Savannah in t Veld ANR:

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1 The effect of a transition to breach or over-fulfillment of the psychological contract on the change in task satisfaction, with neuroticism and conscientiousness as moderator Savannah in t Veld ANR:

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3 The effect of a transition to breach or over-fulfillment of the psychological contract on the change in task satisfaction, with neuroticism and conscientiousness as moderator Savannah in t Veld ANR: Supervisor 1: dr. J.P. de Jong Supervisor 2: drs. A.C. Smit MTO supervisor: dr. L.A. van der Ark

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5 Preface This master thesis is part of the master s program of Organization Studies at Tilburg University. It is the final assessment that needs to be passed in order to receive the master s diploma. In the past years, I ve met some great people. Next to the people I ve become close friends with, I also met Jurre with whom I am in a relationship for one and a half year now. He has been of greatest support the past year, together with my parents and sisters. Without my parents, I would not be able to study, so I am very grateful for the chance they gave me. Writing a thesis is a never-ending process of writing and rewriting. So, it often took a while to get my thoughts and findings clearly on paper. Fortunately I had a great supervisor who was able to support me and give me the right feedback. It was never a problem when I stepped by his room unplanned. Therefore I would like to thank you, Jeroen, for helping me out when I thought I would not make it! I would also like to thank my second supervisor, Sander Smit, for his feedback. Last, I would like to thank Joost Jens for making a great website which made it possible to execute the online quiz. The support I received the past year, especially during writing this final master piece, was amazing. It helped me to get at the finish of the journey I started four years ago. Tilburg, 15 th August 2013 Savannah in t Veld

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7 Abstract Since an experimental approach to psychological contracts was lacking so far, in this research three experimental studies were conducted. The main purpose of this research was to find out whether a single psychological contract breach would have the same effect on the change in task satisfaction if the breach occurred before or after a single exceeded obligation of the psychological contract took place. Also, it was tested if the personality traits neuroticism and conscientiousness had a moderating impact on the relationship between the psychological contract condition and the change in task satisfaction. Data was gathered through two vignette studies and one web based experiment among different populations. The first hypothesis was set up in order to find out if the sequence in which the transitions of the psychological contract conditions took place, resulted in different levels of task satisfaction. Overall, the data showed that the sequence, in which the transition occurs, does not lead to a significant difference in the change in task satisfaction. The second and third hypothesis were set up in order to find out if neuroticism and conscientiousness moderate the effect of psychological contract condition on the change in task satisfaction. Though no moderating effects were found, this research shows that still the field of research on psychological contracts can be extended. Recommendations for further research are given. Keywords: psychological contract, psychological contract transition, (single) breach, over-fulfillment, (single) exceeded promise, neuroticism, conscientiousness

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9 Table of Contents Introduction... 1 Research relevance... 3 Research goal... 5 Conceptual model... 5 Theoretical framework... 6 Psychological contract... 6 Change in task satisfaction... 8 Personality... 9 Neuroticism...11 Conscientiousness...13 Methodological framework...15 Study 1: Vignette study...15 Procedure and sample...16 Measurements...17 Analytical strategy...19 Results...20 Discussion...22 Study 2: Web based experiment...25 Procedure and sample...25 Measurements...26 Analytical strategy...29 Results...30 Discussion...31 Study 3: Online vignette...33 Procedure and sample...34 Measurements...35 Analytical strategy...39 Results...40 Discussion...45 Conclusion and discussion...48 Conclusion...48

10 Recommendations for future research...49 Discussion...51 Limitations...55 References...57 Appendices...61 Appendix A: questionnaire study Appendix B: manipulation checks...65 Appendix C: factor loadings...66 Appendix D: variables entered into regression analysis...67 Appendix E: means task and job satisfaction...69 Appendix F: expectations participants...71 Appendix G: task satisfaction study

11 Introduction In the past decades, a lot of research has been done on psychological contracts. A psychological contract (PC) refers to an individual s beliefs regarding the terms and conditions of a reciprocal exchange agreement between the focal person and another party (Rousseau, 1989, p. 123). One can evaluate his/her PC as breached, fulfilled and over-fulfilled (Conway & Briner, 2002). Research on the perceived mutual obligations, as a PC is also often called, has shown that PC breach, fulfillment and over-fulfillment have important organizational consequences. Examples of them have to do with organizational commitment, turnover intentions, and organizational citizenship behavior (e.g. Zhao, Wayne, Glibkowski, & Bravo, 2008). Research on PC fulfillment and PC breach on itself exists abundantly (e.g. Conway & Briner, 2002; Conway, Guest, & Trenberth, 2011; Ho, 2005). More important, research on the transition between PC breach and PC over-fulfillment is still lacking. When more is known about the effect of these transitions, this helps to understand the dynamics of the PC more. Therefore, this research focuses on the transition of psychological contract breach to over-fulfillment and vice versa. Conway et al. (2011) examined the effects of PC conditions on job attitudes. The findings were that the effect of an increase in PC breach on job satisfaction was bigger than the effect of PC fulfillment on job satisfaction. This indicates that breach has an important effect and that different evaluations of a PC have different effects on job satisfaction. 1

12 The field of PC research mainly consists of researchers examining PC breach resulting from many breached obligations. However, the effect of a single breached obligation is crucial for people in the perception of their PC (Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Finkenauer & Vohs, 2001; Conway & Briner, 2002). Baumeister et al. (2001) suggest that single negative events, for example a breached obligation, have a much more important and lasting effect on people than a single positive event, for example a fulfilled obligation. This is called the negativity bias (Norris, Larsen, Crawford, and Cacioppo, 2011). Negativity bias provides people with a stronger reaction on negative events than on equally extreme positive events. And, as Baumeister et al. (2011) suggest, equal good and bad events make bad events last over the good ones. However, no researcher has taken into account the transition of PC breach to PC over-fulfillment and vice versa on the change in task satisfaction yet, while it is interesting to know if differences exist regarding the sequence in which breach and over-fulfillment occur, because if they do, then this would have organizational consequences, for example for people s job attitudes (Ho, Weingart, & Rousseau, 2004). Therefore, the emphasis in this research is on the transition from PC breach to PC over-fulfillment and PC over-fulfillment to PC breach. Prior research has already paid attention to the impact of personality traits on the experience of a negative event (Ho et al., 2004). Some people experience a stronger negative effect from a negative event than others, as research of Norris et al. (2011) shows. People high in neuroticism for example experience a far more and longer lasting negative feeling from a negative event in comparison to people low in neuroticism (Ho 2

13 et al., 2004). Personality traits like extroversion, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness to experience, and agreeableness, are found to have a moderating effect on the relationship between perceived breach and feelings of contract violation (Raja, Johns, & Ntalianis, 2004). And Orvis, Dudley, and Cortina (2008) already found that conscientiousness moderates the relationship between PC breach and job satisfaction. However, nothing is known about the effect that conscientiousness has on the relationship between PC over-fulfillment and job satisfaction. Ho et al. (2004) state that personality traits play a part in shaping perceptions about the PC. Therefore, this research also takes into account the effect of neuroticism and conscientiousness on the change in task satisfaction coming from the transition to breach after over-fulfillment or the transition to over-fulfillment after breach caused by a single obligation. Therefore, the research question of this research is the following: What is the effect of the transition from PC breach to over-fulfillment and vice versa of a single obligation on the change in task satisfaction and what is the moderating effect of neuroticism and conscientiousness on this relationship? Research relevance This research is scientifically relevant, since it answers the quests of authors like Conway et al. (2011) to investigate the effect of single obligations in depth. Also, research of De Jong, Clinton, Bernhard-Oettel, and Rigotti (2012) shows that the impact of a single breached obligation has a bigger effect than the breached obligations that 3

14 follow. This research investigates if this effect also holds for a single over-fulfilled obligation (also referred to as exceeded obligation). Next to that, this research is the first that takes into account the transition from PC breach to over-fulfillment and vice versa. The investigation of the sequence of the PC breach and PC over-fulfillment contributes to the field of literature on psychological contracts, since it helps to understand the psychological contract and its consequences in more detail. For example, if this research shows that a single breached obligation followed by a single exceeded obligation does lead to a greater (negative) change in task satisfaction compared to a single exceeded obligation followed by a single breached obligation, than organizations might need to pay even more attention to prevent PC breach in the first place. Last, the influence of personality traits will be taken into account to investigate whether a single breached or exceeded obligation works out the same for every person. Personality traits are important in studying the PC (Tallman & Bruning, 2008), so when personality is found to have an effect on the relationship between PC condition and task satisfaction, employers might anticipate on these traits by paying more attention to them, which helps them to better manage the PC. This in turn benefits the organization as a whole, since satisfied employees deliver better results. Therefore, this research is also practically relevant. 4

15 Research goal The goal of this research is to contribute to the field of research on PCs through investigating the effect of the transition of single breached to exceeded obligations and vice versa on the change in task satisfaction. Furthermore, the goal of this research is to reveal individual differences. Therefore, the role of the personality traits neuroticism and conscientiousness as moderators are taken into account. Conceptual model Psychological contract condition Change in task satisfaction Neuroticism Conscientiousnes Figure 1. Graphical representation of the research question 5

16 Theoretical framework Psychological contract The psychological contract (PC) has gained a lot of attention, especially over the last ten years (Conway & Briner, 2002, Conway et al., 2011; Zhao et al., 2008). The PC has been accepted as an important and useful construct in understanding organizational behavior, which is also visible in the amount of attention forums pay to it (Roehling, 1997). As explained in the introduction, a psychological contract (PC) refers to an individual s beliefs regarding the terms and conditions of a reciprocal exchange agreement between the focal person and another party (Rousseau, 1989, p. 123). PC breach, which occurs when the terms and conditions of this reciprocal exchange agreement are not met, is argued to have individual but also organizational consequences (Roehling, 1997). The consequences of unmet promises of the PC on work-related outcomes have been researched heavily by for example Zhao, Wayne, Glibkowski, and Bravo (2008). They studied the effect of PC breach for work-related outcomes and found that PC breach is related to organizational commitment, turnover intentions, organizational citizenship behavior, in-role performance and job satisfaction. Also, Conway, Guest, and Trenberth (2011) found out that changes in PC breach have greater effects on work-related outcomes when compared to the effects of changes in PC fulfillment on work-related outcomes like affective wellbeing, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. Research of Turnley, Bolino, Lester, and Bloodgood (2003) on the other hand, shows that PC fulfillment is positively related to employee behavior like in-role performance 6

17 and organizational citizenship behavior. Taken together, these studies have shown that PC conditions are related to work-related outcomes. PC over-fulfillment, which occurs when promises and obligations are exceeded, has only gained limited attention so far, while research shows that exceeded obligations occur as much as breached obligations do (Conway and Briner, 2002). Though a lot of research exists on PC breach, there is a lack of research concerning PC over-fulfillment. Ho (2005) sees the evaluation of the PC as an assessment of whether a disparity exists between what the individual actually received and what he or she was promised (p. 115). When an employer promises his employee(s) to get a salary increase but does not live up to this promise, the employee will probably be disappointed and might experience a breach of the PC. However, if the employer lives up to this promise or even doubles the salary of this employee, he or she will experience a condition of fulfillment or even over-fulfillment in the last case. Also, what happens when employees experience PC breach at first, followed by a PC over-fulfillment or vice versa? The negativity bias as explained by Norris et al. (2011) might cause people to focus more on negative events instead of positive ones. This might cause differences for people who experience PC breach at first. Therefore, the focus of this research is on this transition from PC breach to over-fulfillment and vice versa. PC breach thus occurs when one party has failed to fulfill one or more obligations within one s PC (Morrison & Robinson, 1997). However, in this research the emphasis is on single obligations. Therefore PC breach is seen as the result of failing to fulfill one single obligation within one s PC by one party. On the other hand, PC fulfillment is the belief of 7

18 an employee that a mutual obligation between the employee and the employer is met (Conway & Briner, 2002), like stated above. PC over-fulfillment is about getting more than what was promised. In this research, two transition categories can be distinguished. One is the transition to breach, which refers to the experience of PC breach of a single obligation after the experience of PC over-fulfillment of a single obligation (also referred to as B-O). The second is the transition to over-fulfillment, which refers to the experience of PC overfulfillment of a single obligation after the experience of PC breach of a single obligation (also referred to as O-B). Change in task satisfaction Weiss and Nowicki (1981) see task satisfaction as the extent to which people are satisfied with the task they need to fulfill. This means that a job is also a set of tasks someone needs to fulfill. PC conditions are related to job satisfaction (Conway et al., 2011; Raja et al., 2004; Zhao et al., 2008). PC breach results in a lower level of job satisfaction, while PC fulfillment has a positive effect on job satisfaction. However, it is still unknown what the effect of over-fulfillment of the PC is on job satisfaction. Research of Conway and Briner (2002) shows that the impact of broken promises is greater compared to exceeded promises on daily mood. Also, research of De Jong et al. (2002) indicates that broken promises have a bigger impact on employee outcomes compared to fulfilled promises. Both studies show that the negativity bias indeed plays a 8

19 role concerning PCs. Next to that, the study of De Jong et al. (2002) also found that the first breached obligations cause the most harm. In other words, people who experience a breached obligation which in addition occurs for the first time will experience a great negative impact. It is expected that people who experience an exceeded obligation, will be more satisfied with their task in comparison to people who experience a breached obligation, since the impact of a breached obligation is bigger in comparison with a fulfilled or exceeded obligation due to the negativity bias (Conway & Briner, 2002; De Jong et al., 2012; Norris et al., 2011). It is expected that people who experience a transition to overfulfillment (O-B) will be less satisfied with their task compared to people who experience a transition to breach (B-O), because people who experience a negative event at first will suffer from the negativity bias more. Therefore, it is expected that a transition to over-fulfillment will result in a lower overall level of task satisfaction compared to a transition to breach, while the change in task satisfaction will be the biggest for people experiencing a transition to breach. This leads to the following hypothesis: H1. People who experience a transition to breach will report a greater change in task satisfaction in comparison to people who experience a transition to over-fulfillment. Personality Scholars have contrasting ideas about the exact meaning of the concept personality. There are two main characteristics that they do agree on: personality is about individual differences and it is about intrapersonal processes. Burger (2004) defined the concept 9

20 as consistent behavior patterns and intrapersonal processes originating within the individual (p.4). In our everyday life, two general assumptions about personality are often made. First, personality is seen as consistent; traits are seen as stable over time and they are unchangeable spots of the leopard. Second, it is believed that personality traits directly influence behavior (Matthews, Deary, and Whiteman, 2003). Although this second assumption might partly be true, external sources also have an influence on personality. Elements of our lives like the way we were raised, (shocking) events and our emotions also determine the way in which we behave (Burger, 2004). This fits with the assumption of this research that the relation between the condition of the PC and task satisfaction will be moderated by personality traits, since different PC conditions will trigger different reactions from different persons. McCrae and Costa (2008) argue that much of what is seen as personality by psychologists is covered in the big 5 personality traits, also referred to as the Five Factor Model (FFM). The Five Factor Model consists of the traits extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience. However, in relationship to the concepts of PC conditions and task satisfaction, it is often argued that only neuroticism and conscientiousness have an effect on these concepts. Authors like Raja et al. (2004) and Tallman and Bruning (2008) argue that because openness to experience and extraversion are cognitive based dimensions, they have no or a very weak effect on organizational behavior. It is also expected that the level of agreeableness does not make a difference in how people perceive their psychological 10

21 contract and the effect this perception has on task satisfaction, since agreeableness is found to be an emotive response rather than a cognitive one. This indicates that agreeable people might experience distress or hostility from the breach (emotive responses), but agreeableness is argued not to be related to job attitudes (Ho et al., 2004). Therefore, this research focuses on neuroticism and conscientiousness, on which will be elaborated on below. Neuroticism Neuroticism is often compared with fear, anger, and depression (Costa & McCrae, 1992). It is the opponent of emotional stability. The level of commitment of neurotic people is often low, and situations of trust and taking initiatives are most of the time avoided by them. People with a high level of neuroticism have an overall negative job attitude, are instable and don t like to do more than what is necessary (Ho et al., 2004; Tallman & Bruning, 2008). People high in neuroticism tend to focus more on threatening or negative stimuli (Ho et al., 2004, p. 279) and are also more strongly affected by breached obligations in comparison to people low in neuroticism. This means that if people high in neuroticism experience breach, they will be more negatively affected by it compared to people low in neuroticism, who are more emotionally stable. Therefore, it is expected that people low in neuroticism will moderate the relationship between the PC condition and the change in task satisfaction in a more positive way compared to people high in neuroticism. Next to that, people high in neuroticism who experience a transition to over-fulfillment (O-B) are expected to have a hard time in seeing the benefits of the exceeded obligation because they already experienced a 11

22 breached obligation, resulting in only a slightly higher level of task satisfaction. Since people low in neuroticism do not suffer from a negative job attitude, it is expected that they will report a higher level of task satisfaction when they experience PC overfulfillment compared to people high in neuroticism. On the other hand, when people high in neuroticism experience a transition to breach, this will have a greater effect on their level of task satisfaction in comparison to people low in neuroticism (see also figure 2). Overall, the change in task satisfaction will be the greatest for people low in neuroticism, since they do not suffer from a negative job attitude. This leads to the following hypothesis: H2. The difference in the change in task satisfaction between the two categories (transition to breach versus transition to over-fulfillment) will be larger for people low in neuroticism in comparison to people high in neuroticism. Figure 2. Graphical representation of hypothesis 2 12

23 Conscientiousness Conscientious people have a sense of duty and obligation which often results in high job performance and satisfaction (Tallman & Bruning, 2008). They will search for great opportunities for achievement and success (Raja et al., 2004). A high level of conscientiousness is associated with commitment to the job and showing initiatives, while a low level of conscientiousness is associated with a lack of motivation and slackness. Employees who have a high level of conscientiousness feel that they need to work hard, even though their PC has been violated (Turnley & Feldman, 1999). The sense of duty people have which results in a high level of job satisfaction, is expected to be present even though they experience breach. Therefore, it is expected that people with a high level of conscientiousness do not bother if they experience a single breached obligation, certainly not after they experienced a single exceeded obligation. However, it is expected that people high in conscientiousness would appreciate a single exceeded obligation even more when they first experienced breach, which leads to a higher level of task satisfaction compared to high conscientious people experiencing a transition to breach. On the other hand, people with a low level of conscientiousness will not have that sense of duty or the feeling that they need to work hard despite potential PC breach. A breached obligation leads to a lower level of job satisfaction (Judge, Heller & Mount, 2002; Turnley & Feldman, 1999) since it will bother people low in conscientiousness that promises are unmet. A transition to over-fulfillment will therefore have a positive impact on the level of task satisfaction for people low in conscientiousness, since they 13

24 will experience a more positive state. A transition to breach on the contrary, is expected to have a negative impact on the level of task satisfaction, because people low in conscientiousness are likely to bother if an obligation is breached, certainly after a more positive experience like an exceeded obligation. Also, people low in conscientiousness will respond more negatively to perceived breach in comparison to people high in conscientiousness (Turnley & Feldman, 1999). Therefore, it is expected that people high in conscientiousness will moderate the relationship between the PC condition and the change in task satisfaction in a more positive way compared to people low in conscientiousness, with the greatest change in task satisfaction when people high in conscientiousness experience a transition to over-fulfillment. Overall, it is expected that people low in conscientiousness will experience the greatest change in task satisfaction compared to people high in conscientiousness. This leads to the following hypothesis: H3. The difference in the change in task satisfaction between the two categories (transition to breach versus transition to over-fulfillment) will be larger for people low in conscientiousness in comparison to people high in conscientiousness. Figure 3. Graphical representation of hypothesis 3 14

25 Methodological framework For this research, three studies were conducted. The first was a vignette study held among undergraduate students from a business course of Tilburg University. To get a more complete overview, this vignette was repeated among people who are employed. This was done in study 3. For study 2, an experiment was held to make the situations participants encountered more realistic. This experiment was set up as a quiz. Below, all studies and procedures are explained in detail. The random assignment that was used for all studies increases the internal validity of this research. The external validity of this research is moderate, since I conducted experiments. Though, the construct validity of this research is high, since as much as possible already existing theoretical constructs were used (Singleton & Straits, 2005). Since it is easier for people to imagine how satisfied they are with their job during the vignette studies (study 1 and 2), job satisfaction is measured during the vignette studies instead of task satisfaction. Study 1: Vignette study The first study was a vignette held among undergraduate students from Tilburg University who participated in a business course of the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences. Due to the setting of the experiment, it was possible to control for PC breach and over-fulfillment. Participants were randomly assigned to two different groups. These groups are O-B, a group which experienced a transition from PC breach to overfulfillment, and B-O, a group which experienced a transition from PC over-fulfillment to 15

26 breach. The following paragraphs will elaborate on this study. Procedure and sample Each student got a booklet which consisted of multiple composed questionnaires. The booklet consisted of several parts, of which the first part existed of questions about neuroticism and conscientiousness. Then, the students read a story of which they needed to imagine that it happened to them. The story was about organizational change and the possible consequences or benefits it would bring them (an example of the full booklet can be found at appendix A). Some of the students read a story in which they needed to imagine that due to the organizational change, they would get a higher salary, while others read a story in which they needed to imagine that due to the organizational change, they need to go to another department, without their favorite colleagues. The first part of the students read a story in which over-fulfillment took place, while the second part of the students read a story in which breach took place. After this story, the students needed to answer a number of questions about how satisfied they were with their job. Thereafter, the students got another story of which they needed to imagine being part of. However, this time, the students who first experienced over-fulfillment, experienced the second time breach, and the students who first experienced breach, experienced the second time over-fulfillment. Then, another couple of questions were asked about how satisfied they were with their job. A manipulation check was done each time job satisfaction was measured. 16

27 The vignette study was held among 78 undergraduate students. All respondents were Dutch and 41% of the respondents were male, 59% were female. Measurements Table 1 displays the means, standard deviations, correlations among the variables and also the Cronbach s Alphas of neuroticism, conscientiousness and the change in job satisfaction. A manipulation check was done among the participants with the following question: To what extent did the organization fulfill their promises?. I found that the manipulation was indeed noticed by the participants, which means that it can be stated with more certainty that the changes within the dependent variable are caused by the independent variable. This manipulation check can be found in Appendix B. Independent variable: psychological contract condition Students who participated were randomly assigned to a psychological contract condition, (also referred to as category): either they experienced a transition to breach or a transition to over-fulfillment. At T1, one group of students got the over-fulfillment treatment, while another group got the breach treatment. At T2, this was reversed. Moderators: neuroticism and conscientiousness The moderator variables were neuroticism and conscientiousness. All items of both variables are based on Hoekstra, De Fruyt, and Ormel (2003) and Costa and McCrae (1992). Of each variable, six items were conducted to measure the concepts 17

28 neuroticism and conscientiousness. The Cronbach s Alpha of neuroticism is 0,725, which is sufficient. The Cronbach s Alpha of conscientiousness is 0,626, which can be characterized as relatively low for involving decisions on an individual level (Nunally, 1978). However, this might be due to the factor loadings of the items. See also appendix C for a more detailed view on this. Dependent variable: change in job satisfaction Due to the fact that task satisfaction was not possible to measure in the vignette study, the variable was changed into job satisfaction. For the measurement of this variable, the overall job satisfaction scale was used from Brayfield and Rothe (1951). The respondents needed to answer questions about how satisfied they (still) were with their (secondary) job after reading the vignette. The change in job satisfaction was measured through Y2 (job satisfaction at T2, after the transition) Y1 (job satisfaction at T1, before the transition). The Cronbach s Alpha of this variable is based on the variable job satisfaction; the Cronbach s Alpha of the change in job satisfaction was calculated by taking the mean of Cronbach s Alpha of job satisfaction at T1 and T2. The Cronbach s Alpha of job satisfaction at T1 was 0,863 while Cronbach s Alpha was a bit lower at T2: 0,783. Therefore, the Cronbach s Alpha of the change in job satisfaction is set at 0,823. This means that the scale of job satisfaction is sufficiently reliable. Control variable: gender and (secondary) job The control variables of this study were gender and (secondary) job. The variables were dummy coded. For gender 1 = male, 2 = female and (secondary) job 1 = yes, 2 = no. 18

29 Gender was included since it may cause differences in perceptions. (Secondary) Job was added to control for imagination. If people have a job, they probably are better in empathizing with the scenarios in comparison to people who have no job. Variable Mean SD Gender (1 = male, 1,59 0,495 2 = female) 2. (Secondary) job (1 1,23 0,424,086 = yes, 2 = no) 3. Category (0= B-O, 1= O-B) 0,50 0,503 -,156, Neuroticism 2,29 0,572,340**,122 -,211 (0,725) 5. Conscientiousness 3,78 0,495,174,111,196 -,097 (0,626) 6. Change in job satisfaction -0,31 0,97 -,185,070,461** -,130 -,062 (0,823) Note: N = 78, ** P<0,01; * P<0,05 Numbers in brackets along the diagonal represent the Cronbach s Alphas Table 1. Means, standard deviations, correlations and Cronbach s Alphas Analytical strategy First, the data was checked on missing values, normality, outliers and abnormal values, of which none were found. The outliers were checked by Mahalanobis distances. One value slightly above the critical value of 16,27 was found (respondent 231 had a MAH value of 16,37), but since this value is only slightly above the critical value, the respondent was not deleted from the analysis. All Cook s values were below 1, so no cases were having an excessive influence on the results for my model as a whole. The assumptions of linearity and homoscedasticity were also met, since all items were randomly spread in the scatterplot of standardized residuals. After the reliability analyses and factor analyses, hypothesis 1 was tested with a linear regression. For hypothesis 2 and 3, a multiple hierarchical regression was conducted. 19

30 Appendix D gives an overview of the variables entered into the regression analysis. To prevent problems with multicollinearity, all variables were first centered before the regression analyses were conducted. Results A linear regression was conducted to test hypothesis 1 to see whether the change in job satisfaction was greater for people who experienced a transition to breach compared to people who experienced a transition to over-fulfillment. As shown in appendix D, model 2 has a significant F value, which implies that the addition of the category into the model was meaningful. In other words, the category to which participants were randomly assigned, significantly contributes to the change in job satisfaction. People who experienced a transition to breach reported a greater change in job satisfaction in comparison to people who experienced a transition to over-fulfillment. Hypothesis 1 is thus supported. In order to say something about the direction of the effect, a MANOVA analysis was conducted. In table 3, the means of job satisfaction of each category at T1 and T2 are displayed. When looking at these values, it becomes clear that for B-O, the level of job satisfaction decreases, which implies a negative change in job satisfaction. For the O-B category on the other hand, the level of job satisfaction increased, which implies a positive change in job satisfaction. However, the change in mean from T1 to T2 is only significant for the people who experienced B-O (2,99 at T2 compared to 3,74 at T1). People in de O-B category (PC over-fulfillment after PC breach) were less satisfied at 20

31 T2 compared to T1, while this difference was not significant (see appendix E for all means). Overall, this means that the people who experienced a transition to breach reported a greater change in job satisfaction in negative direction compared to the people who experienced a transition to over-fulfillment. This is clear to see in the figure in appendix E. Hypothesis 2 and 3 were tested through a multiple hierarchical regression analysis, of which the steps are shown in appendix D. The β values and the R Square values for each model are displayed below in table 2. As can be derived from these tables, the only variable that makes a significant contribution to the change in job satisfaction in model 4, is conscientiousness. Though, marginal support is found for hypothesis 3 (p = 0,07), which stated that the difference in the change in job satisfaction between the two categories (B-O and O-B) would be larger for people low in conscientiousness in comparison to people high in conscientiousness. On these results will be further elaborated on in the discussion below. A last finding in study 1 is the significant correlation between gender and neuroticism. Additional analysis shows that women are more neurotic than men (male is coded as 1, female is coded as 2 in SPSS). This will also be discussed below. 21

32 Model Control variables: 1. Gender -,192 -,121 -,083 -, (Secondary) job,086,053,068,074 Independent variables: 3. Category,438**,467**,464** 4. Neuroticism -,026 -, Conscientiousness -,149 -,330* Interaction variables: 6. Neuroticism * Category, Conscientiousness * Category,263 Explained variance (R²) 4,2% 22,8% 24,8% 29,0% F Change 1,626 17,877,943 2,102 Sig. F Change,204,000,394,130 Sig. Model,204,000,001,001 Standard error,963,870,871,858 N = 78 Dependent variable: change in job satisfaction ** P<0,01; * P<0,05; P<0,10 Table 4. Outcomes of linear regression Discussion Results of the vignette study show that the experience of a single exceeded obligation followed by a single breached obligation causes a greater change in job satisfaction compared to the experience of a single breached obligation followed by a single exceeded obligation. At first, this seems in line with the thoughts of Norris et al. (2011), who state that when the activation function for negativity has a higher gain than the activation function for positivity (p. 101), a negativity bias exists. It was expected that people who experienced a transition to over-fulfillment would suffer more from the negativity bias compared to people who experienced a transition to breach, since 22

33 people experiencing a transition to over-fulfillment experience a breached obligation earlier and thus suffer more from it. However, when I compare the means of job satisfaction of T1 and T2 (see also appendix E) for the people who experienced a transition to breach (B-O) and the people who experienced a transition to overfulfillment (O-B), the mean for B-O significantly decreases from 3,74 at T1 to 2,99 at T2. While for O-B, the mean increases from T1 to T2, but this change in job satisfaction is not significant. In other words, while it was expected that the O-B group would report a lower overall level of job satisfaction at T2, this was not the case. Also, it was expected to find a positive change in job satisfaction for the B-O group from T1 to T2, but instead, this change was in negative direction. This means that, though indeed a greater change in job satisfaction was found for the B-O group compared to the O-B group, an effect in opposite direction was found. An explanation for this finding could be that people, who first experience PC breach, appreciate the experience of an exceeded obligation much more compared to people who experience an exceeded obligation at first. Another possible explanation is the fact that people, who experienced a transition to over-fulfillment, probably see the exceeded obligation as an attempt to make it up. Though, as Lambert, Edwards, and Cable (2003) suggest, PC breach can also be experienced when over-fulfillment is occurs or, as the non-directional approach to fulfillment suggest; people are most satisfied when they get exactly what was promised. This might be the reason why the level of job satisfaction more or less stayed the same for people who experienced a transition to over-fulfillment. 23

34 On the other hand, people who experienced a transition to breach might develop more feelings of anger since they feel betrayed, which results in lower levels of job satisfaction (Robinson & Morrison, 2000). Although hypothesis 2 and 3 seemed plausible after careful examination of the literature, no significant result was found to support for hypothesis 2. This might be due to the possible existence of a significant direct relationship between these personality traits and job satisfaction since this is found by other researchers (e.g. Judge et al., 2002; Zhao et al., 2008), but in this dataset, also no significant direct relationships were found between any of the personality traits and the change in job satisfaction. The marginal β value of,263 for the interaction category x conscientiousness shows that the interaction variable category x conscientiousness positively moderates the relationship between PC condition and job satisfaction. Though, the differences between the B-O and O-B categories are not significant. This means that hypothesis 3 is not supported. The direct support found for conscientiousness and the change in job satisfaction suggests that people high in conscientiousness experience a smaller change in job satisfaction compared to people low in conscientiousness. A significant correlation of,340 between neuroticism and gender was found. A linear regression analysis showed that gender indeed explained 11,5% of the variance in neuroticism. With a β value of,392, gender significantly contributes positively to neuroticism. In other words, women are more likely to be neurotic than men according 24

35 to this dataset (since male are coded 1 and female are coded 2 in this dataset). This was also found in research of Furnham and Buchanan (2005). This might have implications for their job satisfaction over the long term, since neurotic people are less emotionally stable which might cause changes in their job satisfaction. Study 2: Web based experiment For study 2, it was planned to do an experiment in which students of Tilburg University would participate and play the Who wants to be a millionaire? -game. Unfortunately, only 8 participants showed up at the scheduled experiments. Therefore, a web based version of the game was set up. This web based experiment was only accessible for students of Tilburg University. Procedure and sample The game consisted of four rounds, each containing ten questions to test the participant s knowledge. During these rounds, participants were able to ask for a 50:50 card, which was used in the original game to show two incorrect answers. This should make it easier thus for participants to answer correctly. The 50:50 option was added to this experiment to be used as the breach and over-fulfillment treatment. Students were randomly assigned into a group which meant that they would either get the overfulfillment or the breach treatment. The over-fulfillment treatment meant that three incorrect answers where shown whenever they made use of the 50:50 option. The breach treatment meant that only one incorrect answer was shown whenever they made use of the 50:50 option. Students got randomly assigned into two groups: B-O 25

36 and O-B. The B-O group meant that students got the over-fulfillment treatment during the first two rounds, while getting the breach treatment during the last two rounds. For the O-B group, this was reversed. Before round one, participants needed to answer some questions and statements about their personality. Between each round, participants needed to fill in how satisfied they were with the quiz, measuring their task satisfaction. A manipulation check was done each time task satisfaction was measured (see appendix B). The web based experiment was held among 58 undergraduate students. All respondents were Dutch and 48,3% of the respondents were male, 51,7% were female. Measurements Table 3 displays the means, standard deviations and correlations among the variables but also the Cronbach s Alphas of neuroticism, conscientiousness and the change in task satisfaction. A manipulation check was done among all respondents through the following question: To what extent did the quizmasters live up to their promises? Again, I found out that the manipulation was indeed noticed by the respondents, which means that it can be stated with more certainty that the changes within the dependent variable are caused by the independent variable. The manipulation check of study 2 can be found at appendix B. 26

37 Independent variable: psychological contract condition Students who participated were randomly assigned to a category: either they experienced a transition to breach (B-O) or a transition to over-fulfillment (O-B). During round one and two, one group of students got the over-fulfillment treatment, while another group got the breach treatment. During round three and four, this was reversed. Moderators: neuroticism and conscientiousness All items of both moderator variables are based on Hoekstra, De Fruyt, and Ormel (2003) and Costa and McCrae (1992). Of each variable, six items were conducted to measure the concepts neuroticism and conscientiousness. The Cronbach s Alpha of neuroticism is 0,701, which is sufficient. The Cronbach s Alpha of conscientiousness is 0,525, which can be characterized as relatively low for involving decisions on an individual level (Nunally, 1978). However, this might be due to the factor loadings of the items. See also appendix C for a more detailed view on this. Dependent variable: change in task satisfaction The scale of task satisfaction used in this study is based on the overall job satisfaction scale of Brayfield and Rothe (1951). All items were slightly adapted to fit the task satisfaction scale. Participants who joined the quiz were asked how satisfied they were with the task. The items used are disclosed in appendix G. Task satisfaction was measured at two points in time: after round 2 and after round 3. Between these rounds, the transition of PC breach to over-fulfillment or vice versa took place. The change in task satisfaction was measured through Y2 (task satisfaction after 27

38 round 3, after the transition) Y1 (task satisfaction after round 2, before the transition). The Cronbach s Alpha of this variable is based on the variable task satisfaction; the Cronbach s Alpha of the change in task satisfaction was calculated by taking the mean of Cronbach s Alpha of task satisfaction at T1 and T2, where T1 stands for round two, and T2 for round three. The Cronbach s Alpha of task satisfaction at T1 was 0,731 while Cronbach s Alpha was 0,703 at T2. Therefore, the Cronbach s Alpha of the change in task satisfaction is set at 0,717. This means that the scale of task satisfaction is sufficiently reliable. Control variable: gender and faculty Again gender is the control variable in this study. The variable is dummy coded as 1 = male, 2 = female. Gender was included since it may be the case that men differ in perceptions compared to women. Faculty was also used as a control variable since it can be argued that for example people studying at the faculty for economics differ in their perceptions compared with students of the behavioral sciences faculty. Faculty was coded 1 = Tilburg School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (TSB), 2 = Tilburg School of Economics and Management (TISEM), 3 = Tilburg Law School (TLS), and 4 = Tilburg School of Humanities (TSH). 28

39 Variable Mean SD Gender (1 = male, 2 = 1,52,504 female) 2. Faculty (1 = TSB, 2 = 1,73,933,010 TISEM, 3 = TLS, 4 =TSH) 3. Category (0= B-O, 1= 1,53,503,067,095 O-B) 4. Neuroticism 2,46,588,219,288*,044 (0,701) 5. Conscientiousness 3,73,438,207 -,005,049 -,257 (0,525) 6. Change in task satisfaction -1,18,616 -,075,086,256 -,176 -,117 (0.717) Note: N = 58, ** P<0,01; * P<0,05 Numbers in brackets along the diagonal represent the Cronbach s Alphas Table 3. Means, standard deviations, correlations and Cronbach s Alphas Analytical strategy First, the data was checked on normality, outliers and abnormal values, of which none were found. Respondents with a great number of missing values were deleted from the data file. The existent of outliers was checked by Mahalanobis distances. All Cook s values were below 1, so no cases were having an excessive influence on the results for my model as a whole. The assumptions of linearity and homoscedasticity were also met, since all items were randomly spread in the scatterplot of standardized residuals. After the reliability analyses and factor analyses, hypothesis 1 was tested with a linear regression (see appendix D). For hypothesis 2 and 3, a multiple hierarchical regression was conducted. Appendix D gives an overview of the variables entered into the regression analysis. To prevent problems with multicollinearity, all variables were first centered before the regression analyses were conducted. 29

40 Results A linear regression was conducted to test hypothesis 1 to see whether the change in task satisfaction was greater for people who experienced a transition to breach compared to people who experienced a transition to over-fulfillment. Marginal support was found for the variable category at model 2 (p = 0,06), while full support was found for it at model 3 and 4. Hypothesis 1 thus seems marginally supported. However, as can be derived from the figure in appendix E, for both the B-O group as well as the O-B group, the change in task satisfacton is in negative direction. This means that though the hypothesis might be marginally supported, it is in opposite direction. Hypothesis 2 and 3 were tested through a multiple hierarchical regression analysis, of which the steps are shown in appendix D. The β values and the R Square values for each model are displayed in table 4. Also, the F change and significant F change values are displayed. Marginal support is found for neuroticism in model 3 (p = 0,056), which indicates a direct relationship between neuroticism and the change in task satisfaction. However, the addition of the interaction terms of neuroticism and category and conscientiousness and category do not significantly contribute to the explained variance of the change in task satisfaction, which means that hypothesis 2 and 3 are both not supported. Because of the significant correlation between neuroticism and faculty, an ANOVA was conducted. However, no significant differences were found in this dataset. On this result will be elaborated on in the discussion below. 30

41 Model Control variables: 1. Gender -,076 -,092,011 -, Faculty,087,063,142,114 Independent variables: 3. Category,256,264*,268* 4. Neuroticism -,284 -, Conscientiousness -,205,141 Interaction variables: 6. Neuroticism * Category, Conscientiousness * Category -,348 Explained variance (R²) 1,3% 7,8% 15,3% 16,9% F Change,366 3,798 2,307,472 Sig. F Change,695,057,110,626 Sig. Model,695,219,114,207 Standard error,622,607,593,599 N = 58 Dependent variable: change in task satisfaction ** P<0,01; * P<0,05; P<0,10 Table 4. Outcomes of linear regression Discussion Results of the experiment show that there exists a marginal effect for the experience of a single exceeded obligation followed by a single breached obligation and vice versa on the change in task satisfaction. It was expected that the order in which people experience a single PC breach or a single PC over-fulfillment would cause a difference in their task satisfaction. However, again, an opposite result was found. As the in appendix E shows, both the B-O group as well as the O-B group experience a significantly negative change in task satisfaction at T2 compared to T1 (for exact means, see appendix E). This means that apparently all participants of the quiz became less satisfied the longer they participated, even though the O-B group experienced a single 31

42 exceeded obligation just before their task satisfaction was measured at T2. An explanation for this opposite finding might be that people in general enjoyed the quiz less as they participated longer. Another possible explanation for this finding might be the extent to which people expected that the quizmasters (who basically provided the 50:50 cards) would live up to their promises; when checking the expectations of both the B-O and O-B group, I found out that for either the B-O as well as the O-B group, the expectations decreased from T1 to T2 (see also appendix F). When people feel more insecure about what to expect and how well others will live up to their promises, this apparently has an impact on their task satisfaction. This is in line with the publication of Locke (1976), who states that expectations influence emotional reactions and thus job satisfaction (or in this case, task satisfaction). Also, it might be the case that people adjust their expectations, since lower expectations are easier to satisfy (Montes & Irving, 2008). Next to that, people might enjoy the quiz also less because they feel being treated unfairly since the quizmasters do not live up to the rules of the game that were set up. This is in line with the research of Schmitt and Dörfel (1999), which shows that procedural injustice is negatively correlated with job satisfaction. Other results indicate that the interaction variables conscientiousness and neuroticism have no effect on the relationship between the PC condition and the change in task satisfaction. This might be caused by the homogeneity of the context; only students from one business course participated in this study. This also explains why Orvis et al. (2008) did find a significant effect for the moderating role of conscientiousness on the direct relationship between PC breach and job satisfaction. Also, other variables may 32

43 play a moderating role; for example, it might be the case that the unfairness people experience influences this relationship. The unexpected marginal support that was found for the direct effect between neuroticism and the change in task satisfaction seems a logical one; people who are less emotionally stable, are expected to have fluctuations in their task satisfaction compared to people who are more emotionally stable (Ho et al., 2004; Tallman & Bruning, 2008). A last finding is that of the significant correlation between neuroticism and faculty. This significant correlation gave rise to an additional analysis. As explained in the result section, an ANOVA was conducted to see whether there existed differences between the faculties which might result in a difference in how neurotic people in this dataset are. The results of this ANOVA analysis showed that there exist no differences between people from different faculties and their level of neuroticism. Study 3: Online vignette The third study was designed to gather data from employed people in the Netherlands. During study one and study two, data was gathered among students of Tilburg University, so to get a more heterogeneous sample, this online vignette was set up for employees from all over the Netherlands. 33

44 Procedure and sample People were able to participate in this study through a link of ThesisTools. Participants were randomly assigned to either the B-O group or the O-B group when starting the questionnaire. People who wanted to participate needed to answer a few questions first, before starting the questionnaire. Because I needed to know more about them so that I was able to control for age, gender, work experience, the number of years they worked at the organization, type of contract and education level. One of the questions was also about being an employee. If people who wanted to participate did not work for an employer, they got the message that they did not fit into the profile. When this was the case, the questionnaire was aborted. After the questions of the control variables, questions about their personality were posed to measure the concepts neuroticism and conscientiousness. Then, they read a scenario in which they needed to imagine that it was about the organization at which they work. All scenarios were about organizational change. Participants who are assigned to the B-O group, first read a scenario in which they got more than what was promised, while the second scenario that was about getting less than what was promised. For the O-B group, this is reversed. After reading the first scenario, the participant immediately saw whether the organization breached the obligation or exceeded it. Thereafter, the participants needed to answer questions about how satisfied they were with their job. As manipulation check was done each time job satisfaction was measured. The scenarios used are almost the same as in the vignette done in study 1 (see appendix A). 34

45 The online vignette was held among 115 participants, of which 31,3% were male and the other 68,7% female. However, only 76 participants did answer all questions. Therefore, the N is set at 76, while at some analyses this N was higher (at a maximum of 115). Measurements Table 5 displays the means, standard deviations and correlations among the variables but also the Cronbach s Alphas of neuroticism, conscientiousness and the change in job satisfaction. The same manipulation check as in study 1 was done among all respondents: the question To what extent did the organization fulfill their promises?. Again, I found out that the manipulation was indeed noticed by the respondents, which means that it can be stated with more certainty that the changes within the dependent variable are caused by the independent variable. The manipulation check of study 3 can be found at appendix B. Independent variable: psychological contract condition Participants were randomly assigned to a category: either they experienced a transition to breach (B-O) or a transition to over-fulfillment (O-B). At T1, one group of participants got the over-fulfillment treatment, while another group got the breach treatment. At T2, this was reversed. 35

46 Moderators: neuroticism and conscientiousness The moderator variables were neuroticism and conscientiousness. All items of both variables are based on Hoekstra, De Fruyt, and Ormel (2003) and Costa and McCrae (1992). Of each variable, six items were conducted to measure the concepts neuroticism and conscientiousness. The Cronbach s Alpha of neuroticism is 0,637. The Cronbach s Alpha of conscientiousness is 0,694. Both values can be characterized as relatively low for involving decisions on an individual level (Nunally, 1978). However, this might be due to the factor loadings of the items. See also appendix C for a more detailed view on this. Dependent variable: change in job satisfaction For the measurement of this variable, the overall job satisfaction scale was used from Brayfield and Rothe (1951). The respondents needed to answer questions about how satisfied they (still) were with their job after reading the vignette. The change in job satisfaction was measured through Y2 (job satisfaction at T2, after the transition) Y1 (job satisfaction at T1, before the transition). The Cronbach s Alpha of this variable is based on the variable job satisfaction; the Cronbach s Alpha of the change in job satisfaction was calculated by taking the mean of Cronbach s Alpha of job satisfaction at T1 and T2. The Cronbach s Alpha of job satisfaction at T1 was 0,845 while Cronbach s Alpha was a bit lower at T2: 0,804. Therefore, the Cronbach s Alpha of the change in job satisfaction is set at 0,824. This means that the scale of job satisfaction is sufficiently reliable. 36

47 Control variables This study has seven control variables: gender, age, education level, working experience, the number of years working at the organization, hours per week someone works at the organization, and type of contract. These variables were set up as control variables since I wanted to make sure that these variables do not drive the results. The coding of these variables are also described in table 5. 37

48 Variable Mean SD Gender (1 = male, 2 1,69,466 = female) 2. Age 30,00 11,053 -, Education level* (1 = basisonderwijs, 2 = VMBO, 3 = HAVO, 4 = VWO, 5 = MBO, 6 = HBO, 7 = WO) 5,59 1,228,005 -, Working experience 9,36 10,626 -,078,954* * -, #years working at organization 5,56 7,886,016,744* * 6. Hours (per week) 30,77 11,913 -,276 * 7. Type of contract (1 = permanent contract, 2 = temporary contract) 1,50 0,502,146 -,548* * ** -,396 **,241*,369 **,301 *,790* *,075,019 -,560* * -,504** -, Category (0= B-O, 1= O-B) 0,47 0,501,124,067 -,137,085,121 -,149 -, Neuroticism 2,091 0,653,154 -,134,228 -,197 -,153,054,087 -,269* (0,637) 10. Conscientiousness 4,177 0,575 -,002 -,042,124 -,075,016,060,037,115 -,171 (0,694) 11. Change in job satisfaction -,108 0,563,119 -,109 -,140 -,057,056 -,107 -,089,036,154 -,134 (0,824) Note: N = 76, ** P<0,01; * P<0,05 Numbers in brackets along the diagonal represent the Cronbach s Alphas * The Dutch educational system is hard to translate. In this study, 1 stands for primary school, and the higher the number, the higher their education. It ranges from 1 to 7, where 7 stands for academic education. Table 5. Means, standard deviations, correlations and Cronbach s Alphas 38

49 Analytical strategy First, the data was checked on missing values, normality, outliers and abnormal values. Unfortunately, there were a lot of respondents who only answered the introduction questions (including all control variables). Since there was no data gathered about their personality or their job satisfaction, these respondents were deleted from the file. No outliers and abnormal values were found. The assumptions of linearity and homoscedasticity were also met, since all items were randomly spread in the scatterplot of standardized residuals. The data was also checked on multicollinearity. The variables age, working experience and number of years working at the organization had moderate to high VIF values, which indicate that these variables are multicollinear. According to Pallant (2007), if one or more of these highly correlated items would be removed when doing a regression, then the multicollinearity problem would be solved. I deleted the variable age. Still working experience and number of years working at the organization had a VIF value above 3, but the tolerance levels were both above.10. Therefore, these two variables were not removed from the analyses. After the reliability analyses and factor analyses, hypothesis 1 was tested with a linear regression. For hypothesis 2 and 3, a multiple hierarchical regression was conducted. Appendix D gives an overview of the variables entered into the regression analysis. All variables were first centered before the regression analyses were conducted. 39

50 Results The correlation matrix presented above shows significant correlations. Education level is significantly correlated with working experience, the number of years someone works at the organization, the hours of week someone works per week, and the type of contract. Higher education is associated with less working experience, because more time is spent on studying. Once they have a job, they work more hours per week compared to lower educated people. Also, higher educated people switch more in jobs since it is likely to assume that they are always looking for challenges, which explains the significant correlation between education level and type of contract. All significant correlations can be found in table 5. Also, neuroticism is significantly correlated with a value of -,269 with category. These results will be covered in the discussion section of this study. A linear regression was conducted to test hypothesis 1 to see whether the change in job satisfaction was greater for people who experienced a transition to breach compared to people who experienced a transition to over-fulfillment. As shown in table 7, no significant values for model 2 were found. This means that no support for hypothesis 1 was found. As can be derived from the results of the regression analysis, no support was found for either hypothesis 2 or 3. This means that, according to this dataset, the personality traits neuroticism and conscientiousness do not have an effect on the relationship between the psychological contract condition and the change in job satisfaction. Overall, no significant β values were found, which means that none of the variables explains a significant piece of the variance in the change in job satisfaction. 40

51 In the regression analysis discussed above, the change in job satisfaction was measured through Y2 (job satisfaction at T2, after the transition) Y1 (job satisfaction at T1, before the transition). However, the questionnaire entered into ThesisTools included also a measurement of job satisfaction at T3. The scenario people read before they answered questions about their job satisfaction (at T3), had the same psychological contract condition as the scenario at T2. In other words, people who faced psychological contract breach at T1, experienced psychological contract over-fulfillment at T2 and T3 (for an overview of all PC conditions, see table 6 below). I wondered whether there would be any significant β values in the results of the regression analysis when the change in job satisfaction was calculated by Y3 (job satisfaction at T3, no transition) Y2 (job satisfaction at T2, after the transition). Therefore, I conducted an additional regression analysis, taking the difference between job satisfaction measured at T3 and T2 as the dependent variable, to see whether there existed a difference in results. Treatment Treatment X1 Treatment X2 Treatment X3 B-O group Over-fulfillment Breach Breach O-B group Breach Over-fulfillment Over-fulfillment Table 6. Overview of treatment given during study 3 The results of the additional regression analysis are shown in table 8. When looking at the results, the significant β value of category indicates that for people who experience PC breach or PC over-fulfillment twice in a row instead of just once, it makes a 41

52 difference in their job satisfaction. People in the B-O group reported a significant change in job satisfaction from T1 to T2, while people in the O-B group did not experience a significant change in their job satisfaction from T1 to T2. This is counterintuitive, since no transition has taken place from T2 to T3. However, though the change in the F value is significant, the model itself is not. This means that the addition of category into the model is an improvement of the model, but the variable does not explain that much to make the whole model significant. For the other variables, no significant relationships were found. In the discussion section of this study there will be elaborated further on these results. 42

53 Model Control variables: 1. Gender,089,090,101, Education level -,196 -,197 -,191 -, Working experience -,342 -,343 -,357 -, #years working at organization,218,220,240, Hours (per week) -,016 -,015 -,009 -, Type of contract -,140 -,140 -,150 -,152 Independent variables: 7. Category -,014,015, Neuroticism,066, Conscientiousness -,125 -,187 Interaction variables: 10. Neuroticism * Category, Conscientiousness * Category,110 Explained variance (R²) 8,7% 8,8% 11,0% 11,8% F Change 1,196,016,921,308 Sig. F Change,318,901,403,736 Sig. Model,318,429,455,590 Standard error,559,563,564,569 N = 76 Dependent variable: change in job satisfaction ** P<0,01; * P<0,05 Table 7. Outcomes of linear regression with change in job satisfaction (T2-T1) 43

54 Model Control variables: 1. Gender -,037 -,078 -,083 -, Education level,039,065,058, Working experience -,104 -,070 -,057 -, #years working at organization,175,141,134, Hours (per week) -,012 -,044 -,047 -, Type of contract,072,078,074,078 Independent variables: 7. Category,314**,331**,326** 8. Neuroticism,073, Conscientiousness -,012,020 Interaction variables: 10. Neuroticism * Category -, Conscientiousness * Category -,049 Explained variance (R²) 1,3% 10,8% 11,4% 13,1% F Change,148 7,173,198,619 Sig. F Change,989,009,821,541 Sig. Model,989,336,508,581 Standard error,394,378,382,384 N = 76 Dependent variable: change in job satisfaction ** P<0,01; * P<0,05 Table 8. Outcomes of linear regression with change in job satisfaction (T3-T2) 44

55 Discussion As already discussed in the results section of this study, some significant correlations were found. One of them was the significant correlation between category and neuroticism. This led to an additional regression analysis, which showed a significant association between category and neuroticism. Basically, this means that the level of neuroticism relates to the category to which people were randomly assigned. Participants who were assigned to the O-B group (coded as 1 in SPSS), were less neurotic compared to people who were assigned to the B-O group (coded as 0 in SPSS). When people needed to answer questions about their personality, they did not experience any breach or over-fulfillment yet. This means that there might went something wrong with the randomization or that the finding is coincidence. The results of the first regression analysis conducted in study 3 gave reason to conduct an additional regression analysis. The results of this additional regression analysis showed a significant positive β value for the variable category (PC condition). Though the model as a whole was not significant, this result suggests that the experienced condition of the PC does make a difference. As is shown in the figure in appendix E, the change in job satisfaction is significantly greater for people in the B-O group compared to people in the O-B group. However, since X2 and X3 contain the same PC condition for each category (no transition took place) and there are no single obligations involved anymore, it cannot be stated that hypothesis 1 is supported in this dataset. This is also in line with the levels of job satisfaction people reported at T1, T2 and T3. When analyzing these levels of job satisfaction, the job satisfaction level does not fit with the 45

56 PC condition people faced. At X2 for example, people in de B-O group experienced breach and people in de O-B group experienced over-fulfillment, but people in the B-O group were more satisfied compared to people in the O-B group (though this last finding was not significant). This can be explained by their expectations (see appendix F). It might be the case that the people in the B-O group were eventually more satisfied at T2 since they had lower expectations. This is in line with research of Montes and Irving (2008), who found that exceeded expectations result in positive employee reactions. Also, research of Baumeister et al. (2001) suggests that though the positive event might be equally strong as the bad event, the bad event will outweigh the good one. This is in line with the findings of this study for the O-B category. Apparently, several exceeded obligations do not even make up one breached obligation, since the people in the O-B category are still less satisfied at T3 compared to T1. For the personality traits neuroticism and conscientiousness, no significant results were found. Apparently, according to this dataset, personality traits like neuroticism and conscientiousness do not have an influence on the change in job satisfaction. This might be due to the fact that other factors than personality might have an influence on the relationship between PC condition and the change in job satisfaction. For example, the type of breach may play a moderating role on the effect between PC condition and the change in job satisfaction. In the view of Lambert et al. (2003), different types of breached and exceeded obligations exist. For example, an obligation concerning pay is not the same as an obligation about career training. Thus, different obligations trigger 46

57 different reactions and not every obligation is as important for person A as it is for person B. Also, the context of study 3 is quite broad, which makes the population heterogeneous; this makes it harder to find any significant effects. 47

58 Conclusion and discussion After analyzing three different studies, this section will elaborate further on the findings. First, a conclusion will be drawn, followed by recommendations for future research. Then, in addition to the separate discussions of each study, a general discussion will be held. Last, the limitations of this research will be discussed below as well. Conclusion This research was one of the first in this field of research with an experimental approach. Next to that, only a few master theses exist where three studies were done in order to gather data. Therefore, this research is unique in its approach. This research was set up to answer the following research question: What is the effect of the transition from PC breach to over-fulfillment and vice versa of a single obligation on the change in task satisfaction and what is the moderating effect of neuroticism and conscientiousness on this relationship? The three studies that were conducted revealed the following results; First of all, the sequence in which PC breach and PC over-fulfillment occurred was only significant in study 1, where the context of the study was most homogeneous of all studies. The broader the context, the less significant findings were found in direction of the hypotheses that were set up. 48

59 Second, the use of single obligations proved to be significant only for the first dataset, where the population under study was most homogeneous. In study 3, even when no transition took place, people reported changes in their task satisfaction. This means that overall, no support was found for the assumption that single breached or exceeded obligations make a difference for people in their task satisfaction. This means that overall, no support is found for hypothesis 1. Third, although hypothesis 2 and 3 were set up after a careful examination of the literature, no convincing results were found to support them. Therefore, it can be stated that the personality traits neuroticism and conscientiousness do not affect the direct relationship between the condition of the PC and the change in task satisfaction. And lastly, strange enough, the level of task satisfaction people reported did often not match with the condition to which they were assigned. Also, people s expectations always decreased from T1 to T2. These results give rise for future research, of which all recommendations will be covered below. Recommendations for future research After analyzing all results of the conducted research, there are some recommendations for future research. The first recommendation concerns the assumption of single obligations; in this research, it was expected that single breached or exceeded obligations would have a great impact on people s task satisfaction. However, this assumption was only affirmed in study 1, where the population under study was most homogeneous. However, for study 3, several breached and exceeded obligations did 49

60 lead to a change in task satisfaction, while single breached or exceeded obligations did not make any difference. Also, the sequence in which PC breach and over-fulfillment occurred did not make a difference for people s change in task satisfaction. It might be the case that single obligations could make a difference in other contexts with for example other moderators (like the importance of the breach as explained below), but future research should assess this. A second recommendation concerns the expectation patterns of people. The findings of this research show that apparently, it did not matter which condition people experience, their expectations always decreased from T1 to T2. Although low expectations are much easier to exceed than higher ones (Montes and Irving, 2008), future research should address this pattern to come up with an explanation for this finding. Third, it might be the case that women are less satisfied over time compared to men due to their emotional instability as the results of study 1 indicate. A suggestion for future research is therefore to investigate whether women are overall less satisfied than men, due to their personality. Fourth, it is found both breached and exceeded obligations can range from minor to major events; in other words, the importance of the obligation might differ from person to person (Lambert et al., 2003; Montes & Irving, 2008). Therefore, it is recommended to take this importance of the obligation into account when doing further research on psychological contracts. 50

61 Discussion The aim of this research was to investigate whether the change in people s task satisfaction would be greater if they experienced a transition from psychological contract over-fulfillment to psychological contract breach or vice versa. The personality traits neuroticism and conscientiousness were also taken into account in this research to investigate whether these personality traits would moderate the direct relationship between the PC condition and the change in task satisfaction. With regard to the first hypothesis, effects in opposite directions were found. Only the first study indicates that the sequence in which PC breach and PC over-fulfillment occur, makes a difference for the change in people s task satisfaction. However, this effect was found in opposite direction of what was expected. For study 2, all participants reported a significant negative change in their task satisfaction, which indicates that the sequence of PC breach and PC over-fulfillment does not make a difference for people s change in task satisfaction. The negativity bias explained by Norris et al. (2011) apparently does not play a dominant role for people considering their task satisfaction. It might be the case that people who experience PC breach, first consider the size of the loss, before they respond to it. If people consider something as a minor loss, this might influence their satisfaction less then when they consider something as a major loss. Besides that, not every obligation is considered equally important for person A as for person B (Ho et al., 2004; Lambert et al., 2003; Montes & Irving, 2008). Also, the combination of the 51

62 perception of the loss and the vignette studies, might lead to less imagination for participants (Conway & Briner, 2002). Therefore, it might be the case that for people who face a minor loss in their PC, the negativity bias is not triggered which in turn explains the insignificant and opposite findings concerning hypothesis 1. Another possible explanation for this finding might be that a single breached or exceeded obligation does not really make a difference for people in their task satisfaction. As shown in study 3, people who experienced the same PC condition twice in a row, reported a change in their task satisfaction in the direction that was expected (though this change was only significant for people in the B-O group). This is in line with the research of Baumeister et al. (2001). Though research of De Jong et al. (2012) showed that the impact of a single breached obligation has a bigger effect than the breached obligations that follow, these results suggest that the experience of a single breached or exceeded obligation does not trigger the same or even bigger changes in people s task satisfaction as compared to several breached or exceeded obligations. The time in between the breached and overfulfillment might have influenced this. Another possible reason for this is that people who experience PC breach or over-fulfillment just once, might think of it as something that happens accidentally. But when the same situation occurs again, they start thinking of it as something that happens deliberately. Apparently, the recurrence of PC breach or PC over-fulfillment reinforces people s reactions. For PC breach, this means not only that people become less satisfied as shown by research of Zhao et al. (2008), but it also 52

63 may cause anger and distrust (Robinson & Morrison, 2000). Also, in line with the research of Baumeister et al. (2001), several positive events are needed to make up or one bad events. This is also what I saw in study 3. However, since I was only able to investigate this for one study, future research should reveal if there indeed exist differences between single breached or exceeded obligations and several breached or exceeded obligations. Overall, the results of this research suggest that neuroticism and conscientiousness do not moderate the direct relationship between the PC condition and the change in task satisfaction. Also, I discovered that for neuroticism a direct effect was found on the change in task satisfaction in study 2. Though this was not what I expected prior to the experiments, it is in line with the findings of Judge et al. (2002), who found that of all big 5 personality traits, neuroticism was most strongly related to job satisfaction. In this research, only marginal support was found for conscientiousness as a moderator in study 1, which is related to the finding of Orvis et al. (2008), who found that conscientiousness moderates the relationship between PC breach and job satisfaction. Orvis et al. (2008) acknowledges the limitations of their research in terms of generalizability since they only collected data from one organization; in this research, a wider context was taken which might explain the insignificant findings. Besides, the context of study 1 is not really comparable with that of study 2 and 3, since only people from one business course filled in the questionnaire. The context of study 2 was already much broader since people who studied at Tilburg University could join the quiz. Study 53

64 3 was conducted in a very broad context, since the only requirement to participate was to be employed. Of course these differences in set-up provide differences in the results as well. A finding of study 1 was also the significant effect of gender on neuroticism. Women proved to be more neurotic compared to men. This was also found earlier by Furnham and Thomas (2004). This might have implications for their job satisfaction in the long run, since neurotic people are less emotionally stable which might cause changes in their job satisfaction. Further research should indicate if indeed differences in job satisfaction over the long term exist. The insignificant findings for the moderating effects of neuroticism and conscientiousness might also have to do with the reasonably low Cronbach s Alphas that were found for these scales. Unfortunately, I was only able to take half of the items of the original scales of neuroticism and conscientiousness due to the already big size of the questionnaire. This might have led to the low Alphas. Last point of discussion is the differences that were reported concerning people s expectations. In all studies, people in both groups reported lower expectations from T1 to T2. Though, people might set low expectations since these are easy to exceed (and high expectations provoke disappointment). This is also in line with the research of Montes and Irving (2008). 54

65 Limitations Some remarks can be made about this research and how its set-up might have influenced the results. The first limitation is the low generalizability of this research. Due to the experimental setting, and due to a lot of missing values in study 2 for example, the N was lower than was hoped for which lowers the generalizability. Also, the population of study 1 and 2 were quite homogeneous, which lowers the generalizability as well. However, the third study was set up to make up for this. A second limitation of this study was the use of only 6 instead of the original 12 items for the scales of neuroticism and conscientiousness because the questionnaire would otherwise be too long. Probably due to this, the reliability of the scales was sometimes quite low since the whole scale could not be covered in just 6 items. Third, while vignette studies are of experimental nature, they are less realistic than true experiments, which is also acknowledged by Ho et al. (2004). When people experience such situations for real, they might react differently compared to when people read it on paper. This might have influenced the findings of study 1 and 3. Fourth, I think that it would have been useful if I had taken the importance of the obligation as a moderating variable in this research. Fifth, the time that lies between the breached and exceeded obligations might not match the time that is between such breached and exceeded obligations in daily life. In real life, the time between the different conditions might be somewhat longer than that was the case in this research. Therefore, this is seen as a limitation of this research. A last limitation of this research is that in study 3, the significant correlation of -,269 between neuroticism and category showed that, though random assignment had taken place, the O-B category contained less neurotic people 55

66 compared to the B-O category. This caused unintended differences in characteristics between the two groups. 56

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69 Orvis, K.A., Dudley, N.M., & Cortina, J.M. (2008). Conscientiousness and reactions to psychological contract breach: A longitudinal field study. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93(5), Pallant, J. (2007). SPSS Survival manual: A step by step guide to data analysis using SPSS for Windows (6nd ed.). Maidenhead: Open University Press. Raja, U., Johns, G., & Ntalianis, F. (2004). The impact of personality on psychological contracts. The Acadamy of Management Journal, 47(3), Robinson, S.L., & Morrison, E.W. (2000). The development of psychological contract breach violation: A longitudinal study. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 21(5), Roehling, M.V. (1997). The origins and early development of the psychological contract construct. Journal of Management History, 3(2), 204. Rousseau, D.M. (1989). Psychological and implied contracts in organizations. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 2, Schmitt, M., & Dörfel, M. (1999). Procedural injustice at work, justice sensitivity, job satisfaction and psychosomatic well-being. European Journal of Social Psychology, 29, Singleton, R. A., & Straits, B. C. (2005). Approaches to Social Research (4th ed.) New York: Oxford University Press. Tallman, R.R.J., & Bruning, N.S. (2008). Relating employees psychological contracts to their personality. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 23, Turnley, W.H., & Feldman, D.C. (1999). A discrepancy model of psychological contract violations. Human Resource Management Review, 9(3),

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71 Appendices Appendix A: questionnaire study 1 VRAGENLIJST 1: Deze vragenlijst bestaat uit een aantal delen. Het eerste deel betreft algemene informatie. De daarop volgende onderdelen bevatten vragen met betrekking tot het onderzoek. Aandachtspunten voor tijdens het invullen van de vragenlijst: - Er zijn geen juiste of onjuiste antwoorden. Geef aan wat voor jou het best passende antwoord is. - Lees de instructies vooraf aan de verschillende onderdelen zorgvuldig door. - Mocht je tijdens het invullen van deze vragenlijst vragen hebben kan je deze uiteraard stellen aan een van de onderzoekers. DEEL 1: ALGEMENE INFORMATIE 1. Geslacht: o Man o Vrouw DEEL 2: PERSONALITEIT De volgende twaalf stellingen hebben betrekking op persoonlijkheid, geef hierbij aan in welke mate de gegeven stelling voor jou van toepassing is. 1. Ik voel me vaak gespannen en zenuwachtig 2. Ik word vaak kwaad om de manier waarop mensen mij behandelen 3. Ik ben zelden verdrietig of depressief 4. Ik voel me vaak de mindere van anderen 5. Wanneer dingen mis gaan, raak ik maar al te vaak ontmoedigd en heb ik zin om het op te geven 6. Wanneer ik onder grote spanning sta, heb ik soms het gevoel dat ik eronder door ga 7. Ik houd mijn spullen netjes en schoon 8. Ik probeer alle aan mij opgedragen taken gewetensvol uit te voeren Helemaal mee oneens Eens Neutraal Eens Helemaal mee eens

72 9. Ik streef ernaar uit te blinken in alles wat ik doe 10. Ik verknoei veel tijd voordat ik echt aan het werk ga 11. Als ik iets beloof, kan men erop rekenen dat ik die belofte nakom 12. Ik ben een productief mens die een klus altijd voor elkaar krijgt SCENARIO 1: Hieronder vind je een kort scenario. De bedoeling is dat je bij het lezen van het scenario de organisatie van je huidige bijbaan in gedachten neemt. Heb je op dit moment geen bijbaan, houd dan je laatste bijbaan in gedachten. In totaal zijn er drie scenario s. Na elk scenario vind je een korte vragenlijst, met vragen en stellingen. Wij vragen je deze in te vullen, met in je gedachten het beschreven scenario. Wees ervan bewust dat er geen foute antwoorden gegeven kunnen worden. Na het laatste gedeelte van elke vragenlijst vragen wij je te stoppen, wij verzoeken je om daar dan ook echt te stoppen en niet terug of vooruit te bladeren. Stel je voor; De organisatie waar jij voor werkt gaat de komende periode een grote reorganisatie tegemoet. Dit betekent dat er een turbulente tijd voor de deur staat. Er gaan veel veranderingen plaatsvinden waar jij al dan niet mee te maken zal krijgen. Ondanks de turbulente tijd die het bedrijf tegemoet gaat, heeft je baas een aantal beloften aan je gemaakt. De volgende beloften zijn gedaan door je baas: je zal een salarisverhoging krijgen, je blijft samenwerken met dezelfde collega s, waarbij het niet zeker is dat iedereen dezelfde functie kan behouden en je zal budget krijgen om te besteden aan trainingen en opleidingen. Uit eerdere reorganisaties is gebleken dat de op voorhand gemaakte beloftes altijd zijn nagekomen. Ook dit keer is de beloofde salaris verhoging nagekomen door de organisatie. Je salarisverhoging is zelfs nog hoger dan het geen wat door je baas beloofd was. De keuze voor wie de loonsverhogingen kregen werd bepaald door middel van loting. VRAGENLIJST 1B: Deze vragenlijst bevat drie onderdelen, de stellingen en vragen in deze onderdelen dienen beantwoord te worden met het geschetste scenario en je huidige of laatste werkomgeving in gedachten. DEEL 1: TEVREDENHEID De volgende vijf stellingen hebben betrekking op het concept tevredenheid met je baan. Beantwoord de onderstaande stellingen door het antwoord te omcirkelen wat het meeste op jou van toepassing is als je het scenario op je huidige of laatste werk zou projecteren. 62

73 Helemaal mee eens Mee eens Neutraal Mee oneens Helemaal mee oneens 1. Ik ben tevreden met mijn huidige baan Ik vind mijn huidige baan onplezierig Ik vind mijn huidige baan oninteressant Ik ben enthousiast over mijn huidige baan Ik verveel me binnen mijn huidige baan ***Stop hier AUB, tegen het einde van het eerste lesuur wordt het tweede deel van het enquête ingevuld *** 63

74 Scenario 2 Stel je voor; De organisatieverandering duurt voort en ondanks dat je baas beloofd had dat je met dezelfde collega s zal blijven samenwerken is dit niet het geval. De enige manier om je baan te behouden is door overgeplaatst te worden naar een andere vestiging in de buurt. De keuze van de personen die overgeplaatst moeten worden is gebaseerd op het aantal dienstjaren. VRAGENLIJST 2: Deze vragenlijst bevat drie onderdelen, de stellingen en vragen in deze onderdelen dienen beantwoord te worden met het geschetste scenario en je huidige of laatste werkomgeving in gedachten. DEEL 1: TEVREDENHEID De volgende vijf stellingen hebben betrekking op het concept tevredenheid met je baan. Beantwoord de onderstaande stellingen door het antwoord te omcirkelen wat het meeste op jou van toepassing is als je het scenario op je huidige of laatste werk zou projecteren. Helemaal mee eens Mee eens Neutraal Mee oneens Helemaal mee oneens 1. Ik ben tevreden met mijn huidige baan Ik vind mijn huidige baan onplezierig Ik vind mijn huidige baan oninteressant Ik ben enthousiast over mijn huidige baan Ik verveel me binnen mijn huidige baan *** Hartelijk bedankt voor jullie tijd en hulp*** 64

75 Appendix B: manipulation checks Manipulation check study 1 Manipulation check study 2 65

76 Manipulation check study 3 Appendix C: factor loadings As stated above, all factor analyses showed some uneven factor loadings. For study 1, the factor analysis showed that item 5 of the neuroticism scale loaded on both the neuroticism as well as the conscientiousness factor. This indicates that item 5 is a bad item. However, the reliability analysis showed that none of the items for the scale of neuroticism needs to be removed. Therefore, this item was not removed from the scale. For study 2, item 3 and 6 of the neuroticism scale loaded on the neuroticism as well as the conscientiousness factor. Item 3 of the conscientiousness scale did not load on any of the factors. The reliability analysis showed that this item did not add any value to the reliability of the scale, so this item was removed from the conscientiousness scale. Item 4 of the conscientiousness scale loaded on the conscientiousness as well as the neuroticism factor. However, the reliability analysis showed that this item adds value to 66

77 the reliability of the scale of conscientiousness as a whole, so this item was not removed. For study 3, item 3 of the neuroticism scale did not load on any of the components. Item 4 of the conscientiousness scale did load on the neuroticism as well as the conscientiousness component. Taken together, these factor loadings indicate that the scales used for neuroticism and conscientiousness in this research were not appropriate enough. This will be dealt with in the discussion. Appendix D: variables entered into regression analysis Model Variables entered 1 Y (Change in job satisfaction) + control variable (gender) & (secondary job) 2 Y (Change in job satisfaction) + control variable (gender) & (secondary job) + X (category) 3 Y (Change in job satisfaction) + control variable (gender) & (secondary job) + X (category) + moderators (neuroticism + conscientiousness) 4 Y (Change in job satisfaction) + control variable (gender) & (secondary job) + X (category) + moderators (neuroticism) + interaction effect (neuroticism * category) & (conscientiousness) + interaction effect (conscientiousness * category) Variables entered into multiple hierarchical regression, study 1 67

78 Model Variables entered 1 Y (Change in task satisfaction) + control variables (gender + faculty) 2 Y (Change in task satisfaction) + control variables (gender + faculty) + X (category) 3 Y (Change in task satisfaction) + control variables (gender + faculty) + X (category) + moderators (neuroticism + conscientiousness) 4 Y (Change in task satisfaction) + control variables (gender + faculty) + X (category) + moderators (neuroticism) + interaction effect (neuroticism * category) & (conscientiousness) + interaction effect (conscientiousness * category) Variables entered into multiple hierarchical regression, study 2 Model Variables entered 1 Y (Change in job satisfaction) + control variables (gender + age, education level, working experience, #years working at organization, hours, and type of contract) 2 Y (Change in job satisfaction) + control variables (gender + age, education level, working experience, #years working at organization, hours, and type of contract) + X (category) 3 Y (Change in job satisfaction) + control variables (gender + age, education level, working experience, #years working at organization, hours, and type of contract) + X (category) + moderators (neuroticism + conscientiousness) 4 Y (Change in job satisfaction) + control variables (gender + age, education level, working experience, #years working at organization, hours, and type of contract) + X (category) + moderators (neuroticism) + interaction effect (neuroticism * category) & (conscientiousness) + interaction effect (conscientiousness * category) Variables entered into multiple hierarchical regression, study 3 68

79 Appendix E: means task and job satisfaction Means job satisfaction at T1 and T2 for each category, study 1 Mean B-O Mean O-B Job satisfaction T1 3,74 3,36 Job satisfaction T2 2,99 3,49 Means of each category during T1 and T2, study 1 69

80 Means task satisfaction at T1 and T2 for each category, study 2 Mean B-O Mean O-B Task satisfaction T1 3,65 3,40 Task satisfaction T2 2,31 2,36 Means of each category during T1 and T2, study 2 Means job satisfaction at T1, T2 and T3 for each category, study 3 70

81 Mean B-O Mean O-B Job satisfaction T1 3,19 3,06 Job satisfaction T2 3,05 2,99 Job satisfaction T3 2,80 2,98 Means of each category during T1 and T2, study 3 Appendix F: expectations participants During all studies, participants were asked to report their expectations about the fulfillment of the promises made. Below, the people s expectations are graphically displayed. Expectations participants at T1 and T2, study 1 71

82 Expectation participants at T1 and T2, study 2 Expectations participants at T1, T2, and T3, study 3 72