The study reviews literatures about anxiety, state-trait anxiety, job performance, a socioanalytic perspective on job performance, and political skill. Furthermore, two hypotheses, including the positive relationship between trait anxiety and job performance, and political skill as moderator of trait anxiety-job performance relationship, are provided.
Trait Anxiety Anxiety
Different views of anxiety, such as philosophical and theological views, have their own interpretations of the meaning of anxiety. Freud is the pioneer in the field of anxiety with psychological views, and his theoretical views of anxiety have evolved for many years (Spielberger, 1966). Freud (1936) stated that anxiety is an unpleasantly emotional state, but not every unpleasant state could be called anxiety. Moreover, anxiety has other distinct characteristics that include "(1) a specific unpleasurable quality, (2) efferent or discharge phenomena, and (3) the perception of these" (Freud, 1936, p. 70).
In addition to some distinct characteristics, anxiety is referred to a response to the dangerous situation, and this reaction would be reproduced when the similar situation of danger recur (Freud, 1936). The situation of danger to anxiety is specific and distinguishable.
For instance, fear is a primitive warning to respond to present danger. Conversely, anxiety is a future-oriented emotion, which refers to that the focus is rapidly shifted to potentially dangerous events when potentially aversive events are perceived as uncontrollability and unpredictability (Barlow, 2002).
In spite of a few specific attributes of anxiety, various theories of anxiety in psychological views have defined anxiety from different perspectives, since the nature of anxiety is multidimensional (Izard, Bartlett, & Marshall, 1972; Spielberger, 1966). For instance, Lazarus and Averill (1972) maintained that "anxiety is an emotion based on the
appraisal of threat, an appraisal which entails symbolic, anticipatory, and uncertain elements"
(p. 246). The theory of Lazarus and Averill emphasizes the characteristics of anxiety appraisals rather than the components of basic emotions of anxiety. From a perspective of basic emotions of anxiety, Izard (1972) stated that anxiety as one of the complex emotion processes is the combination of two or more fundamental emotions, which specially combines fear with other two or more fundamental emotions including distress, anger, shame and excitement. However, anxiety is not only characterized by a complex reaction or response, but also referred to a personality trait (Spielberger, 1966).
State-Trait Anxiety Theory
Spielberger is one of the few cognitive theorists to evidence his state-trait theoretical conception, and to consider anxiety as a personality trait (Barlow, 2002). Anxiety as a personality trait (trait anxiety) is a relatively stable individual difference, which refers to past experience of individuals resulting in different anxiety-proneness to perceive stimulus situations or circumstances as threatening or dangerous, and to respond to such situations or circumstances with state anxiety reactions, whereas state anxiety is conceptualized as a transitory emotional state or condition of the human organism that alters in intensity over time (Spielberger, 1966, 1972, 1985).
Spielberger (1966, 1972, 1985) proposed a state-trait-process model of anxiety which posits two anxiety constructs, stat anxiety and trait anxiety. This model reflects that through the cognitive appraisal of threat that is affected by individual differences in trait anxiety, external stressors (e.g., imminent danger of injury), and internal stimuli (e.g., thinking of dangerous situations), individuals might arouse state anxiety to initiate a behavior sequence in order to avoid the dangerous situation, or might evoke the defense mechanism in order to reduce state anxiety or adjust the cognitive appraisal of the situation.
Individuals high in trait anxiety, who tend to be low in self-esteem and have insufficient confidence in themselves, would perceive situations or circumstances involved more failure or
threatening to self-esteem. In order to reduce or eliminate the anxiety, an individual, who encounters stressful situations frequently, might develop particular coping responses (Spielberger, 1966, 1972, 1985).
Job Performance
Different researchers have their own views to define performance, which depends on attributions made by researchers and purposes of assessment. For instance, Viswesvaran (2001) suggested that individual job performance is defined as evaluable behaviors, but the evaluable behaviors have not explicit distinction between outcomes in many cases. By contrast, some researchers (Campbell, Gasser, & Oswald, 1996) maintained that "performance is synonymous with behavior" (p. 261), since a discrepancy between behaviors and outcomes should be identified by their distinct differences.
Organizations, one of the social systems, are comprised of individuals who make some common outcomes (Katz & Kahn, 1978), and job performances, one of the various outcomes in organizations, are affected by individual differences (Campbell et al, 1996). The effect of individual differences in job performance has different aspects in organizations. For instance, individual job performance affects not only personnel selection, but also development of a training program. When individual differences in job performance exist, high-quality personnel selection could improve productivity (Hunter, Schmidt, & Judiesch, 1990).
Furthermore, individual job performance is required for organizations to plan a training program, since the improvement of individual job performance provides evidences that expenses of training programs are worthy (Viswesvaran, 2001).
Individual job performance is generally assessed by organizational records and subjective evaluations (Viswesvaran, 2001). Organizational records, which represent a material without obvious use of ratings, are distinguished as hard criteria such as sales and production, and subjective evaluations, which make some common errors resulting from a judgment of people,
Although organizational records are more objective than subjective evaluations to evaluate performance of employees in organizations (Smith, 1976； Viswesvaran, 2001), objective measures associated with accurate economic performance are often difficult to be obtained from business units of multi-industry and privately-held firms (Dess & Robinson, 1984).
Indeed, compared to subjective measures which provide a sensible approximation, actual job-related behaviors or outcomes tend to be directly recorded by objective measures such as sales, which could avoid the contamination in an evaluation of supervisor (Bommer, Johnson, Rich, Podsakoff, & MacKenzie, 1995).
However, even if countable and discrete outcomes better control the biasing influences made by subjective evaluations, criterion contamination and deficiency may affect organizational records (Viswesvaran, 2001). For instance, sales as one of the organizational records used for measuring sales personnel might have defects if a sales criterion ignores the importance of the potential of different sales areas (Smith, 1976). Thus, since both objective measures and subjective measures have some latent problem, an integrative approach including both objective measures and subjective measures is recommended to completely assess performance (Bommer et al., 1995).
A Socioanalytic Perspective on Job Performance
In a socioanalytic perspective on job performance (Hogan & Shelton, 1998), personality can be defined by the views of the inside and the outside. From the view of the inside, personality that is an individual identity guides social behaviors and influences strategies to get ahead and to get along. From the view of the outside, personality that is an individual reputation reflects trait and behavior evaluations of other people on the individual. To get ahead refers to proactively taking responsibilities and getting attention from others. To get along refers to cooperating and working well in a team (Hogan & Holland, 2003； Hogan &
Shelton, 1998).
Everyone is motivated to get along and to get ahead, but the level of effort to get along
and to get ahead is evaluated by others (Hogan & Shelton, 1998). The perceptions of others have important influence on job performance, since social interaction frequently occurs at work. Some personalities have been perceived as rewarding to deal with and high motivation to get along and to get ahead, such as agreeableness and extraversion. Individuals with these personality traits seem positive and confident, which increase their opportunities to be successful during social interaction (Hogan & Holland, 2003). In contrast, individuals who seem anxious and frequently worried are likely to lack self-confidence to get ahead and to get along, which may lead to low performance during social interaction (Hogan & Shelton, 1998).
The distant between the perception of others and self is social skill, since social skill reflects how observers feel but not what actors really intend. Social skill can not only facilitate the relationship between the positive personality and job performance, but also coexist with the flawed personality. In order to achieve interpersonal goals, social skill can be a significant moderator of the relationship between personality and performance in the workplace (Hogan & Shelton, 1998). However, other social competencies are likely to moderate the relationship between the personality and performance in the socioanlytic perspective as well (Blickle, Wendel, & Ferris , 2010).
Political Skill
Political skill, one of the social competencies, was defined as "the ability to effectively understand others at work and to use such knowledge to influence others to act in ways that enhance one's personal and/or organizational objectives" (Ferris et al., 2005, p. 127). Politics that refers to the use of informal and ostensible behaviors to influence or against individuals and groups inherently exists in and around organizations (Mintzberg, 1983). Thus, political skill is an essential social competency for individuals to be successful in organizations (Perrewé et al., 2000).
Political skill is identifiable between other social competency constructs through its
constructs make each construct tend to slightly overlap, each construct still has its distinct characteristics (Ferris, et al., 2007). For instance, political skill might a little overlap with emotional intelligence regarding aspects of interpersonal behavior, but the distinction between two constructs still exists. Emotional intelligence primarily focuses on aspects of emotions, such as effective influences on oneself and others by the use of emotions, whereas political skill that specifically emphasizes behaviors in organizational settings is a comprehensive social competency that is more than emotions. (Ferris et al., 2007； Perrewé et al., 2000).
Political skill reflects both dispositional antecedents that are relatively stable variances and situational variability that are affected by experience, practice and training. Through practicing and training political skill, individuals, who are lack inherent political abilities, can improve political skill (Ferris et al., 2007). Individuals who practice political skill convey a sense of personal security and self-confidence being outward toward others instead of inward and self-centered, which makes other people feel comfortable and engaging (Ferris et al., 2005；
Perrewé et al., 2000).
Furthermore, through the use of political skill, politically skilled individuals tend to perceive working environment less stressful (Perrewé et al., 2000). Previous research has shown that political skill neutralizes negative effects of stressful contexts. Perrewé et al. (2004) found that political skill at work moderated the relationship between role conflict and strains, such as psychological anxiety. Ferris et al. (2005) demonstrated that political skill measured by the Political Skill Inventory composite score indicated a significant negative correlation with trait anxiety (Blickle et al., 2008； Blickle et al., 2010； Meurs et al, 2011). Indeed, individuals with high levels of political skill in stressful work environment enjoy the challenge and are good at dealing with stress, which makes such individuals reduce anxiety and have greater success (Perrewé et al., 2000).
Previous research has also investigated the moderating role of political skill on the relationship between personality traits and job performance (Blickle et al., 2008； Blickle et al.,
2010；Meurs et al., 2011). Blickle et al., (2008) found that political skill moderated the relationship between agreeableness and job performance ratings assessed by supervisors, peers and subordinates, which demonstrated that individuals who were high in both agreeableness and political skill were associated with higher performance. In addition, Blickle et al., (2010) reported that political skill moderated the relationship between extraversion and job performance measured by actual sales, which indicated individuals who were high in both extraversion and political skill were associated with higher levels of sales. Lastly, Meurs et al., (2011) used a narrow personality trait, trait sincerity, to test whether political skill moderated the relationship between personality and supervisor-rated performance. The result demonstrated that individuals who were high in both political skill and trait sincerity were associated with higher performance. In short, three studies reported consistent empirical results that political skill moderated the relationship between personality traits perceived as positive and job performance.
Trait Anxiety and Job Performance
Two theories including the processing efficiency theory (Eysenck & Calvo, 1992) and the attentional control theory (Eysenck, Derakshan, Santos, & Calvo, 2007) had proposed to explain the effect of state and trait anxiety on cognitive performance. State anxiety is affected interactively by trait anxiety and by stimulus situations such as stressful environment (Eysenck, 1985). Eysenck and Calvo (1992) suggested that the distinction between state anxiety and trait anxiety is often hard to be distinguished at an empirical level, since experimental research has reported that state anxiety and trait anxiety were highly correlated (r ≥0.70).
Processing efficiency theory addressed the relationship between state anxiety and cognitive performance. Processing efficiency theory assumed that anxiety tends to impair processing efficiency that refers to the relationship between performance effectiveness and processing resources used in task performance, whereas anxiety may not impair performance
compensatory strategies, such as use of additional processing resources (Eysenck & Calvo, 1992). By clarifying unclear issues within processing efficiency theory, attentional control theory was proposed to provide a more comprehensive explanation on the effects of anxiety on cognitive performance (Eysenck et al., 2007). Attentional control theory more emphasized the relationship between trait anxiety and cognitive performance. One of the major assumptions of attentional control theory is that "anxiety impairs efficient functioning of the goal-directed attentional system and increases the extent to which processing is influenced by the stimulus-driven attentional system" (Eysenck et al., 2007, p.336).
Several empirical studies have examined the relationship between state or trait anxiety and cognitive performance. For state anxiety, Bertrams, Englert, Dickhäuser, and Baumeister (2013) found that individuals high in state anxiety impaired cognitive test performance, but increased self-control can eliminate the adverse effects of state anxiety on cognitive test performance. For trait anxiety, Eysenck (1985) found that when monetary incentive was provided, individuals low in trait anxiety had better cognitive performance regarding letter transformation than individuals high in trait anxiety. Owens, Stevenson, Hadwin, and Norgate (2012) reported that working memory capacity positively moderate the relationship between anxiety and cognitive test performance. However, previous research has rarely investigated the relationship between trait anxiety and job performance (Mughal, Walsh, & Wilding, 1996).
An empirical study found that salespeople high in trait anxiety had higher job performance than those low in trait anxiety (Mughal et al., 1996). An individual high in trait anxiety tends to have insufficient confidence and to easily perceive situation as more threatening (Spielberger, 1966, 1972, 1985). Mughal et al., (1996) proposed that a tangible incentive in the workplace is likely to motivate individuals high in trait anxiety to have higher performance. A tangible incentive in the workplace can be desired by the organization but not formally rewarded by the compensation system. For instance, high market share is directly rewarded by customers through ignoring other competitors instead of being formally rewarded
by the compensation system, but high market share is still desired by the organization (Siders, George, & Dharwadkar, 2001).
Furthermore, individuals high in trait anxiety who tend to lack self-confidence are likely to undervalue their job performance relative to individuals low in trait anxiety (Mughal et al., 1996). For instance, explicit and objective job measurements might make most individuals only achieve requirements given by a company, whereas individuals high in trait anxiety are likely to make higher outputs as insurances against expected troubles in the future (Kreps, 1997；
Mughal et al., 1996). Thus, in light of prior research on the relationship between trait anxiety and job performance regarding sales, this study contends that individuals high in trait anxiety lead to high job performance.
Hypothesis1. Trait anxiety is positively associated with job performance.
Political Skill as Moderator of the Trait Anxiety- Job Performance Relationship
Individuals high in trait anxiety tend to lack self-confidence and self-esteem, and to perceive situations as threatening (Spielberger, 1966, 1972, 1985). Previous research found that individuals high in trait anxiety had higher performance in sales jobs owing to motivational settings at work. A tangible incentive may motivate individuals high in trait anxiety, who tend to be worried about the future, to put greater effort into having higher earnings to avoid expected troubles in the future. In addition, the greater effort made by individuals high in trait anxiety leads to higher job performance instead of less efficient outcomes. However, apart from the aspects of motivation at work, an effective intervention is likely to make individuals high in trait anxiety have high performance in sales jobs as well (Mughal, Walsh, & Wilding, 1996).
In order to have high performance in sales jobs, individuals need to have abilities to get
customers (Nerdinger, as cited in Blickle et al., 2012). Through combining social awareness with the ability to adjust behavior to changing demands in different situations, individuals possessing political skill appear to be sincere, inspire trust in others, and make others have confidence (Ferris et al., 2005, 2007).
Furthermore, individuals employed in sales jobs need to precisely express themselves to customers and to influence customers in effective ways (Nerdinger, as cited in Blickle et al., 2012). Individuals high in political skill know which a specific influence tactic to use in each situation and how to appropriately execute tactics to effectively influence others at work (Ferris et al., 2007). Indeed, previous empirical studies found that when individuals high in political skill executed ingratiation, one of the influence tactics, the ingratiation behavior were perceived as a sincere and positive behavior instead of a manipulative behavior (Liu, Ferris, Xu, Weitz, & Perrewe, 2014； Treadway, Ferris, Duke, Adams, & Thatcher, 2007).
Lastly, establishing social networks is also important for success in sales jobs (Nerdinger, as cited in Blickle et al., 2012). Individuals possessing political skill have high networking ability. Individuals high in political skill know how to develop and use networks of people, which makes them benefit from these networks (Ferris et al., 2007). In short, political skill can play an important role in successful sales performance that partly relies on interacting with others (Blickle et al., 2012).
Anxious individuals who tend to perceive a current goal in threatening situations are likely to initiate effective strategies to achieve their goals (Eysenck & Calvo, 1992). According to the socioanalytic perspective (Hogan & Shelton, 1998), in order to achieve interpersonal goals, individuals can use a social competency to facilitate the relationship between personality and job performance. Although anxious individuals who are relatively moody tend to be lack of confidence of their ability to interact with others (Hogan & Shelton, 1998), anxious individuals may utilize the social competency to achieve their interpersonal goals. Therefore, Use of political skill seems an effective strategy for individuals high in trait anxiety to improve
their performance in sales jobs.
Hypothsis2. Political skill positively moderates the relationship between trait anxiety and job performance.