Personality and Individual Differences 46 (2009) 147–153

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Personality and Individual Differences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid

Cognitive-behavioural training to change attributional style improves employee well-being, job satisfaction, productivity, and turnover
Judith G. Proudfoot a,*, Philip J. Corr b, David E. Guest c, Graham Dunn d a School of Psychiatry and Black Dog Institute, University of New South Wales, Randwick 2031, Australia Department of Psychology, Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea, SA2 8PP, UK c Kings College London, University of London, UK d Health Methodology Research Group, School of Community Based Medicine, University of Manchester, UK b a r t i c l e

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
We report, for the first time in the literature, a cognitive-behavioural training waiting-list controlled study that changed employees’ attributional style, reduced turnover, increased productivity, and improved a number of individual differences measures of well-being. One hundred and sixty-six financial services sales agents (98% male, mean age 36.2 ± 9 years) were randomly assigned to either (a) a sevenweek cognitive-behavioural training program or (b) a waiting-list. Significant improvements resulted in employees’ attributional style, job satisfaction, self-esteem, psychological well-being and general productivity. A significant reduction in employee turnover over a 4.5 month period was observed. The waiting-list control group replicated these results when they subsequently went through the same program. These findings demonstrate that work-related attitudes and behaviours, especially in motivationally challenging occupations, can be changed with cognitive-behavioural training to improve attributional style. The study is also valuable for personality and individual differences