Personality traits and income attainment of self-employed people—Accounting for model uncertainty

We examine the robustness of the relationship between income attainment and personality traits from Tellegen’s three-factor model that map into constructs of positive emotionality (well-being, social potency, achievement, and social closeness), negative emotionality (stress reaction, alienation, and aggression), and constraint (control, harm avoidance, and traditionalism). We do so by estimating the sampling distribution of 32,768 models in a sample of self-employed people from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study to account for model uncertainty. We find that only social potency and aggression are robust and positively correlated with income attainment among the self-employed. In contrast, income attainment for organizational employees is positively influenced by social potency and achievement and negatively influenced by traits such as alienation, impulsivity, traditionalism, and control. We find similar results when we examine a sub-group of self-employed people who employ and supervise others. Implications for future research are discussed.