Intellectual Tenacity at Work: The Role of Occupational Personality Requirements in Shaping Economic Returns Amid Technological Change

Abstract

Automation and technology are rapidly disrupting the labor market. We investigate changes in the returns to occupational personality requirements---the ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving required to succeed in a given occupation---and discuss the implications for organizational strategy. Using job incumbent ratings from the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Information Network (O*NET), we identify two broad occupational personality requirements: intellectual tenacity (achievement/effort, persistence, initiative, analytical thinking, innovation, and independence) and social adjustment (emotion regulation, concern for others, social orientation, cooperation, and stress tolerance). Among over 15 million respondents from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey from 2006 to 2024 and controlling for demographic and time-invariant occupational and industry characteristics, individuals in occupations requiring intellectual tenacity earn higher hourly wages---even controlling for cognitive ability requirements---and the premium grew substantially over this period. Exploiting cross-occupational variation in generative AI exposure and an event-study design, the rising premium is concentrated in occupations with above-median exposure to large language models, consistent with intellectual tenacity complementing AI adoption. In contrast, the social adjustment premium has declined. Results are robust to controlling for time-varying changes in the returns to cognitive ability and alternative factor structures, suggesting that organizations should prioritize intellectual tenacity in hiring and workforce development.

Keywords: Earnings, Personality, Non-Cognitive, Human Capital, Future of Work

JEL Classification: J21, J23, J24, J31