1 Personality and Cognitions underlying Entrepreneurial Intentions Benjamin R. Walker A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Management UNSW Business School March 30, 2015 2 Table of Contents Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... 6 Originality statement .................................................................................................................. 7 Publications and conference presentations arising from this thesis ........................................... 8 List of abbreviations .................................................................................................................. 9 Thesis Abstract......................................................................................................................... 10 Chapter 1: Introduction ............................................................................................................ 11 Chapter 2: Assessing the impact of revised Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory ...................... 20 Table 1: Articles with original Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (o-RST) and revised Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (r-RST) measures .......................................................... 26 Table 2: Categorization of original Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (o-RST) and revised Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (r-RST) studies in the five years from 2010-2014 ........ 29 Chapter 3: How process models of personality based on revised Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory suggest a way to organize personality structure .......................................................... 42 Figure 1: A general process model of personality in which behavior is distally predicted by temperament and proximally predicted by socio-cognitive mechanisms ............................ 47 Table 1: Comparison of personality models based on o-RST and r-RST that are process models or could be process models ...................................................................................... 53 Figure 2: Psychobiological Model of Temperament and Character (Cloninger et al., 1993) .............................................................................................................................................. 55 Figure 3: Model of how the Psychobiological Model of Temperament and Character (Cloninger et al., 1993) could be operationalized as a process model ................................. 58 Figure 4: The Response Modulation Model (Patterson & Newman, 1993) where disinhibition is defined as the lack of response modulation ................................................. 61 3 Figure 5: The Approach and Avoidance Temperament Model (Elliot & Thrash, 2002, 2010) ..................................................................................................................................... 64 Figure 6: The Hybrid Model of Learning in Personality (Jackson, 2008) .......................... 67 Figure 7: Conceptualization of personality theories (adapted from Jackson, 2008) ............ 69 Chapter 4: How the Five Factor Model and revised Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory predict divergent thinking .................................................................................................................... 75 Table 1: Means, standard deviations, alphas, and correlations between variables .............. 82 Table 2: Multiple regression results of FFM predicting fluency and originality ................. 83 Table 3: Multiple regression results of r-RST predicting fluency and originality ............... 84 Table 4: Multiple regression results of r-FFFS and openness to experience predicting fluency and originality ......................................................................................................... 86 Figure 1: Path model of an indirect effect of r-BAS on fluency through mastery .............. 87 Chapter 5: Disinhibition positively predicts psychopathy and entrepreneurial intentions ...... 92 Figure 1: Disinhibition positively predicts the dysfunctional outcome of psychopathy and the functional outcome of entrepreneurial intentions ........................................................... 94 Figure 2: The response modulation model (Patterson & Newman, 1993) where disinhibition is defined as the lack of response modulation ................................................. 96 Table 1: The BART is modified to become a disinhibition task using the response modulation model (Patterson & Newman, 1993) ............................................................... 104 Table 2: Study 1 means, standard deviations, alphas, and correlations of psychopathy, entrepreneurial intentions, and disinhibition condition and control condition Block 3 BART pumps ................................................................................................................................. 109 Table 3: Study 1 BART block 3 pumps predicting psychopathy and entrepreneurial intentions moderated by condition (disinhibition or control condition) ............................ 110 4 Table 4: Study 2 means, standard deviations, alphas, and correlations of psychopathy, entrepreneurial intentions, and disinhibition condition and control condition Block 3 BART pumps ................................................................................................................................. 114 Table 5: Study 2 BART block 3 pumps predicting psychopathy and entrepreneurial intentions moderated by condition (disinhibition or control condition) ............................ 115 Chapter 6: Are global thinkers higher in entrepreneurial intentions? .................................... 121 Table 1: Study 1 means, standard deviations, alphas, and correlations of Entrepreneurial Intentions, Mastery, and Global Processing ....................................................................... 137 Table 2: Study 1 mediation paths of the effect of Global Processing predicting Entrepreneurial Intentions mediated by Mastery ............................................................... 138 Figure 1: Study 1 effect of Global Processing predicting Entrepreneurial Intentions mediated by Mastery .......................................................................................................... 139 Table 3: Study 2 means, standard deviations, alphas, and correlations of the Entrepreneurial Intentions, Job Performance, and Organizational Performance statistics .......................... 144 Table 4: Study 2 mediation paths of the effect of Organizational Performance predicting Entrepreneurial Intentions mediated by Mastery ............................................................... 145 Figure 2: Study 2 effect of Entrepreneurial Intentions on Organizational Performance mediated by Mastery .......................................................................................................... 146 Chapter 7: General discussion ............................................................................................... 155 References .............................................................................................................................. 162 Appendix A: Balloon bursting probabilities for Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) ....... 246 Appendix B: A comparison of revised Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory with other contemporary personality Task .............................................................................................. 247 Appendix C: Moral emotions and corporate psychopathy: A review .................................... 263 5 Table 1: Rudolph and colleagues (2013) 23 moral emotions integrated into Haidt’s (2003) typology of moral emotions ............................................................................................... 267 Table 2: Summary of results and literature relating to Rudolph and colleagues (2013) 23 moral emotions integrated into Haidt’s (2003) typology ................................................... 270 Appendix D: The dark side of mindfulness in the workplace: A Review ............................. 298 Table 1: Findings of the literature review on trait mindfulness in the workplace.............. 303 Table 2: Studies that found negative aspects to mindfulness ............................................. 309 Appendix E: How the Five Factor Model and revised Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory predict divergent thinking; published version in Personality and Individual Differences .... 316 6 Acknowledgements My primary thanks goes to my supervisor, Chris Jackson. When I first started with him he was about to become Head of School, so I was expecting I may only see him once a month or something. To my surprise, he has been extremely available with meetings most weeks and availability at other times via email and telephone. I also thank my co-supervisor, Peter Heslin, who gave feedback on my PhD and has been supportive and available whenever needed. I thank my parents, Chris and Dell Walker, who were always interested to hear the latest on my research and encouraging me whenever they could. Growing up, my dad described his PhD experience as one of the best experiences of his life, so I am glad that I also have had this opportunity. My PhD experience has also transformed me and I have got everything I wanted: The feeling that I am an expert in a particular area, broad knowledge of a few areas and the ability to enter into deep academic knowledge