The Personality Trait That Predicts Whether You’ll Actually Quit Your Job

WHEN WORKERS CONSIDER QUITTING THEIR JOBS, one surprising factor can predict whether they follow through: Do they think most often about the past, the present or the future?

This personality trait, known as temporal focus, was defined and advanced by Abbie Shipp, the M.J. Neeley Professor of Management at TCU.

“I wanted to measure [temporal focus] in my dissertation research — but all the available scales either had issues that limited their usefulness, or they were slightly different from what I was seeking,” Shipp said. She saw an opportunity to offer new ideas for a stronger measure and published a paper on the concept in 2009.

More recently, Shipp joined David Allen, the Luther A. Henderson University Chair in Leadership at the TCU Neeley School of Business, to investigate the effect of temporal focus on individuals considering job changes. The team published its findings in Applied Psychology in January 2023.

“We hypothesized that people who tend to focus on the past would be more likely to translate intentions into behavior, in large part because they will continue to ruminate on the reasons driving their desire to leave,” said Allen, who also serves as the senior associate dean for community engagement at Neeley.

The team expected that workers with a current temporal focus would also be more likely to act on their intention to quit, but for different reasons: Researchers hypothesized that they would discount the risks associated with leaving a position and be more assured in their ability to control their circumstances.

Conversely, the team hypothesized that people who tend to focus on the future would be less likely to translate intention into behavior, because they are more likely to weigh longer-term considerations like future risks relative to potential benefits and the possibility that their current situation might improve.

TESTING THE HYPOTHESIS

Employee turnover is not just about intentions. How workers perceive time can shape real decisions and affect organizational stability.

Allen and Shipp collaborated with research partner Vesa Peltokorpi, a Finnish professor working in Japan. The team hired a Japanese research firm to distribute surveys to full-time employees in Japan, collecting data at three points over the course of one year. A cohort of 683 workers completed all three surveys, qualifying their responses for the study.

Survey questions asked respondents to rank their agreement with statements such as “I often replay memories of the past in my mind,” “I focus on what is currently happening in my life” and “I think about what my future has in store” to measure the person’s temporal focus. Other questions explored their intention to quit, and surveys later that same year measured whether they did.

The team members controlled for demographic variables including age, gender, marital status and education. They also controlled for personality variables beyond temporal focus, including the degree to which respondents believe they have control over their lives and their tendency to take initiative.

Data confirmed two of the researchers’ hypotheses: Employees with a high temporal focus on the past were significantly more likely — 32 percent more — to quit when they had an intention to leave a job, and those with a high temporal focus on the future were 27 percent less likely to act on their stated intention to quit. Having a focus on the present did not significantly influence the relationship between employees’ intention to quit and whether they followed through. 

KNOWLEDGE AT WORK

Organizations are increasingly trying to understand employees’ experiences at work, particularly those that lead to turnover, Allen said. Additional knowledge on whether employees might leave can help employers better predict changes.

“Temporal focus is an example of an easily measured individual tendency that could be used to make such assessments more accurate,” Allen said.

Employers with turnover are faced with hard costs such as advertising for new talent, hiring and training. More difficult to quantify but also important, the costs of turnover include a decline in productivity and customer satisfaction, as well as a decrease in morale for employees left behind, said Jennifer Schneider, a senior survey researcher with the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources.

“Overwork is a big dissatisfier, and when one person leaves, the work often tends to fall to those around them,” Schneider said of the negative experiences created by turnover.

Higher education is one of the many industries carefully watching whether employees plan to leave. The College and University Professional Association for Human Resources monitors trends in workforce issues, conducts research and promotes strategic discussions among colleges and universities. The organization conducts an annual employee retention survey.

“In terms of the reasons people give for leaving,” Schneider said, “pay is the top reason given, and second is that employees want more advancement and promotion options. The third is workplace culture.”

“Managers are often told which employees have been identified as ‘flight risks’ without being given adequate guidance as to what to do with that information,” Allen said.

Open dialogue between managers and employees can create the opportunity for leaders to learn more about an employee’s temporal focus.

“Everyone who works has had some experience with this: Either they have quit a job or they have thought about quitting a job — and it’s a big deal. For most people, quitting a job affects your whole life.”
David Allen

“Listen to the stories they tell. Are they stuck in the past or do they constantly talk about the future?” Shipp said. Those signs will indicate how a leader can best motivate and retain employees by connecting with the time periods they think about the most.

Retaining top talent is a priority for organizations seeking to preserve institutional knowledge and maintain a competitive edge. Changing jobs also impacts the individual employee, Allen emphasized.

“Everyone who works has had some experience with this: Either they have quit a job or they have thought about quitting a job — and it’s a big deal,” Allen said. “For most people, quitting a job affects your whole life.