The Mediational Role of Coping in the Relationship between Personality and Work-Family Conflict

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to explore a model of Work-Family Conflict (WFC) that includes personality and coping with a sample of university faculty. Contrary to prediction, coping was not a mediator in the relationship between the Big Five personality traits (Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, and Openness to Experience) and WFC. Additionally, there was not a significant relationship between WFC and tenure status, but number of work hours was positively related to WFC. Several personality traits were significantly correlated with various other variables in the study. There was a significant and positive relationship between Extraversion and Problem-Focused Coping and a negative relationship between Extraversion and WFC. There was a significant negative relationship between Conscientiousness and WFC, and Neuroticism and Openness to Experience both had positive relationships with WFC. Furthermore, there were significant positive relationships between Problem-Focused Coping and WFC and between Emotion-Focused Coping and WFC. These findings are discussed as well as the suggestion that future research further examine the role of coping and its influence on WFC.