Publication Date

Spring 2025

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Psychology

Advisor

Megumi Hosoda; Howard Tokunaga; Theresa Pyrce

Abstract

Prior research on career mobility has found that personality is not a strong predictor of career mobility. However, these studies have mainly focused on the Big Five personality traits and have not looked into other personality traits as predictors. The present study has looked into alternate personality traits and their relationship with perceived internal and external career mobility. These traits were the Dark Triad traits, consisting of Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy. The present study hypothesized that each of the Dark Triad traits would positively predict both perceived internal and external career mobility and that perceived organizational support (POS) would moderate the relationship between each of the Dark Triad traits and perceived internal and external career mobility. Data were collected from a total of 105 participants via an online survey. Although the results of this study did not find support for the hypotheses, they revealed that POS was significantly related to both perceived internal and external career mobility. Participants who felt supported and valued by their organizations were more likely to believe they could make transitions within their organization but less likely to believe that they could make transitions outside their organization. This study's results suggest that to improve their employees’ perception of their internal career mobility, organizations should provide support to their employees such as through increasing employee autonomy.

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