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Reversing the Pollyanna Effect: the Curvilinear Relationship Between Core Self-Evaluation and Perceived Social Acceptance

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Abstract

Despite the popularity of the core self-evaluation (CSE) concept in the organizational psychology literature, research has largely neglected the relational costs perceived by individuals with excessively high levels of CSE (i.e., hyper-CSE). This study addresses these gaps by examining the curvilinear relationship between CSE and social acceptance. Using data from 165 employees and their supervisors, we found support for our model, which posits that CSE has an inverted U-shaped relationship with social acceptance. We also found that this relationship was moderated by conscientious organizational citizenship behaviors (conscientious-OCB). The diminishing returns of CSE occurred only for employees who were rated low in conscientious-OCB. Conversely, when conscientious-OCB was high, employees continued to have positive social acceptance effects. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

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Notes

  1. Because there is debate in the literature on whether CSE is a superordinate construct (i.e., causality flows from

    the higher-order construct to its indicators) or an aggregate construct (i.e., causality flows from the indicators to the higher-order factor), we refer to the narrower traits that it includes as “dimensions” of CSE, as the term “dimensions” can be used for cases of both superordinate and aggregate constructs.

  2. We thank an anonymous reviewer for raising this point.

  3. We thank an anonymous reviewer for this suggestion.

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Author notes

  1. Xingshan Zheng, Bingqing Wu and Christina S. Li contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Organization Management Department, Antai College of Economics & Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China

    Xingshan Zheng & Ningyu Tang

  2. Department of Business, University of Wisconsin-Parkside, 900 Wood Road, Kenosha, WI, 531-2000, USA

    Bingqing Wu

  3. Management and Organizations, Edwin L. Cox School of Business, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX, USA

    Christina S. Li

  4. School of Management, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China

    Pengcheng Zhang

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  1. Xingshan Zheng
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Zheng, X., Wu, B., Li, C.S. et al. Reversing the Pollyanna Effect: the Curvilinear Relationship Between Core Self-Evaluation and Perceived Social Acceptance. J Bus Psychol 36, 103–115 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-019-09666-3

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