Personality traits and perceived work addiction of supervisors and coworkers as predictors of work addiction.

Work addiction is type of behavioral addiction in which an individual's uncontrollable preoccupation with work leads to impairments in other areas of life. The antecedents of work addiction are mostly examined within the scope of personality traits. However, organizational factors such as the influence of supervisors' and coworkers' levels of work addiction through social learning mechanisms have only been studied in a limited way. Therefore, the present study examined the extent to which personality traits (Big Five Model and Dark Triad) and perceived work addiction of supervisors and coworkers predict employees' level of work addiction. Data were collected from 406 employees working in the public and private sectors in Türkiye using an online survey. The study employed validated psychometric scales that assessed work addiction (Bergen Work Addiction Scale), the Big Five personality traits (Big Five Inventory), the Dark Triad personality traits (Dark Triad Dirty Dozen), and the perceived work addiction of supervisors and coworkers (Perceived Coworkers' Work Addiction Scale). Regression analysis showed that conscientiousness, neuroticism, and narcissism significantly and positively predicted work addiction, while perceived work addiction of the supervisor also emerged as a weak but positive predictor. The findings indicate that specific personality traits (i.e., conscientiousness, neuroticism, and narcissism) play a more pronounced role in the development of work addiction compared to perceived work addiction among supervisors and coworkers. This finding suggests that individual predispositions may be more important than the organizational variables examined in the present study in explaining work addiction.