Kanagaratnam, Kassandra (2010) The Effect of Experiential Avoidance and Metacognition on Resilience. Honours thesis, University of Southern Queensland. (Unpublished)
Abstract
Whilst previous research has examined the relationships between (a) personality and workplace motivation and (b) contextual variables and workplace motivation, few have included personality, contextual variables and workplace motivation in the same study. The present study focused on two aims: (a) to examine whether relationships existed among personality traits (i.e., extraversion, neuroticism, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness), contextual variables (i.e., workplace acceptance, opportunities for development, meaningful work and supervisor support), and two types of workplace motivation (i.e., autonomous and controlled) in employees; and (b) to evaluate the contributions of the personality and contextual variables in the prediction of the two types of workplace motivation. Participants included 156 employed individuals (male = 55, female = 99, and unknown = 2), aged between 18 and 59 years and were members of the organisations, colleagues, family and friends known to the researcher. The International Personality Item Pool Representation of the NEO-FFI (Goldberg, Johnson, Eber, Hogan, Ashton, Cloninger, & Gough, 2006) was used to assess levels of certain personality traits, whilst the Work Factors Questionnaire (Machin, Patrick, Goh, Sankey, Terry & Slack-Smith, 2008) intended to establish levels of workplace acceptance, opportunities for development, meaningful work and supervisor support. The Situational Motivation Scale assessed perceived levels of autonomous and controlled motivation towards professional development (Guay, Vallerand, & Blanchard, 2000). Correlation analyses revealed that all personality traits aside from neuroticism were significantly and positively correlated with autonomous motivation, whilst neuroticism was significantly and negatively correlated with autonomous motivation. In addition, the opposite applied for controlled motivation where all personality trait variables were significantly and negatively correlated, apart from for neuroticism that was significantly and positively correlated with controlled motivation. Further examination showed that all four contextual variables were also significantly and positively correlated with autonomous motivation, whilst again the opposite applied for controlled motivation, with all contextual variables showing significantly and negatively correlations. Regression analysis revealed that the collective predictive ability of the personality trait subscales accounted for 43% and 39% of the variance in autonomous motivation and controlled motivation, respectively. Only extraversion and openness to experience made a significant unique contribution to the prediction of the two types of workplace motivation. Regression analysis also revealed that the collective predictive ability of the contextual variables accounted for 5% and 8% of the variation in autonomous motivation and controlled motivation, respectively. None of the individual contextual variables however, uniquely or significantly predicted the two types of workplace motivation. Results of the current study provided quite different strategies for enhancing autonomous motivation. Evidence suggests that employers may benefit from recruiting individuals with certain personality traits or changing organisational practices to enhance the working environment in order to foster autonomous motivation. This in turn may reduce turnover and increase employee performance. Future research may benefit from implementing from longitudinal designs, which could establish casual relationships between the dimensions of personality, workplace context and the two types of workplace motivation
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| Item Type: | Thesis (Non-Research) (Honours) |
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| Item Status: | Live Archive |
| Additional Information: | Current UniSQ staff and students can request access to this thesis. Please email research.repository@unisq.edu.au with a subject line of SEAR thesis request and provide: Name of the thesis requested and Your name and UniSQ email address |
| Faculty/School / Institute/Centre: | Historic - Faculty of Sciences - Department of Psychology (Up to 30 Jun 2013) |
| Supervisors: | Thompson, Murray |
| Qualification: | Bachelor of Science (Honours) (Psychology) |
| Date Deposited: | 08 Jan 2026 03:31 |
| Last Modified: | 08 Jan 2026 03:31 |
| Fields of Research (2008): | 17 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 1799 Other Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 179999 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences not elsewhere classified |
| Fields of Research (2020): | 52 PSYCHOLOGY > 5299 Other psychology > 529999 Other psychology not elsewhere classified |
| URI: | https://sear.unisq.edu.au/id/eprint/52455 |
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