Open Access

Annina Böhm-Fischer, B. Frederik Fuchs

• Connections of personality and career success factors like obtained wages are well documented. Important cognitive wage-related outcomes such as wage expectations or the acceptance wage, i.e., the minimum acceptable wage for individuals to take on a job, are neglected by empirical research. This study proposes an integrated theoretical framework of personality effects on obtained, expected, and accepted wages. We empirically test this framework using the German PASS survey data (N = 5.636) of working age that contains personality measures as well as wage measures. We replicate previous studies that showed direct effects of extraversion and neuroticism on obtained wages. Extending this causal chain to expected and accepted wages, we demonstrate that both personality traits are associated with expected and accepted wages trough an indirect effect via obtained wages. For extraversion, however not for neuroticism, we show that even when controlling for obtained wage, a direct effect of this personality trait on expected and accepted wages prevails. We discuss the results in terms of relationships of personality to exaggerated wage expectations and extraversion.