Is job performance independent from career success? A conceptual distinction between competence and agency

Adopting a social approach to social judgment, we conducted five studies to validate a conceptual distinction between agency and competence traits. Studies 1–3 revealed that competence traits (e.g., skillful) are associated with job performance, whereas agentic traits (e.g., ambitious) are associated with career success. Study 4 showed that only agency predicted the amount of money people are likely to earn: the more a given trait was considered as agentic, the more it was associated with high monetary values. Study 5 highlighted the predominance of agency traits over competence traits in the evaluation of an employee applying for a promotion. Nevertheless, participants asserted that competence was the main criterion they used to judge the applicant. Implications of the conceptual distinction between agency and competence for social cognition are discussed.

Source: Scandinavian Journal of Psychology - September 30, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Patrick Mollaret, Delphine Miraucourt Tags: Personality and Social Psychology Source Type: research