PERSONALITY TRAITS AND ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE AS DETERMINANTS OF POSITIVE MENTAL HEALTH: A LONGITUDINAL STUDY

Abstract

The present study purported to explore determinants of positive mental health i.e., personality traits, organization culture. The primary objective entailed testing of Dual Continua Model of Mental Health in a sample of Pakistani adults. The current study aimed to analyze pattern of predictive relationship of personality traits with positive mental health among adults across three time points. It further aimed to explore moderating role of organization culture traits (involvement, consistency, adaptability and mission). A purposive convenient sample of 622 adults (aged 24 - 60) was administered with questionnaire booklet comprising Mental Health Continuum Short Form (MHC-SF; Keyes, 2005), Denison Organization Culture Survey (DOCS; Denison, 2000), NEO-Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI; Costa & McCrea, 1992) to meet study objectives. Comprising on study I executed in 2 phases and study II in three phases (time point1, time point 2 & time point 3). At study I, during phase I try out was conducted for checking comprehension and relevance of the study measures. Phase II (N=225) of the study I dealt with establishing psychometrics of measures along with determination of factor structure for measures. The psychometrics of measures was established in a sample of 225 employees. Findings of Study I revealed satisfactory alpha coefficients and preliminary descriptive. Three factor structure of MHC-SF was confirmed. Pretesting of Dual Continua model was done at study I, which showed confirmation of the Dual Continua Model of Mental Health. Findings provided support for good validity and reliability coefficients of study instruments. Analysis conducted for assessing prevalence of mental health of employees indicated higher proportion of males had flourishing and moderate mental health as compared to female employees. Time point 1 of the study II comprised of (N=622) adults aimed for hypotheses testing. Findings of time point 1 confirmed Dual Continua Model of mental health on the present sample. When computed for assessing prevalence of mental health states, higher proportion of employees had moderate mental health while others have flourishing mental health. Findings of hierarchical regression aimed at probing predictive relationship between personality traits and positive mental health displayed varied contribution of personality traits on positive mental health and psychopathology. Results of moderation analysis revealed significant moderation by involvement, consistency, adaptability and mission traits in neuroticism, extraversion, xii agreeableness and positive mental health relationship. Effects of age, educational qualification, organization etc were analyzed through MANOVA followed by univariate analysis. The differences by gender and marital status were computed through independent t-test. Results depicted statistically significant difference between early and middle adulthood at P < .05 on emotional wellbeing. Of the three subscales of MHC-SF, significant univariate effects were found for the emotional wellbeing. Overall mean scores of middle adulthood were higher than early and late adulthood groups. Similarly, significant multivariate effects were found for personality traits, followed by univariate effects significant only for agreeableness among five traits. Results of Post hoc analysis indicates statistically significant mean difference between early and middle adulthood on agreeableness trait. On psychopathology, significant multivariate effects were followed by significant univariate for obsession compulsion and phobic anxiety. Across various work organizations significant multivariate effects were yielded for positive mental health, personality traits, organization culture, and psychopathology. On DOCS, Result endorse significant univariate effects of involvement trait by showing significant mean differences between bankers and telecom personnel, consultants and educational sector employees. Moreover, significant mean differences were found for job experience between less experienced and experienced employees on emotional wellbeing. On positive mental health dimensions i.e., emotional, psychological and social wellbeing, higher means were reported for highly qualified employees as compared to low qualified employees. For personality traits, mean scores for neuroticism were found higher for low qualified employees as compared to highly qualified, on agreeableness, conscientiousness traits, highly qualified scored higher mean than low qualified. Results of independent sample t-test indicated non-significant gender differences for all the study variables. Findings showed statistically significant mean differences between married and unmarried employees on emotional wellbeing which was found higher for married as compared to unmarried employees. Whereas on neuroticism unmarried employees scored higher than married employees. On the contrary, married employees scored higher on agreeableness trait as compared to their unmarried counterpart. For demographic variables, results showed non-significant group differences for mental health levels across marital status, work organizations, age categories, job experience, and educational qualifications except gender. xiii For time point II data, only 225 employees and for time point III only 178 employees (from total 622 in phase I) responded positively. The item differential drop out test came out less than 1 SD showing no significant change. During Time point II, hierarchical regression analysis was conducted to analyze predictive relationship between time point I and time point II study variables. Findings indicated among time I predictors neuroticism I significantly negatively, conscientiousness I significantly positively predicted positive mental health. Results of paired sample t-test indicated statistically significant increase in social wellbeing, openness to experience from time point 1 to time point II. While psychological wellbeing increased from T2 to T3 among males and females. Organization culture traits i.e., involvement, adaptability, mission increased from T1 to T2 and also from T2 to T3 among both male and females. Similarly, an increase in extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness has been observed from T1 to T2. On the contrary, psychopathology scores had shown initially an increase from T1 to T2, and later decline from T2 to T3. Pattern of growth curve model indicated that positive mental health increased across three time points with a sharp decline within psychopathology levels among employees. However, results of repeated measure ANOVA depicted significant mean differences across educational categories over three time points. The study hold theoretical (contributing to indigenous existing literature by confirming Two-Continua model of positive mental health) as well as practical implications (by highlighting the need for investing in promoting for improving mental health of employees rather than aiming on the prevention