Neuroticism and the sales profession

Abstract

While neuroticism is known to change throughout people’s lives, the specific causes of these changes remain poorly understood. One underexplored question is whether specific professions and associated job characteristics can foster neuroticism. Drawing on Cybernetic Big Five Theory (CB5T), we propose business-to-business (B2B) sales jobs entail frequent experiences of uncertainty, which over time increase salespeople’s neuroticism. Four studies with ∼1,700 B2B salespeople and ∼24,000 non-B2B-salespeople provide evidence that working in B2B sales jobs is positively associated with neuroticism. B2B sales job characteristics that are related to uncertainty and thus potentially explain the positive association of sales and neuroticism are complex customer needs, long sales cycles, complex sales targets, tough customer negotiations, and high shares of incentives in compensation plans. These results contribute to establishing CB5T as an explanatory framework for changes in neuroticism within the work environment. They also offer important implications for employees and managers.