Self-monitoring as an aggregate construct: Relationships with personality and values

•Findings suggest that self-monitoring is more than just personality.•We find that self-monitoring skill is related to Extraversion.•We find that self-monitoring motivation is related to Power values.•We expand the nomological net of self-monitoring by examining relationships with values.•Findings are consistent across two samples: students and working professionals.

In this study we explore the conceptualization of self-monitoring as an aggregate construct and expand its nomological net by considering its relationships with values. Self-monitoring (SM) is typically considered to be a personality trait, though it does not fit neatly within the Five Factor Model (FFM). We argue that this is because self-monitoring is an aggregate construct that represents a combination of skill and motivation to adjust behavior, and that these different components of self-monitoring have different relationships with other individual difference constructs. Specifically, we propose that Extraversion relates to SM-Skill, and Power values relate to SM-Motivation. Evidence from two samples (74 employees; 419 students) supports our hypotheses.