Aversive Personality and RIASEC Dimensions: Findings Across Self-Reports, Registered Jobs, and Three Countries

Abstract: Research on vocational interests has increasingly explored the role of aversive (“dark”) personality traits. Focusing on the core of all aversive traits, we herein link the D-Factor of Personality to Holland’s RIASEC dimensions (realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, conventional). Across six samples (total N = 8,409), both self-reports and objective occupational ratings consistently indicated negative relations between D and both social (−.50 ≤ r ≤ −.21) and artistic interests (−.31 ≤ r ≤ −.12). Concerning enterprising interests, heterogenous results were observed, with associations being positive in German samples, nonsignificant in US-based samples, and mixed in Danish occupational data. As expected, realistic, investigative, and conventional interests showed no consistent, substantial relations to D across samples.