TY  - EJOU
AU  - Yang, Wenyin 
AU  - Xu, Zhijie 
AU  - Liu, Yang 

TI  - Linking proactive personality to strengths use: The mediator of psychological safety and the moderator of exploitative leadership
T2  - Journal of Psychology in Africa

PY  - 2025
VL  - 35
IS  - 1
SN  - 1815-5626

AB  - Drawing upon the Conservation of Resources theory, this study investigated the relationship between proactive personality and strengths use, as well as the mediating role of psychological safety and the moderating role of exploitative leadership within this relationship. Data were collected from 368 employees (females = 57.61%; mean age = 32.35; SD = 6.31) working in various organizations in China at two points in time with a two-week interval. We conducted structural equation modeling and a moderated mediation path analysis to test our hypotheses. The results demonstrated that proactive personality is positively related to strengths use and psychological safety partially mediates the association of proactive personality and strengths use. Furthermore, this study also found that exploitative leadership weakens the direct relationship between proactive personality and psychological safety and the indirect relationship of proactive personality with strengths use through psychological safety. This study identified the underlying mechanisms between proactive personality and strengths use.
KW  - proactive personality; psychological safety; exploitative leadership; strengths use

DO  - 10.32604/jpa.2025.065880