TITLE:
Work Personality and Decision Making Styles among Working and Non-Working Students
AUTHORS:
Raymond Doe, Matthew S. Castillo, Andrené B. McKinney
KEYWORDS:
Work Personality, Decision Making, Workers, Students
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.5 No.6,
June
30,
2017
ABSTRACT:
This study investigated adaptive decision making styles (DMSs; Rational and Intuitive) among working and non-working students. These cognitive styles involve approaching tasks objectively, analytically, thoroughly and unemotionally. Workers performing tasks in organizations are expected to use intuition and make rational business decisions compared to non-workers. Work personality, which is influenced by both home and school environments, has been identified to influence critical adult work behaviors such as task completion as well as how we engage with others in work settings. Increasingly, college aged students are working full or part-time and have to combine their studies with work demands in addition to other responsibilities at home. Prior studies have found no significant differences between working and non-working students on outcomes such as academics and social experiences. However, working students seem to transfer and optimize their decision making competencies to be successful on the job and in college compared to non-working students. We predicted that task oriented working students would use more adaptive decision making styles than non-workers after controlling for gender and age. A total of 130 respondents participated in this study and the results partially supported our assertion. Task oriented working students were significantly different than non-working students in the use of the rational decision making style than any other DMS. Our results were consistent with previous studies on adaptive decision making styles.