Motivation, cognitions and traits: predicting occupational health, well-being and performance

Past research on vulnerability/resistance to occupational stress and strain has focused predominantly on personality defined at the trait or dispositional level (e.g. Type A Behaviour Pattern, Locus of Control, Dispositional Optimism and Negative Affectivity). This is problematic for two reasons. First, within the current, prevailing integrative view of personality there are three main elements: motivation, cognitions, and traits (Winter, 1996; McAdams, 2000). The second problem is that there are two branches that together define personality psychology as a discipline: (a) the nomothetic or 'individual difference' approach; and (b) the 'ideographic' approach, that is the structure and organization of personality at the individual level (Epstein, 1994), yet trait theory-and especially the 'Big Five' model-have paid little attention to the latter, a trend that is also evident in the occupational stress literature. The central thesis of the current paper is that motivation, cognitions and traits should contribute more variance to the stress-strain relationship than trait personality alone. A preliminary model is presented and recommendations for future research provided