Job apathy in employees: The role of personality traits and perfectionism

Организационная психология. 2025. Vol. 15. No. 2. P. 9–17.

Marina Sheveleva, Zolotareva A.

Apathy is a serious threat to the well-being of employees and organizations, but so far it has been little studied in the job context. The construct of job apathy includes two components: apathetic thoughts and apathetic actions. Apathetic thoughts comprise the lack of interest in and satisfaction from one’s job. Apathetic actions mean the lack of intention to perform well. Employees just do what they must do without putting meaningful effort into fulfilling their tasks. Purpose. The study aims to examine the predictive role of perfectionism and personality traits in job apathy. Method. Three hundred and twenty Russian employees (56.2% females) with mean age of 38.57 years (SD = 9.80) completed the Russian versions of the Job Apathy Scale, Short Almost Perfect Scale, and Short Portrait Big Five Questionnaire. Findings. A series of linear regression models showed that age, extraversion, agreeableness, and openness to experience were negative predictors, whereas gender and maladaptive perfectionism were positive predictors of job apathetic thoughts. Age, agreeableness, and openness to experience were negative predictors of job apathetic actions. Overall, perfectionism and personality traits partly predicted job apathetic thoughts and actions among Russian employees. Implication in practice. These findings can be used to measure maladaptive perfectionism in the employee selection process, develop coaching and mentoring programs and career counseling, provide support to employees with maladaptive perfectionism and low extraversion, agreeableness, and openness to experience.

Keywords: personality traits, job apathy, adaptive perfectionism, maladaptive perfectionism, job apathy, adaptive perfectionism, maladaptive perfectionism, personality traits