Agreeableness is one of five dimensions of personality according to the Big Five model (McCrae & Costa, 1987). It describes a person's tendency to seek social harmony rather than to strive for individual results. Agreeableness includes qualities such as altruism, humility, and kindness (Costa & McCrae, 1985).
Whereas it was previously assumed that the objective versus relationship-oriented expression of agreeableness formed a pair of opposites, with a person clearly assigned to one of the two categories, today subject-oriented and relationship-oriented are considered two poles of a continuum within the dimension of agreeableness. The value of each person can therefore be located at one point on the following scale:
Subject-oriented
For people whose behavior is more subject-oriented and who, above all, strive for individual results, the following characteristics are typical:
- competition-oriented
- skeptical
- unyielding
They are therefore perfect for jobs that focus more on individual results than on teamwork, or that require a certain amount of dominance. If the position focuses on individual performance rather than on teamwork, subject-oriented people are often suitable, such as in the police or in clerical processing roles (Denissen et al., 2017).
Relationship-oriented
People whose behavior is more relationship-oriented and who, in particular, strive for harmonious relationships, can be described by the following characteristics:
- sympathetic
- empathetic
- in need of harmony
This makes them born team players. This is also noticeable at work, where strong relationship orientation is the best predictor of performance in occupations involving a lot of teamwork (Mount et al., 1998). Jobs that require strong relationship-oriented behavior include teachers or psychologists (Denissen et al., 2017).
Benefits in a professional context
A person's professional success therefore does not depend on their agreeableness as the sole predictor, but rather on the fit between the person and the characteristics of the vacancy. If a job requires a high level of cooperation and social skills, a relationship-oriented person is the best choice. If, on the other hand, it is primarily a matter of standing up to the competition, a subject-oriented person will perform the task better.
How do you measure agreeableness?
Do you want to record the agreeableness of your applicants? Aivy is happy to help you with this!
Our mini-game “Self-Knowledge” offers users the opportunity to complete a brief self-assessment and find out their individual score. This not only covers agreeableness, but also the four other areas of the Big Five:
Sources
- Costa, P.T., & McCrae, R.R. (1985). The NEO personality inventory. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.
- Denissen, J.J., Bleidorn, W., Hennecke, M., Luhmann, M., Orth, U., Specht, J., & Zimmermann, J. (2018). Uncovering the power of personality to shape income. Psychological Science, 29 (1), 3-13.
- McCrae, R.R., & Costa, P.T. (1987). Validation of the five-factor model of personality across instruments and observers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52 (1), 81.
- Mount, M.K., Barrick, M.R., & Stewart, G.L. (1998). Five-factor model of personality and performance in jobs involving interpersonal interactions. Human Performance, 11 (2-3), 145-165.
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