Contextual cues matter: advancing personality research through the interactions of implicit and explicit personality with situations

Purpose This paper confirms and expands upon the implicit and explicit personality model of Bing et al. (2007) by replicating earlier findings and conducting an exploratory test of the three-way interactive effects of implicit and explicit aggressive personality on positive work behaviors by including the situational context of justice perceptions. Design/methodology/approach In total, 186 hospital employees completed a survey of implicit and explicit aggression and organizational justice perceptions. Supervisors rated the employees’ organizational citizenship behaviors directed at the organization (OCBOs) and individuals (OCBIs), and the number of commendations employees received was obtained from the hospital. The data were analyzed with multiple regression analysis. Findings Our exploratory results showed that all prototypes tended to withhold OCBOs when justice perceptions were lower. Specifically, when procedural justice was higher, manifest aggressives (higher implicit/higher explicit aggression) had the lowest levels of OCBOs, and prosocials (lower implicit/lower explicit aggression) had the highest levels of OCBOs. Overcompensating prosocials (lower implicit/higher explicit aggression) generally had the highest number of commendations across the three justice dimensions. Nonsignificant interactions were found for interactional justice and OCBIs. Research limitations/implications This study can assist researchers and practitioners in understanding how organizations should pair enhanced employee selection with improved organizational support for the best results. Originality/value This study confirms and extends previous work on the interaction of implicit and explicit personality by conducting an exploratory test of the role of situations (i.e. justice perceptions) in predicting positive (vs negative) outcomes.