The Social Environment as a Determinant for the Impact of the Big Five Personality Factors and the Group’s Performance

The composition of a team usually is done by having in mind the personality factors, supposing that these factors are important for the working climate and performance of the group. Starting from this hypothesis, the authors investigate the influence of the personality factors on the team achievements in a practicum of computer science students. The correlations by itself were very weak. But by partitioning the data, it results that the social environment in which the tasks are performed is a decisive factor for the importance and the influence of the team personality factors on the group’s performance. If the social environment exposes the team to situations in which the corresponding personal factors are important, then a significant correlation between these factors and the achievement is observed.