THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PERSONALITY, WELL-BEING, AND GRATITUDE IN TELEWORKING

How to cite this paper: Patitsa, C. D., Sotiropoulou, K., Giannakouli, V., Tsaknis, P. A.


INTRODUCTION
The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by infectious coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), spread across the world and changed lifestyles and work habits worldwide, providing the perfect setting for new work arrangements and practices.During the pandemic, a large percentage of people were forced to stay at home for long periods of time during lockdowns but still needed to work productively and stay in touch with their work tasks and workloads (Beckel & Fisher, 2022).Thus, teleworking became not only a trend but also a necessity in most work environments around the world.
Teleworking or remote work refers to working remotely, from a distance, using information technology to communicate and collaborate with colleagues, superiors, or clients.In such a case, the home or a place other than the office becomes the main workplace, and teleworkers can even work outside certain working hours (Grant et al., 2013).Thus, teleworking offers the opportunity to work remotely and not necessarily from the typical office, which allows workers to have a considerable amount of freedom and, in some cases improves work-life balance (Prasad et al., 2020).
Teleworking is not a new work method -it has been around since the 1970s -but it took a significant increase during the COVID-19 pandemic.Even before the COVID-19 crisis, research studies had found a steady increase in telework, with rates varying across countries, sectors and occupations due to technological, economic, cultural, and other work-related factors (Gschwind & Vargas, 2019).In the post-COVID-19 era, telework practices appear to be gaining ground over conventional work practices due to the risks of coronavirus, and more and more workers worldwide seem to prefer working from home rather than commuting to work every day, which means that the number of remote workers is expected to increase (Chow et al., 2022;Madero Gómez et al., 2020).
However, it is important to note that telework, and especially mandatory work from home (WFH), is not always appropriate for all categories of working adults (O' Neill et al., 2009) and may have different effects on worker's well-being (Pathak et al., 2021).On the one hand, recent research studies have highlighted the positive outcomes of telework for both employees and the organization itself, in terms of program flexibility, time and cost savings and promotion of work-life balance and mental health, while maintaining productivity and work motivation (Prasad et al., 2020;Raišienė et al., 2020).On the other hand, despite the obvious advantages of working from home, many researchers have highlighted many well-hidden disadvantages, such as increased work stress due to limitless working hours, constant accessibility of the remote worker, lack of control in communication and task overload, reduction in professional development opportunities, complexity of communication, and time required to resolve such issues, not to mention a significant increase in work-family conflicts (Charalampous et al., 2019;Raišienė et al., 2020).In addition, some people may find it difficult to work remotely because they feel they need more direct supervision and guidance in their work (O'Neill et al., 2009).Research studies have also shown that while teleworking helps to prevent workers from having to spend time socializing and interacting as they would in an office setting, this interaction would be rather essential during the pandemic (Raišienė et al., 2020).There are also conflicting findings between those who work entirely remotely and those who used a more hybrid work model, i.e., partly in an office environment and partly from home during a workweek, with the former reporting the disadvantages of teleworking more often than the latter (Antunes et al., 2022).
Apparently, the experience of teleworking has both positive and negative effects on employees and influences their well-being.Specifically, due to the complicated working conditions that the pandemic imposed on all work environments, employers and human resources (HR) experts increasingly sought appropriate ways to balance teleworking methods with employee mental health (Jeske, 2022).Focusing on the best possible working conditions to achieve organizational goals, there is a growing interest in teleworking and how its methods and mechanisms can promote employee organizational health and well-being (Beckel & Fisher, 2022;Ferrara et al., 2022;Mutiganda et al., 2022).Additionally, teleworkers' personalities are increasingly coming into focus, as they appear to play a key role in preferences and attitudes toward telework settings (Beckel & Fisher, 2022).
The recent research study by Sekaja et al. (2022), also, revealed that if gratitude is a key factor in positive emotions and well-being in general, gratitude in the work context leads to better work outcomes and organizational commitment.The work of Datu et al. (2022) also demonstrated the importance of reinforcing gratitude and kindness in the workplace during times of a restricting pandemic.It appears that gratitude helps people see and appreciate the positive aspects of their own work environment and relationships with colleagues, promoting personal development, higher performance motivation, better coping with work stress and organizational commitment.However, is this also the case in a remote work environment?
There are still limited studies examining personality traits related to telework (Catană et al., 2022;Gavoille & Haziness, 2022) and even less research work on the relationship between personality and teleworker well-being (Michinov et al., 2022;O'Neill et al., 2009;Smith et al., 2018).Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine how the telework environment could influence negative and positive feelings of subjective well-being for the five-factor model of personality.It also aims to investigate whether there is a direct relationship between subjective well-being (SWB) and gratitude during telework and whether there is an indirect relationship between personality traits and gratitude via positive and negative feelings.
The structure of this paper is as follows.Section 2 reviews the relevant literature regarding teleworkers' well-being, personality, and gratitude.Section 3 presents the methodology used to conduct the study.Section 4 shows the results based on statistical analysis.Section 5 discusses the findings of the study and finally, Section 6 considers the limitations and draws conclusions from the research study.

The relationship between teleworkers' personality and well-being
Given the importance of teleworkers' well-being, it is essential in this study to first discuss the advantages and disadvantages of telework that underlie the possible positive and negative feelings that arise from it.According to Pradhan and Hati (2022), well-being at work is directly related to work-life quality, while at the same time, employees' mental health is exposed to working conditions (Juniper et al., 2011).Since employee well-being is essential to the overall well-being of an organization, it is important to investigate whether the use of teleworking methods could improve employee well-being (Anderson et al., 2015).
Many studies have attempted to examine whether telework leads to positive feelings and overall positive outcomes for teleworkers' health and well-being.The results of recent studies show that telework contributes to higher job satisfaction, better collaboration with supervisors, and better work-family balance, but on the other hand, it also seems to affect the quality of relationships with colleagues and leads to more work stress (Beckel & Fisher, 2022;Charalampous et al., 2019).In addition, teleworkers who were more open to experiences and socialized more outside of office hours were more likely to develop positive emotions than teleworkers who were brooding and more socially distant.Prasad et al. (2020) point out that telework also allows workers to engage in their interests and hobbies outside of work, making them feel more fulfilled and relaxed than their colleagues who are confined to an office within a specific work schedule.
Despite the obvious benefits of working from home, working from home could increase discomfort, stress, and depression, especially during the pandemic, when teleworking was mandatory in some organizations (McAllister et al., 2022).Many researchers have highlighted some other well-hidden disadvantages, such as increased work stress due to limitless work hours, constant accessibility of the remote worker, lack of control in communication, and task overload, not to mention a significant increase in work-family conflict (Chesley, 2014;Tietze & Musson, 2005).Others suggest that all the above negative aspects of teleworking affect work productivity and subjective well-being (Charalampous et al., 2019;Jeske, 2022).In the work of Mostafa (2021), remote working has a major negative impact on workers' positive feelings and well-being when it comes to social exchange and interaction.That is, although one still communicates with colleagues, working alone and at a physical distance from colleagues can make one feel isolated from them, which has a negative impact on well-being.These findings have been confirmed in several studies on the psychological effects of telework (Pradhan & Hati, 2022;Prasad et al., 2020).
As Clark et al. ( 2012) noted, personality appears to play an important role in engagement with telework.For example, according to Luse et al. ( 2013), personality traits may be predictors of virtual team success and play an important role in preference for virtual office environments and participation in virtual office teams.O'Neill et al. ( 2009) also suggest that personality traits may predict telework preference well in terms of job performance and satisfaction.
According to Diener et al. (1999), personality traits are also critical in predicting SWB.For example, being neurotic means being anxious, hostile, depressed, and vulnerable, whereas being extroverted means being more positive, open, outgoing, and assertive.That is, these two types have very different emotional responses to positive or negative situations.For example, extroverts respond very strongly to positive rewards, which leads them to feel more engaged in such environments.On the other hand, neurotics appear to be more psychologically dysfunctional and more prone to health problems and lower well-being (Sotiropoulou et al., 2023;Chiong, 2010).
In terms of positive and negative affective well-being (PAWB and NAWB), Anderson (2015) points out that different personalities tend to be attracted to different experiences inside and outside the office, i.e., expressing a different effect toward things (positive or negative).For instance, employees with low positive affect scores are expected to be more sceptical of teleworking (Anderson et al., 2015).However, there is still limited research confirming that personality traits influence the well-being and health of e-employees in a telework environment (Beckel & Fisher, 2022).For this reason, an attempt is made to establish possible relationships between Big Five model personality types and positive and negative feelings toward telework.

Big Five personality traits and affect toward work from home
Existing literature suggests that extroverts with high levels of self-esteem and internal locus of control are more likely to engage in a social environment, leading to higher levels of well-being (Parent-Lamarche & Marchand, 2019).Thus, looking at the teleworking environment, on the one hand, extroverts might be positively disposed to teleworking because they can manage their work time to interact more with family and friends.Another possible explanation for extroverts' preference for teleworking would be that they see it as an opportunity to make new contacts and relationships outside of the typical work environment and that they feel safe socializing anyway, regardless of distance or not (Clark et al., 2012).On the other hand, it can also be argued that the traditional office environment might provide them with more opportunities to socialize (Clark et al., 2012) 2018) suggest that neurotic personalities may not easily adapt to this type of work, as telework may increase their anxiety.Indeed, a recent study by Flood (2022) showed that well-being in telework was negatively associated with neuroticism.From a different perspective, it was surprisingly found that neurotic people seem to like telework because they find freedom in it and can complete their work tasks as they wish (Clark et al., 2012).In addition, because neurotic people are more emotionally unstable, pessimistic, and have low self-esteem, they are thought to be more likely to avoid social interactions at work, so the hypothesis is that telework would be the perfect office environment for them (Gainey & Clenney, 2006;Marhadi & Hendarman, 2020).
Thus, considering the above literature review, the following hypotheses were formulated: H1: Consciousness has a positive relationship with positive feelings toward telework and a negative correlation with negative feelings toward telework.
H2: Extraversion is positively related to positive feelings toward telework and negatively related to negative feelings toward telework.H3: Agreeableness is positively related to positive feelings toward telework and negatively related to negative feelings toward telework.
H4: Openness is positively related to positive feelings toward telework and negatively related to negative feelings toward telework.
H5: Neuroticism is negatively related to positive feelings toward telework and positively related to negative feelings toward telework.

Gratitude and affective well-being in a remote work environment
Gratitude is the most consistent predictor of well-being and is strongly associated with SWB as it promotes all types of personal growth skills and life satisfaction variables ( Tang et al. ( 2022) examined the impact of teleworking on the expression of gratitude among colleagues.Their study suggests that people in telework environments are physically isolated from each other, resulting in a significant lack of genuine communication and support.Consequently, peers are unable to embrace their colleagues with gratitude as they would in a regular work environment in a typical office (Tang et al., 2022).Similarly, Sakes et al. (2022) argue that some people are not as appreciative when teleworking as they are in their personal relationships, and they have difficulty engaging in social activities.
Therefore, it would be useful to examine how positive or negative feelings that arise from teleworking may influence gratitude in the workplace, forming the following hypotheses: H6: There is a positive relationship between positive feelings and gratitude in a remote work environment.
H7: There is a negative relationship between negative feelings and gratitude in a remote work environment.

The relationship between personality types and gratitude in a teleworking environment
As discussed earlier, gratitude is considered to be the core of a positive outlook on life and thus a strong predictor of well-being.That is, grateful people, are characterized by a positive affective attitude and a deep appreciation of their daily tasks and work environment.Because the Big Five taxonomy can rank the various personality traits, it has been widely used in studies of the relationship between personality and gratitude.Personality research links gratitude to the Big Five personality ).Additionally, people who are naturally grateful may tend to score higher on agreeableness, which appears to be associated with prosocial and other-oriented behaviours (Koole et al., 2001).Similarly, people who are open to experience have been associated with high levels of gratitude (Szcześniak et al., 2020).While all of the above personality constructs are positively related to gratitude, implying that extroverts, open-minded, agreeable, and conscientious people tend to be grateful, at the same time, the literature suggests that neurotics are not grateful (Alvi et al., 2022).
Therefore, it is interesting to investigate how certain personality traits may influence gratitude in a teleworking environment.Hence, the following five hypotheses were formulated: H8: There is a direct relationship between consciousness and gratitude in a telework environment.

H9: There is a direct relationship between extraversion and gratitude in a remote work environment. H10: There is a direct relationship between agreeableness and gratitude in a remote work environment. H11: There is a direct relationship between neuroticism and gratitude in a remote work setting.
H12: There is a direct relationship between openness and gratitude in a remote work environment.
Finally, the present study examined the following hypotheses:

H13: There is an indirect relationship between personality traits and gratitude via positive feelings.
H14: There is an indirect relationship between personality traits and gratitude via negative feelings.The short version of the positive and negative affectivity schedule (Mackinnon et al., 1999) was used to measure teleworkers' negative and positive affect during the last week.The questionnaire consisted of two 10-item scales (positive affect and negative affect) containing adjectives to describe different feelings.Using the Jamovi program, we examined the direct relationship between the Big Five personality traits and negative feelings (affect), positive feelings and gratitude; the indirect relationship between personality traits and gratitude via positive and negative feelings and the direct relationship between feelings (positive-negative) and gratitude.The path model that tests the interactions between the variables is shown in the Figure 1.

Gratitude
The above figure was exported using the R-based software Jamovi, which includes gratitude as the dependent variable, Big Five personality and two mediators (positive and negative feelings) as independent variables.Jamovi is a new statistical application (third-generation spreadsheet) based on the R statistical language and uses R code for running the analysis (Rosseel, 2019).
The effects of the path model (Jamovi program results) with variables: the Big Five personality traits, two mediators (positive and negative feelings) and the dependent variable gratitude are presented in Table A.1 (see Appendix).
Table 1 shows the direct and indirect effects of the independent variables (Big Five personality traits, positive feelings, negative feelings) on the dependent variable gratitude.The results indicate that there is a negative and statistically significant impact between conscientiousness and negative feelings and between neuroticism and positive feelings.On the other hand, we have a positive and statistically significant impact between extraversion and positive feelings, between agreeableness and positive feelings, and between neuroticism and negative feelings.Furthermore, there is a positive and statistically significant relationship between conscientiousness and gratitude and between extraversion and gratitude.

DISCUSSION
The new work environments imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic have highlighted the importance of balancing employee health and well-being status, and they have underlined the urgent need to develop and apply new methods to effectively support remote workers' motivations and performance (Park et al., 2021).Apart from the immediate and direct impact on health, the pandemic has also led to a sharp increase in stress, anxiety, and loneliness for many people (Zaidi & Ali, 2020).However, it seems, that despite the restrictive conditions imposed by the coronavirus, the new working conditions have offered the opportunity of a more liberal work schema through distance, and this possibility could be perceived as more freedom by working adults improving their job satisfaction (Prasad et al., 2020).
Moreover, remote working offers several advantages in saving office resources while improving work-life balance, especially for female employees, as it provides them with some freedom by allowing them to work from the comfort of their homes when they face health issues, but still meet their work obligations.Recent studies showed that remote work is a positive mediator for employee well-being in some cases, as it increases their job satisfaction, engagement, and positive emotions, while in cases of work overload and pressure, it can lead to the exact opposite results (Charalampous et al., 2019).
Therefore, the practice of teleworking caused both positive and negative effects on the subjective well-being of workers.Since different personalities act and interact in different ways in a conventional work context, it is expected that this is also the case in a telework context (Anderson et al., 2015;Clark et al., 2012).In this context, personality appears to play a key role in telework preferences and attitudes.Additionally, according to recent research work, the trait of gratitude always leads to positive emotional experiences and is associated with social and personal well-being (Patitsa et  Our findings suggest that there is a negative relationship between conscientiousness and negative emotions toward telework, implying that employees with high conscientiousness are less likely to have a negative emotional response to telework.The results also confirmed the positive relationship between extraversion and positive emotions toward telework, which is explained by the fact that this personality type will have the opportunity to engage in various forms of social interaction and the freedom that telework provides in terms of contact with family and friends.Both findings mean that our first and second hypotheses were correct and consistent with the relevant previous study by Marhadi and Hendarman (2020).Additionally, our study concluded that the trait of agreeableness was significantly correlated with a positive and statistically significant impact of positive feelings toward telework, implying that agreeable people would choose to work remotely because they find it more flexible and convenient.The results also show that neuroticism is significantly associated with lower well-being in a telework environment.Thus, our initial hypotheses about agreeableness and neuroticism were also to the point and in compliance with previous studies ( However, the results of the current study did not reveal how positive or negative feelings from teleworking may influence gratitude in the workplace.Finally, in our study, the Big Five personality types did not act as predictors of gratitude among adults in a telework setting.Thus, the indirect relationship between personality traits and gratitude via positive and negative feelings and the direct relationship between feelings (positivenegative) and gratitude could not be confirmed.

CONCLUSION
Because the proportion of teleworking is expected to remain higher than pre-pandemic levels (Chow et al., 2022), it is important to examine whether working adults would seek and choose a remote work model for their daily workload in the future.Recent studies argue that in the world of work, it is still debatable whether teleworking clearly has more advantages than disadvantages for employers and employees, as it is not clear whether it promotes employees' well-being (Charalampous et al., 2019).An important factor, personality, should also be considered when examining teleworkers' well-being which appears to play a key role in preferences and attitudes toward telework settings (Beckel & Fisher, 2022).
This study examined how the telework environment influences negative and positive feelings of subjective well-being with respect to the five-factor model of personality.The results of this study suggest that different personality traits influence workers' attitudes towards telework and may play an important role in determining subjective well-being in telework.However, it is suggested that further studies confirming that personality traits influence remote employees' well-being in a telework environment are essential for developing a successful and more complete business strategy for organizations.
Recent research also suggests that well-being is associated with gratitude, which plays a critical role in the workplace for achieving work goals and organizational attitudes (Sekaja et al., 2022).The present study examined whether there is a relationship between subjective well-being and gratitude during telework and whether there is an indirect relationship between personality traits and gratitude via positive and negative feelings, but the results were not statistically significant.Many studies demonstrated the positive effects of gratitude in the workplace in terms of performance, flexibility, job satisfaction, work balance, and well-being (Cortini et al., 2019;Grant et al., 2013;Sekaja et al., 2022;Wang et al., 2020), further research on this topic is, also, considered essential.Organizations seeking to enhance the positive effects of telework should focus their efforts on the relationships between subjective well-being, personality, and gratitude.
Since the sample was limited to 230 teleworkers, a larger study could benefit from the above findings.Furthermore, since there are few studies on how personality traits affect employee well-being and gratitude in a remote work environment, it would be of great importance to further investigate the direct and indirect relationship between these variables.The research model proposed in this study, with all associations between variables, can be used by other researchers to investigate the multidimensional relationship between personality, well-being, and gratitude in telework.
and extroverts are not expected to express job satisfaction under remote working conditions, as remote working means being socially isolated(Smith et al., 2018).Gainey and Clenney (2006) examined personality traits related to telework and concluded that agreeableness correlates significantly with telework practices.Agreeable people seem to find it easy to engage with social circumstances and achieve goals, both of which contribute to developing a sense of well-being(McCrae & Costa, 1991).People with agreeable personalities are also in favour of teleworking because they feel it fits their personality, as they find it more flexible and convenient(Clark et  al., 2012; Marhadi & Hendarman, 2020).Clark et al. (2012) suggest that people with high agreeableness are better suited to telework because they are more cooperative and easygoing, so agreeableness may be positively correlated with telework.A great number of studies have underscored the role of openness to experience in teleworkers' well-being.People with open personality traits tend to engage more often in all kinds of emotional experiences, positive or negative (McCrae & Costa, 1991).They are more adventurous and willing to explore new roles, and they are more motivated, adaptable, and flexible in unfamiliar situations.Therefore, it is believed that the challenging experience of teleworking will not be frustrating for them (Cernas-Ortiz & Wai-Kwan, 2021; Clark et al., 2012).In addition, employees with high levels of openness are expected to be more social in external situations and are more likely to learn new methods (Anderson et al., 2015).Other studies conducted on the effects of teleworking among open-minded individuals have shown that the opportunity for a flexible and self-designed work schedule, as well as learning and adapting new technological skills to perform work tasks, was welcomed, and even preferred over regular work conditions (Cernas-Ortiz & Wai-Kwan, 2021; Clark et al., 2012; Gainey & Clenney, 2006).People who are open to experience tend to develop more positive attitudes toward telework because they act more flexibly under new circumstances.The recent research study by Marhadi and Hendarman (2020) suggests that conscientiousness predicts more positive attitudes toward teleworking.Conscientious people are more likely to engage in social and performance tasks, leading to SWB (McCrae & Costa, 1991).According to Parent-Lamarche and Marchand (2019), well-being correlates with self-esteem, internal locus of control, extroversion, and conscientiousness.Because teleworking requires a wide range of organizational skills, employees with high levels of conscientiousness are thought to be best suited for teleworking.Conscientious people tend to be responsible and confident with their time and tasks, they like to use certain methods and follow instructions, so it is assumed that they would normally prefer teleworking environments (Clark et al., 2012).The results of Hayes and Joseph's (2003) study show that the neuroticism-emotional stability dimension is consistently associated with subjective well-being (Hayes & Joseph, 2003).Neurotic individuals are more likely to be stressed by everyday tasks and are, therefore, more dissatisfied and unhappy (Parent-Lamarche & Marchand, 2019).Regarding remote work, Smith et al. ( traits and suggests that certain personality traits may promote the development of gratitude (Roa-Meggo, 2017; Szcześniak et al., 2020).Agreeableness facilitates compassion (Ozer & Benet-Martínez, 2006), is associated with cooperative behaviour (Koole et al., 2001), and may be an antecedent of cooperation preference (Volk et al., 2011).Aghababaei and Farahani (2011) found in their study that aspects of spirituality and social interaction -that characterize agreeable and conscientious people -were significantly correlated with gratitude behaviour.Other studies have found a relationship between gratitude, extraversion and agreeableness (McCullough et al., 2002; Ozer & Benet-Martínez, 2006 After defining the research objective and assessing its complexity, a quantitative online survey was conducted during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (February-April 2021).A 58-item questionnaire with a 5-point Likert scale was used, to examine the relationships between variables.A total of 230 teleworkers participated in this research study.The gratitude questionnaire is a short selfreport questionnaire by McCullough et al. (2002) that measures grateful disposition.Participants answered 6 questions on a seven-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree).The shortened version of Gerlitz and Schupp's (2005) Big Five inventory scale was used to assess participants' personality traits.It is based on the Big Five dimensions (openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism), and participants were asked about their level of agreement with various statements.
Cregg & Cheavens, 2021; Datu et al., 2022; Jans-Beken et al., 2020).According to Sekaja et al. (2022), gratitude directly leads to positive emotions because it promotes the positive feeling of being offered something valuable and important.High levels of gratitude improve physical and mental health (Lavelock et al., 2016), general well-being (Weinstein & Ryan, 2010), subjective wellbeing (Watkins et al., 2003) and prosociality (Ma et al., 2017).Grateful people tend to experience higher levels of other specific positive emotions such as happiness, vitality, optimism, and hope, as well as greater life satisfaction (McCullough et al., 2002).

Table 1 .
Effects al, 2022; Cregg & Cheavens, 2021; Datu et al., 2022; Jans-Beken et al., 2020).This study investigated all the above direct and indirect relationships to shed light on how different personality types experience telework, which in turn influences gratitude in the work environment.