Personality Types as Predictors of Job Satisfaction Among Correctional Officers

Abstract

Background: Correctional officers in sub-Saharan Africa operate within one of the most psychologically demanding occupational environments in the public sector. Tasked with custodial management, rehabilitation, and reintegration of incarcerated populations in severely under-resourced facilities, officers are systematically exposed to chronic threat of violence, institutional overcrowding exceeding 200% of designed capacity, role ambiguity, poor remuneration, inadequate mental health support, and cumulative proximity to human suffering and coercive institutional authority. The Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) manages over 240 custodial centres nationally. Despite the centrality of these conditions to workforce welfare and institutional effectiveness, personality-based predictors of job satisfaction among Nigerian correctional officers remain critically underexplored in the guidance and counselling literature. This study addresses that gap, drawing on differential psychology and occupational counselling frameworks to examine how individual personality traits predict job satisfaction in a maximum-security custodial environment. Methods: A descriptive, correlational survey research design was employed. Of 200 questionnaires distributed at Nigeria Correctional Centre, Kirikiri Maximum Security, Lagos State, 193 were analytically complete (response rate: 96.5%). The sample comprised officers across three rank tiers; junior (Grades 1–6), middle (Grades 7–10), and senior (Grades 11–14) with a male-to-female ratio of 3:1, consistent with the facility workforce demographic profile. Two validated instruments were used: the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI; Costa and McCrae, 1992), administered using the standard protocol previously used in Nigerian adult populations, measuring Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism; and the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire Short Form (MSQ-SF; Weiss et al., 1967) measuring intrinsic, extrinsic and general job satisfaction. Both instruments demonstrated acceptable internal consistency in this sample (NEO-FFI Cronbach's alpha = .79; MSQ-SF = .83). Pearson Product-Moment Correlation and stepwise multiple linear regression were computed using IBM SPSS Version 22.0. Results: Stepwise multiple regression identified three significant personality predictors of job satisfaction. The final model was statistically significant: F(3, 189) = 41.27, p < .001, R² = .396, Adjusted R² = .386, accounting for 39.6% of the variance in general job satisfaction. Effect size was large (f² = .655, Cohen 1988). Neuroticism was the dominant negative predictor (β = -.48, B = -1.37, SE = .16, t = -8.63, p < .001, sr² = .211, VIF = 1.71): for every one-unit increase in Neuroticism, general job satisfaction decreased by 1.37 points on the MSQ-SF scale, holding other predictors constant. Extraversion (β = .31, sr² = .108, p < .001) and Conscientiousness (β = .24, sr² = .069, p < .001) were significant positive predictors. Openness and Agreeableness were excluded as non-significant. Regression equation: JSS Total = 168.42 − 1.37(Neuroticism) + 1.09(Extraversion) + 0.88(Conscientiousness). VIF values below 1.8 confirmed the absence of multicollinearity. Pearson correlations: Neuroticism and JSS Total r = -.51 (p < .001), Extraversion r = .38 (p < .001), Conscientiousness r = .34 (p < .001). Conclusion: Personality type; particularly Neuroticism, Extraversion and Conscientiousness, constitutes a robust, statistically significant predictor of job satisfaction among Nigerian correctional officers. The findings support three evidence-based interventions: pre-employment psychometric screening using the NEO-FFI within NCoS recruitment processes; structured occupational counselling programmes targeting elevated Neuroticism profiles; and evidence-based resilience and mental health training delivered by qualified counselling practitioners embedded within custodial facility health services. Extrinsic satisfaction recorded the lowest relative score (44.9% of maximum possible versus 58.0% intrinsic), confirming that personality-informed counselling cannot fully offset dissatisfaction generated by structural conditions below the threshold of basic occupational adequacy. Keywords: Big Five Personality Inventory, NEO-FFI, personality types, job satisfaction, correctional officers, Nigerian Correctional Service, occupational counselling, Neuroticism, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, psychometrics, custodial health, workforce wellbeing, guidance and counselling, Nigeria This version (Corrected). Corrections from Version 1.0: sample standardised to N=193 analytically complete throughout; NMCN registration numbers removed from author note; affiliation standardised to Lagos; department name corrected to Department of Counselling and Human Development Studies; final model statistics updated to F(3,189)=41.27, R²=.396.