Within-person personality variability in the work context: A blessing or a curse for job performance?

Only recently, the question whether within-person personality variability is a blessing or a curse for job performance has reached the agendas of Industrial and Organizational (I-O) psychology researchers.Yet, this limited stream of research resulted in inconsistent findings, and only little understanding exists about the role of rater source and mean-level personality in this relationship.Broadly following socioanalytic theory, the present study examined the extent to which self-and other-rated within-person personality variability predict self-and other-rated job performance, and whether this is moderated by mean-level personality.Within-person personality variability indices and job performance evaluations were obtained from an experience sampling study including N = 166 teachers, N = 95 supervisors, and N = 69 classes (including 1,354 students).Results showed that-above and beyond the effects of mean-level personality-self-rated within-person variability was positively associated with self-rated job performance, while other-rated within-person variability was negatively associated with other-ratings of performance.Many interactions with mean-level personality were found, mainly demonstrating negative effects of variability for those with a less adaptive personality profile (cf.variability as a 'curse'), while showing positive effects of variability for those with a more adaptive trait profile (cf.variability as a 'blessing').Importantly, however, additional analyses provided little evidence for associations across type of rater source.These findings contribute to the field of I-O psychology by highlighting that perceptions of within-person personality variability may impact performance evaluations beyond personality traits, although its desirability seems to depend on individuals' personality trait level.Implications and limitations are discussed.