LogitiA

Personality Traits Behind Occupational Roles

Project overview | Research aim

LogitiA models how configurations of socially aversive personality traits relate to two occupational categories: manager and non-manager.

Every employee brings a unique personality to the workplace. But what happens when that personality includes socially aversive traits like exaggerated self-importnance (narcissism) or cynical manipulativeness? This project explores whether such traits influence a person’s likelihood of being in a managerial role or working in a specific type of position.

Using logistic classification (a supervised ML method), I modeled how combinations of subclinical narcissism, subclinical psychopathy, and Machiavellianism (cynical manipulativeness) predict job-related outcomes.

Methodology

Data: The data come from 586 working adults, based on data from my thesis: M. Valachová (2021). Self-determination in the Context of Basic Psychological Needs, Mindfulness and Vitality in Humans with Dark Traits. Data were collected online, using self-report surveys. Data are fully anonymized and collected in accordance with ethical standards for human subject research. Data quality have been enhanced through a comprehensive cleaning approach comprising EDA, data cleaning, validation, FR identification.
Key constructs: Socially aversive (dark) traits - SD3 (Jones & Paulhus, 2014).

Key insights

What is the probability that individuals with higher levels of socially aversive tendencies, are more likely to be classified as managers?

Plots illustrate the relationship between the predictors and the log odds of identifying as Manager. Plot (1) implies that individuals with higher Narcissism scores tend to have higher log odds of Manager position. Plot (2) indicates opposite relationship (lower log odds) and Plot (3) no relationship. Visualizations are based on test data.

Plot (1)

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Plot (2)

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Plot (3).

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The predicted probability of being a manager increases as Narcissism increases, which indicates a positive relationship between Narcissism and the likelihood of being a manager. In other words, higher Narcissism is associated with a higher probability of identifying as a manager.

Interestingly, the predicted probability of being a manager decreases as Psychopathy increases, which indicates a negative relationship between Psychopathy and the likelihood of being a manager. This would imply that higher Psychopathy is associated with a higher probability of identifying as a non-manager.

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The result of this project is a tool that combines psychological insight with machine learning to simulate career patterns — not to label individuals, but to explore how traits may influence real-world outcomes.