The Relationship Between Personality Traits, Deviant Behavior and Workplace Incivility

Abstract

Rude, rough, and disrespectful behavior has been experienced by most individuals every day, especially at work. These types of behaviors are categorized into workplace incivility and deviant behavior. Personality traits are one of the characteristics that tend to influence a person's behavior at work. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the relationship between personality traits and workplace incivility and deviant behavior. This study is a quantitative study, where data is collected using a three-part questionnaire which are demographics, personality inventory and workplace behavior. The study sample consisted of 97 employees of private organizations around the state of Selangor and the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur. Data were then analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software. Pearson's correlation test and multiple regression tests were carried out to achieve the research's objectives. The results showed that there was a significant relationship between personality traits and workplace deviant behavior and incivility. The results also showed that personality traits significantly predict workplace deviant behavior and incivility. The insights gained can help organizations in hiring new employees or identifying possible causes for unwanted issues within the organization. Keyword: Personality, Deviant Behavior, Incivility, Psychology, Workplace Introduction Most employees in an organization have the experience of being treated rudely or disrespected by their colleagues whether consciously or not. Such behavior is called workplace incivility. According to Miner and Cortina (2016), specific examples of rudeness in the workplace include neglecting someone, making derogatory comments, insulting or shouting at an individual, refusing to communicate orally and speaking in an unprofessional manner to an individual. As many as 98 percent of employees have been estimated to be impolite in the workplace with 50 percent experiencing it on a weekly basis (Porath & Pearson, 2013). This should not be the norm in an organization and should be curbed so as not to get worse, for example, the victim may behave deviant in the workplace if experiencing the matter continuously. Meanwhile, deviant behavior in the workplace refers to the voluntary behavior of individuals International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences Vol. 1 1 , No. 3, 2021, E-ISSN: 2222-6990 © 2021 HRMARS 171 who violate organizational norms and threaten the well-being of the organization, members of the organization, or both (Robinson & Bennett, 1995). Examples of such behaviors include theft, sabotage, vandalism, embezzlement, harassment, and drug use (Bennett & Robinson, 2000; Gruys & Sackett, 2003; Robinson & Bennett, 1995; Sackett & DeVore, 2001; Spector et al., 2006). Untreated deviant behavior can lead to failure and paralysis of the entire organizational performance (Dunlop & Lee, 2004; Bolin & Heatherly, 2001). Many past studies have been done to understand the resulting factors of politeness and deviant behavior in the workplace including employee personality, stress and workload, leadership ethics, and more. Personality consists of the characteristics of thought patterns, feelings, and behaviors that make a person unique (Eysenck, 1967). The five personality traits used in the study were openness, prudence, extraversion, agreement, and neuroticism. The personality trait of openness has been described as the depth as well as the complexity of an individual's life and mental experience (John & Srivastava, 1999). An example of the nature of an individual who has this trait is fond of trying new, bold, and creative things. The prudent trait refers to the way a person controls, regulates, and directs impulses (Johnson and Ostendorf, 1993) and acts in a socially acceptable way (John & Srivastava, 1999). Extraversion traits are individuals who like to socialize and interact with the public reflecting the level of social harmony of an individual with others. Next, personality traits of neuroticism or low emotional stability refer to a person’s tendency to experience negative feelings (Johnson and Ostendorf, 1993). Individuals with these high neuroticism traits may be irritable, tend to feel uncomfortable with themselves as well as self-doubt (Lebowitz, 2016). Several previous studies have confirmed that the five Big Five personality traits are consistent when applied to different populations including populations of children, students, and adults (McCrae, 2004; Aluja et al., 2005). These personality traits are one of the factors of decency and deviant behavior in the workplace that have been focused on in previous studies. Politeness in the workplace is completely separate from physical violence and aggression (Itzkovich & Heilbrunn, 2016). However, the adverse effects of immorality in the workplace are almost the same as the effects of other negative behaviors such as deviant behavior, aggression, and so on even though the intensity of these impolite behaviors is lower. Porath and Pearson (2009) found that 80 percent of employees report loss of time due to concern about a rude incident and 48 percent report they intentionally reduce the effort in doing their job. This shows that rudeness in the workplace has a detrimental effect on the mental state of an employee and can germinate even worse if left alone. Disrespectful in the workplace is a vague behavior, in the sense that not everyone thinks a certain something is rude, one rude thing to a person may be seen as acceptable by the other person. As a result, politeness in the workplace may be ignored only by leaders in the organization (Lewis & Malecha, 2011). But, everyone can fall victim to this whether they experience it from colleagues, employers or customers and clients if working in a sector that offers services to the public. Researchers see immodesty in the workplace as compared to low-intensity stress, such as disorders that occur in daily life (Lim & Lee, 2011). Politeness in the workplace is also not necessarily aimed at a particular individual. For example, when an employee throws garbage everywhere in the lounge, anyone who wants to use it has to tidy International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences Vol. 1 1 , No. 3, 2021, E-ISSN: 2222-6990 © 2021 HRMARS 172 up the place. Past studies have mostly focused on the effects of immodesty in the workplace compared to the causes of such behavior, especially in Malaysia. Furthermore, deviant behavior in the workplace has long been studied around the world including Malaysia, but it is still a serious problem in the organization. According to Omar, Awang and Manaf (2012), the performance and integrity of civil servants in Malaysia are still problematic. Many researchers use different terms to replace deviant behavior in the workplace, such as unproductive behavior (Spector et al., 2010), antisocial behavior (Giacalone et al., 1997), misconduct (Vardi & Weiner, 1992), behavior destructive (Murphy, 1993), and more. Deviant behavior or unproductive behavior in the workplace is considered one of the three main dimensions of job performance (Rotundo & Sackett, 2002). Therefore, deviant behavior has a huge impact on the employees of the organization so that it can affect the performance of employees and result in losses for an organization. Millions of dollars are lost each year as a result of deviant behavior at work (Johnson & Indvik, 2001). In 2010 alone, the U.S.A. suffered losses of $ 15.9 billion due to theft by employees (Hollinger & Adams 2010). Furthermore, a worldwide survey study was conducted in 32 countries in North America, Asia Pacific, and Europe estimating that more than a third of losses could be attributed to theft by employees (Bamfield, 2007). A study conducted by Coffin (2003) found that at least one-third of individuals in an organization have been involved in stealing activities in their organization and 95 percent are found to have stolen once in their lives. The results of the study show that an individual is very easy to do deviant behavior in the workplace and easily influenced by personal factors that are their personality. In addition, employees who fall victim to deviant behavior will experience physical and psychological pain, compromised self-esteem and increase selfdoubt in the workplace (Farhadi et al. 2012). Therefore, employees will always feel disturbed in the workplace, always be under stress and will not focus on the tasks that need to be completed. The adverse effects of this deviant behavior are almost the same as the effects of rudeness in the workplace which both have a negative impact on employees and organizations, but deviant behavior is clearer in terms of behavior and more physically involved employees. Researchers have identified that deviant behavior results in adverse effects such as the intention to quit work, absenteeism, frustration, abuse of materials and privileges, stealing, sexual harassment, and bias (Chirasha & Mahapa 2012; Appelbaum et al. 2007; Lawrence & Robinso 2007; Bolin & Heatherly 2001).