The Relationship between Personality Traits and Job Satisfaction of Teachers

, ABSTRACT Introduction: Persons that show discontentment with their work have a bigger chance to experience burnout syndrome, depression, anxiety and the lack of self-esteem. Paul Spector defined job satisfaction as „the thing that people feel about their job and different aspects of the same.“ There is much research in a domain of industrial-organizational psychology that has been questioning relationship between job satisfaction and specific personality traits. Most of those researches confirm the fact that some of personality traits are significant predictors in job satisfaction. The Aim of the Study: To examine the level of job satisfaction and conduct research if there is a connection between certain aspects of it and personality traits among teachers in primary and secondary schools. Patients and Methods: The research was designed as a cross-sectional study. The sample included 280 teachers. Personality traits have been tested by Zuckerman-Kuhlman Personality Questionnaire (ZKPQ-50-CC), short version for estimating five dimensions of personality. For evaluation of job satisfaction, Job Satisfaction Survey (JSS) questionnaire, which serves for evaluating nine aspects of job satisfaction, was used. The examination was done according to ethical principles. Statistic treatment included descriptive and correlation analysis. Results: Results show the middle level of job satisfaction. They are not satisfied with their pay but they are pleasant with „Supervision“, „Coworkers“, „Nature of Work“ and „Communication“ while they are ambivalent on aspects of „Promotion“, „Fringe Benefits“, „Contingent Rewards“ and „Operating Procedures“. In this group of respondents, personality traits, Neuroticism and Sociability are rarely connected with job satisfaction. Neuroticism seems to be in negative and Sociability in positive correlation. Correlation among other personality traits with some aspects of job satisfaction is negligible. Conclusion: Results of this research are showing that there is a poor connection between some personality traits and job satisfaction.


Introduction
Thanks to work, a man provides an economic security and his place and position in society by forming his personality and identity and developing skills and talents. A man finds its personality and meaning of life through work. First of all, a job considers performing job assignments in a specific work conditions that seem to be far from ideal; it also considers an interaction with coworkers and supervision, respecting the rules of organisation and seizing specific level of productivity. 1 A person capable of work spends more than half of his life, while he is awake, at the same. If a person spends time at work that doesn't fulfil its criterions, it will produce negative consequences not only for his job, but for its health condition and general satisfaction as well. People who spend their time working what they don't like have a bigger chances to experience a burning syndrom, depression, anxiety and lack of a self-esteem. Nowadays, there are two basic concepts related to job satisfaction. First approach is holistic, which means that it has got only one dimension. It implies person's attitude and feeling related to job. Second approach is multidimensional. According to this approach, job satisfaction appears to be a pleasure in certain aspects of job. This kind of approach is mostly accepted and was founded by Paul Spector. He defines job satisfaction as "something that person feels about job and different aspect of it." 2 There are lots of successful organizations worldwide considering employees as a primary developing resource. Motivation and staff satisfaction are becoming basics of modern organization. Understanding a question of motivation and job satisfaction is also essential for designing working environment, organizational culture and climate, awarding and progressing system and supervision style. There is a lot of research in the area of industrial and organizational psihology that questions a relation between job satisfaction and individual personality traits. Most of those research finding confirm that some of personality traits seem to be a significant predictors of job satisfaction. 3,4 Personality traits represent relatively permanent characteristics that determine a specific person to feel and act appropriate in similar situations. Nowadays, they are mostly defined according to five factorial model of personality. 5 The Aim of the Study The goal of this research is to examine a level of job satisfaction, and discover if there is a connection between specific aspects of job satisfaction and personality traits among teachers in primary and secondary schools.

Patients and Methods
This type of research, which was conducted with two reliable instruments, was designed as cross-sectional survey study in order to examine two key variables: job satisfaction and personality traits. The research included 280 teachers from primary and secondary schools in three towns in the Republic of Srpska. The research was conducted according to ethical principles, anonymously and voluntarily.
Personality traits were examined by Zuckerman-Kuhlman Personality Questionnaire (ZKPQ-50-CC), a questionnaire that included 50 items with a binary format of answers. 6 Questionnaire represented a short version of ZKPQ questionnaire and consisted of five ten-item scales intended for evaluation dimensions of alternative five factorial model of personality. Dimensions (characteristics) are next: Activity -Act (includes general activity, relates to general need for activity, but also to uneasiness in situation where possibility to fulfil that need doesn't exist. Second group of items related to tendency for heavy and challenging jobs); Aggression-Hostility -Agg-Host (relates to verbal aggression, rough and careless behavior, envyness, malice and impatience); Neuroticism-Anxiety -N-Anx (susceptibility to psychological exhaustion, inability to control urges, propensity to unrealistic ideas and stress dealing inability); Impulsive Sensation Seeking -Imp SS (includes two subscales: impulsivity and sensation seeking. The first one relates to tendencies of impulsive reacting and plan absence. The second one includes need for excitement, getting involved in unpredictable situations and need for constant changes and innovations); Sociability -Sy: extraversion-introversion (propensity to association and amusement relates to enjoying parties and contacts with lots of people, isolation tolerance relates to a tolerance level of social isolation whereas more sociable persons achieve lower scores). 6 An instrument for the evaluation of job satisfaction, by which we evaluated nine aspects of job satisfaction was a scale called Job Satisfaction Survey (JSS). 7 There are nine aspects of job satisfaction being measured by this scale: Pay, Promotion, Supervision, Fringe Benefits, Contingent Rewards, Operating Procedures, Co-workers, Nature of Work and Communication. JSS consisted of 36 items (contentions) that was scored by Likert scale from 1 (I disagree) to 6 (I completely agree). Items proclaimed in negative context were scored in the opposite way. Each aspects was represented with four items. This was the way to calculate nine independent individual scores that were capable to move from 4-24 and the 10 th score was an examinee's total on items. It represented total satisfaction with the results between 36 and 216. The score from 4-12 for individual aspect signifies dissatisfaction, >12-16 medium satisfaction -ambivalence and the score between >16 and 24 represents satisfaction. For a total score: a score 36-108 represents dissatisfaction, >108-144 signifies medium level of satisfaction -ambivalence, while >144-216 satisfaction. Statistic treatment includes descriptive and correlational analysis.

Results
There were 180 (64,29%) examinees, that is, 80 teachers in primary and 100 (35,71%) professors in secondary schools. 89 (31,79%) males and 191 (68,21%) females were examined. An average age of examinees was M=39.01 (SD=4.81), an average years of service M=14.36 (SD=10.12), and an average expositional years of service M=11.84 (SD=10.12). From Table 1. we can see results of applying the JSS which show a middle level of satisfaction or ambivalence in total score. Some of those results on a subscale show that this group of educators is dissatisfied with their pay, they are ambivalent to the aspect of "Promotion", "Fringe Benefits", "Contigent Rewards" and "Operating Procedures". Those results also show satisfaction in the aspects of "Supervision", "Coworkers", "Nature of Work" and "Communication". They are most satisfied with "Nature of Work". Internal consistency reliability coefficient α of total is 0.92. Reliability of subscales is between 0,42 and 0,78.

Legend: JSS -Job Satisfaction Survey; ZKPQ-50-CC -Personality Questionnaire; Act -Activity; Agg-Host -Aggression-Hostility; ImpSS -Impulsive Sensation Seeking; N-Anx -Neuroticism-Anxiety; Sy -Sociability ( extraversion and introversion)
In Table 3., we can see the correlation between some of the subscale personality and some of the aspects of job satisfaction. There was no significant correlation between Activity (Act) and aspects of job satisfaction, nor positive and negative. Negative correlation was present between Activity and aspects of "Supervision", "Contingent Rewards" and "Coworkers", which means if result is higher on dimension personalty Activity, satisfaction "Supervision", "Contingent Rewards" and "Coworkers" is lower.
When we talk about Agg-Host personality dimension with all aspects of job satisfaction, the correlation is in negative direction, but insignificantly, which means there was no connection. The correlation between ImpSS and all aspects of job satisfaction was negative, but also insignificantly.
When it comes to the N-Anx dimension of personality, there was a weak, but also insignificant correlation with all aspects of job satisfaction. There was also a weak negative correlation with aspects of "Operating Procedures" and "Communication".
When we talk about Sociability (Sy), there was a weak to insignificant positive correlation with all aspects of job satisfaction. There was also a weak correlation between two of those personality dimensions and job satisfaction aspects: "Communication" and "Supervision".

Discussion
Research results (JSS) have shown that there is a middle level of job satisfaction among examinees. The results on a specific subscale show that this group of educators is displeased with pay, middle pleased (ambivalent) according to aspects of "Promotion", "Fringe Benefits", "Contingent Rewards" and "Operating Procedures". They seem to be satisfied with aspects of "Supervision", "Coworkers", "Nature of Work" and "Communication". They are most satisfied with "Nature of Work".
Results of correlational analysis show that there is a weak connection between Neuroticism-Anxiety (N-Anx) personality dimension with "Operating Procedures" and "Communication" aspects of job satisfaction. Connection is in a negative direction which means if the level of Neuroticism is higher, a job satisfaction in those aspects is weaker. Results also show a weak correlation between Sociability (Sy) dimension of job satisfaction and two aspects of job satisfaction: "Communication" and "Supervision". Direction of correlation is positive which means if a scale of Sociability is higher, a higher level of job satisfaction would be achieved in the aspects of "Communication" and "Supervision". Basically, there is no correlation among others personality dimensions and aspects of job satisfaction or it is negligible. There is a negative correlation between personality dimensions Aggression-Hostility (Agg-Host), Impulsive Seeking Sensation (ImpSS), Neuroticism-Anxiety (N-Anx) and a positive direction between Sociability (extroversion and introversion) (Sy) and job satisfaction. When we talk about Activity (Act) dimension, there is a negative correlation according to three aspects of job satisfaction: "Supervision", "Contingent Rewards" and "Coworkers" and for the rest of six aspects the correlation is positive.
Therefore, Neuroticism and Sociability (extroversion and introversion) show a weak correlation with job satisfaction in this research, while other personality characteristics compared to "Big Five" do not show any connections with job satisfaction. Those results correspond with the results in the literature. 4,[8][9][10] There is a possible explanation in the fact that persons with high score on a subscale of Neuroticism are disposed to experience negative emotions in all spheres of life, including a workplace. They get mad very often, get involved in disputes with others, they have violent reactions and probably have lots of conflicts on their workplace and this is the reason for developing job dissatisfaction. Contrary to the above mentioned, according to the results given in this research, emotionally stable persons, successful in the regulation of other people's emotions and their own, will develop higher job satisfaction. Emotional stability (low neuroticism) and extraversion are key aspects of "happy personality" so it could be expected that the factors which affect a person to feel happy will lead to job satisfaction. 11

Conclusion
In this group of examinees, there is a weak connection between Neuroticism and Sociability personality traits with job satisfaction. Neuroticism is in negative, while Sociability is in a positive correlation. The rest of personality traits do not show important connection with job satisfaction.