Choosing team members: taking personality and perceived personality into account

Technological advances have led to an increase in teams that self-assemble, meaning individuals have more power to choose whom they want to work with. This study aims to understand the mechanisms behind teammate choice. Specifically, a qualitative study and a social network approach were used to investigate the characteristics individuals take into consideration when choosing teammates. Two themes emerged from the qualitative study, indicating that individuals consider both accessibility (e.g., friendship and physical proximity) and desirable characteristics (e.g., conscientiousness and complementary skills) when choosing teammates. The quantitative social network study (on a sample of N=304 college students who completed sociometric measures of teammate invitations and personality) demonstrated that individuals tended to send teammate invitations to those: (a) whom they perceive to exhibit higher extraversion and lower neuroticism, (b) with whom they are familiar (i.e., via friendship and prior collaboration), and (c) who were similar to themselves (personality homophily) in three traits: emotional intelligence, preference for teamwork, and neuroticism. Further, the accuracy with which the teammate invitation sender perceives the self-rated personality of the target of the invitation (i.e., self-other correspondence in rated personality/attributes) is moderated/strengthened by familiarity, for the attributes of extraversion, neuroticism, emotional intelligence, and exam grades.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2018

Author dc:creator

• Rangel, Bertha

Contributors dc:contributor

• Newman, Daniel A.
• Carpenter, Nichelle C.
• DeChurch, Leslie A
• Fraley, Robert C
• Rounds, James
• Hulin, Charles L.

• self-organized teams, ERGM, personality

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2018 Bertha Rangel

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/101715

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/101715