Explaining workplace deviance behavior with more than just the “Big Five”

Investigations of personality as it relates to deviant behaviors in the workplace, such as theft, absenteeism, and mistreatment of co-workers, have largely overlooked theoretically-relevant personality traits not captured by the Big Five. Using univariate and multivariate analyses based on both attenuated and disattenuated correlations, we found that traits such as Integrity, Risk Taking, and Seductiveness, among others, explained substantial variance in workplace deviance. We conclude that research on personality and workplace deviance needs to move beyond the Big Five to include alternative personality variables that can enhance both prediction and the development of theory regarding personality-deviance relations.