ABSTRACT
Ever since Aristotle’s Eudemian Ethics lectures on the role of virtues in enabling a worthwhile, flourishing, and happy life (Kenny, 2011), philosophers and scholars have theorized about what leads some individuals to be more fulfilled and successful than others. In contrast to Aristotle’s focus on the moral virtues of courage, generosity, justice, friendship, and citizenship, contemporary careers research has focused more on the role of psychometrically derived and assessed dispositions, along with intellectual ability, in predicting objective and subjective career outcomes. A review of such empirical developments by Judge and Kammeyer-Mueller (2007) highlighted the role of the Big Five personality traits and other personality dispositions (i.e., proactive personality) in career success, via mediated pathways including people’s social behavior (i.e., relationship building), attractiveness to employers, perceptions of their job characteristics, and their job performance.
