Personality and the Moderating Effect of Mood on a Verbal Aggressiveness Risk Factor from Work Activities

Abstract

One of the trends in the current research in psychology is to explore how personal variables can determine a person’s communication style. Our objective was to find out the moderating effect of mood in the relationship between the five big personality traits and an aggressive verbal communication style risk factor from work activities in a sample of nursing professionals. This study is a quantitative descriptive design. The final sample was 596 nurses with an age range of 22 to 56 years. An ad hoc questionnaire was used to collect sociodemographic data, and the 10-item Big Five Inventory, the Communication Styles Inventory, and the Brief Emotional Intelligence Inventory for Senior Citizens were used. This study shows that, for nursing professionals, the agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism traits have a close relationship with aggressive verbal communication. Even though mood moderates this relationship, it is only significant for those individuals with high scores in neuroticism. Since personality dimensions are considered to be relatively stable over time and consistent from one situation to another, organizations should offer workshops and other types of practical activities to train workers in communication skills and emotional intelligence, in order to promote the health of employees and patients, and avoid risk factors from work activities in nursing.