the two dimensions (work and out-of-work). The spill overs that can come as a result of poor management, impact the individuals more negatively, in that they are less engaged, less satisfied, and even as found by previous research, this can lead to higher burnout (Baer et al., 2014).
The study found no support for the assumption that gender would play a moderating role in the relationship between work-life balance and extroversion levels. As discovered at first by testing the correlations between variables, gender has a significant impact on the levels of extroversion of an individual. This is in line with previous research, and current studies’ predictions. However, as mentioned, gender was not found to be a relevant predictor of the relationship between extroversion and work-life balance. This was an assumption that arose during the research, as no significant relationship was discovered for gender or age, in relation to work-life balance.
It was additionally found that age did not play a relevant role in the interaction either. Meaning that no matter whether the extroverted person is young or old, their ability to achieve a healthy work-life balance, is not a result of the person’s age.
These findings propose that an individual’s primary dimensions of diversity - the ones that are inborn and are unchangeable (Starc & Erjavec, 2017), have no impact on the way that people manage their work-life and out-of-work life. Even though it was believed that since historically, males have been believed to be the “providers” serving as the “head of the family”, and they are also more focused on results, as opposed to building relationships, they would feel more pressure on themselves to obtain those results, which could push them into burnout and greater dissatisfaction with their life. And since women have been believed to be more of the caretakers, who greatly focus on the establishment of relationships, they would
be less goal-oriented and driven by the need to obtain those set goals, and therefore they would draw more satisfaction from their life.
It is now understood, as it was discovered by this study, that gender and age do not play an important role in work-life balance. One important reason for this could be the idea that all extroverted individuals are more sociable, and relationship-driven, therefore, they find it easier to balance their life, as opposed to introverted individuals. Another reason could be largely related to the fact that convenience sampling was used, as the survey was sent out in large part to individuals on social media, who were asked to fill out the survey at their
convenience if they find time to complete it. Therefore, a certain self-selection bias occurs, as only the individuals who had the time to take part in the study would have completed it. This is largely important to acknowledge especially during these times, as the Coronavirus
pandemic is having a large impact on work-life balance (Jackson, 2020). People are now expected to work from home more, and their work and out-of-work life are largely
converging into one domain. Women now need to place more importance on taking care of the home, and their families (Alon, Doepke, Olmstead-Rumsey & Tertilt, 2020). Therefore, it could be assumed that the sample for this study may not be representative, as only the people who found the time in their day to respond to the survey, managed to do that. In this case, it could have been the fact that men were the ones who were more available, as women’s time is more preoccupied with taking care of the out-of-work domain, now that everyone is
expected to stay at home and schools and offices are closed. This largely throws our normally established work-life schedule off balance, and therefore the scores both for gender as well as for work-life balance or even extroversion scores, to be different. As discussed by Jeronimus (2020) in a recent study relating to the impacts of the novel Coronavirus on individuals, they state that our personalities, goals, values, and actions can largely change under the influence of a change in our social world. It is expected that in such cases, people become more
prudent, and can even turn more introverted. They can also become more risk-averse, and a larger emphasis is placed on collectivistic behaviour as a result.
Even though the overall impact of extroversion on work-life balance was fairly weak, extroversion explained 6.9% of the variance in work-life balance. This presents more
evidence to draw the conclusions that highly extroverted individuals possess traits that allow them to cope better with their daily work duties, as well as out-of-work life duties.
Extroversion allows these individuals to better balance their potential dissatisfaction or stress of either environment and as a result, the individuals have increased perceptions of their positive work-life balance. As found previously, extroverted individuals, were able to find a balance between all the factors relating to the work-life dimensions, such as work, social, self, and family (Padmasiri & Mahalaekamge, 2013). The traits which define one’s
extroversion, such as social self-esteem, social boldness, sociability, and liveliness, increased employee’s capacity to possess positive thoughts about the satisfaction that they take from the balance they have in their life. The studies which were mentioned previously in this thesis, mainly focused on researching one particular work setting, however, this study
extended its reach, by taking into account all individuals who currently work, in any possible field. Therefore, findings of this study can be fully generalised to provide some evidence that highly extroverted individuals have higher work-life balance.
The findings suggest that extroversion affected one’s work-life balance similarly, no matter whether the individual was male or female. The idea that gender did not play any relevant impact on the relationship between extroversion and work-life balance, is surprising, because previous research (Weathington & Moldenhauer, 2008; Li et al., 2015; Yuan et al., 2015), has found a significant link between gender and extroversion, as well as gender and work-life balance. Therefore, it would have been assumed that it would also have an impact on the two factors together. The two variables have a link to one another. However, this does
not exactly mean that a significant relationship would arise, when all of these variables listed, were put into one model, having had been tested for the moderating effect. Additionally, the effect of gender may not have been visible, due to the potential shift and convergence of gender roles in today’s society. In particular, women are shifting more and more toward focusing on their career and place high importance on their work-life (“The changing role of women”, 2015). Some of the studies which were mentioned in the literature review, in discussing gender, were conducted more than 15 years ago. The shift of women’s roles has been taking place quite recently, therefore there may be a possibility that some of the research conducted over 15 years ago might be outdated. Nonetheless, this study does not provide new contributions to gender roles and gender characteristic differences as a potential contributor to creating a healthy work-life balance.
Limitations and recommendations for future research
One very important limitation which was already mentioned is the fact that the study was held during the global breakout of the Coronavirus pandemic, which was believed to have an impact on the overall results of the research conducted. Therefore, one suggestion for future research would be to hold this exact study setting, when the COVID-19 pandemic is over and everyone fades back into their normal, previously established life. This would be able to show a comparison between whether the study was impacted by the pandemic, and whether people and their behaviours and regimes, did in fact change during those times.
Another limitation of this study is the fact that it was largely generalised to include all individuals who work in any industry domain. For the future, the research should focus on a single work domain at a time, to see whether different work environments, in different industry sectors, could have a link toward the relationship between extroversion, work-life balance, and gender. In that, this research would aim to see whether women in a certain work
domain are better at coping with their work-related stress in comparison to men. Future research could be aimed at analysing whether one’s position in the hierarchy of the workplace, such as having an entry-level job or a managerial position, relates to elevated levels of stress, and if so, are extroverted males or females better at coping with this stress, and therefore are better able at achieving work-life balance.
For future research, it would also be interesting to evaluate what types of different life coping mechanisms individuals have, to get a more in-depth understanding as to why do certain individuals have higher work-life balance scores as opposed to others. It would be interesting to produce an extension of this study, to compare the individuals with high work-life balance scores and low work-work-life balance scores, in that a qualitative study would aim at finding the exact life schedules that individuals have, to see how peoples days vary, and to see the implications that this could have on the individuals. They could have different coping mechanisms, or the existence of a family could for example either increase or decrease their satisfaction, and their feeling that their family either allows them to balance their work and out-of-work life better or potentially the opposite effect would be visible, in that family increases their stress over the inability to balance the two domains.
Conclusion
Concluding, this study found evidence for the positive impact that extroversion has on one’s work-life balance. This provides further support in our understanding of the impact that one’s personality traits have on the way they portray their life, and how differently they manage to balance or not balance the two domains of their life (work-life and out-of-work life). However, gender and age were found to have no impact on this link. It is important to make sure to conduct this study again, in a post-Coronavirus pandemic setting, to take into
consideration, the potential impact that the current situation in the world has on all individuals.
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Appendix
Appendix 1 – Skewness and Kurtosis scores for Work-Life Balance and Extroversion variables
