COMPETITIVENESS MEDIATES THE LINK BETWEEN PERSONALITY AND GROUP-PERFORMANCE

The performance of individuals within groups, and of groups as units, is the product of immediate goal structures and personality difference s pertinent to those goals among group members. A level-of-analysis ap proach linked the dimension of agreeableness to situated competitivene ss and task performance in group settings. Hypotheses were (a) individ ual differences in self-rated and other-rated competitiveness are rela ted (inversely) to the Big Five dimension of agreeableness, (b) immedi ately situated promotive and contrient goal structures influence self- ratings of competitiveness, (c) immediate goal structures differential ly activate competitiveness to affect task performance in groups, and (d) agreeableness effects on task performance are partially mediated b y competitiveness. Structural equation modeling corroborated hypothese s about the links among agreeableness, competitiveness, and task perfo rmance.