Personality change
Unemployment has been proven to negatively influence the well-being of an individual, however, it is yet unproven whether it affects the personality behaviors of an individual. Despite this though, results indicate that unemployment is associated with psychological implications. Studies prove personality is malleable by socioeconomic variables for instance income or marital status. Also, Boyce, Wood, Daly & Sedikides, (2015) assert that personality change is associated with the process of intrinsic maturation caused by genetic influences. An additional contribution to personal change is the environmental variations in events such as retirement and marital status, factors that have been associated with personal change.
From various definitions, it is possible to regard personal change as a glimpse of the changing nature of individuals as they engage dynamically with their environments as longitudinal studies suggest that the change has environmental and genetic components. Since unemployment is a severe environmental change that restricts the chance of an individual engaging with certain types of tasks and omitting social contact, it will, therefore, permeate the person’s life and aid instigate change in behavior even in situations less related to work (Boyce, Wood, Daly & Sedikides, 2015). Since conscientiousness is positively associated with a person’s economic condition, a change in conscientiousness-associated traits will directly influence personality change.
Neuroticism at the disposition level entails depression and stress. Since the employed environment provides social support, unemployment dissipates this support, therefore, prompting higher neuroticism since low self-esteem and lack of support trigger cognitions and negative emotions (Boyce, Wood, Daly & Sedikides, 2015). Since unemployment tends to present both new opportunities and threats, it’s unclear how it might influence extraversion, agreeableness as well as openness.
Since it is expected that unemployment will influence the change in personality through the chance of expressing the relevant traits, there is a possibility that this impact will not be long lasting. Studies prove that upon regaining employment, the fluid process that resulted to personality change initially will stop operating in a similar way anymore, therefore in the new environment of unemployment, additional personality transformation will be catalyzed.
References
Boyce, C., Wood, A., Daly, M., & Sedikides, C. (2015). Personality change following unemployment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100(4), 991-1011. doi: 10.1037/a0038647