Category Archives: Personality
Aberrant personality and career performance (IO Psychology)
Previous research has shown that personality traits – such as being conscientious, open to experience, and outgoing – predict job performance 1. What about uncommon (i.e., aberrant) characteristics such as being obsessive-compulsive, antisocial, and narcissistic? According to a study by Bart Wille , Filip De Fruyt, & Barbara De Clercq of Ghent University, aberrant personality characteristics also predict job performance. Specifically, borderline features, which includes having unstable interpersonal relations and poor impulse control; schizotypal traits, such as odd thoughts and disorganized thinking; and avoidant tendencies, such as social inhibition and hypersensitivity to criticism, were related to negative career outcomes. In contrast, antisocial traits, such as superficial charm and a disregard for others, and narcissistic features, such as a strong sense of self-importance and a need to be admired, were related to positive career outcomes. As an illustration of how antisocial and narcissistic traits may have a positive affect on career outcomes and allow people and companies to achieve great success, think of Gordon Gecko from the movie Wall Street. Or, if you prefer non-fiction, think of the various leaders of organizations who are charged with insider trading (e.g., Raj Rajaratnam), fraudulent accounting (e.g., Enron), or creating a ponzi scheme (e.g., Bernie Madhoff).
Overall, these results were found through a 15-year study of 247 Belgian college students. In 1994, participants responded to a personality questionnaire, and 15 years later, their career performance was evaluated. The NEO PI-R, a comprehensive personality questionnaire, measured personality. Income, number of subordinates, and managerial position served as indicators of extrinsic career success, and job satisfaction, career satisfaction, and perceived job stress served as indicators of intrinsic career success.
When Reading Research Leads to a Brain Full of “What?!” (IO Psychology)
When you read scientific research, you should be left feeling as though you gained knowledge and/or have something new and shiny that can be applied to the real world. But once in a while you finish an article and there is nothing but unpoppable “What did I just read?!” bubbles floating in your brain.
This article focused on how applicants’ personality types might impact their reactions to assessment tests within a hiring process. Specifically, candidates for firefighter, dispatcher, and rescue management roles had to complete a series of personality and cognitive assessments as a part of the selection process. Immediately after, they were asked to complete a voluntary survey asking about their reactions to the tests. The researchers found that personality types had no impact on applicants’ perceptions that the assessments were related to the job and that the tests could predict future job performance. One personality type did perceive the tests as less fair than those with other personality types, but the difference may not have been large enough to have real meaning.
As I kept reading the article, I kept wondering how this information would be applied, or even how it would be useful. I kept wondering this because the authors never told me. The authors briefly mention previous research stating that applicant reactions can impact whether or not a candidate might accept a job offer and/or impact their future performance on the job. Yet they never relate their own findings to this previous research. I was left hanging.
The study also had a number of confounds, a few of which the authors acknowledged. Looking solely at rescue applicants isn’t representative of most jobs and applicants. Candidates had to first pass a physical test before they were allowed to begin the personality and cognitive assessments. The reactions survey only asked for their reactions to the personality and cognitive tests, but wouldn’t their perceptions of the physical test muck up their thoughts a bit?
Also, participants voluntarily completed the reactions survey, and not everyone completed it. Wouldn’t the thoughts of those who did NOT want to share their reactions be critical? Finally, their research found different reactions to the assessments based on gender and age, but they never investigated further, which I found disappointing.
Now I have to be fair and say that no research is perfect. All research has confounds. But when you feel as though you don’t get the “so what?” of the entire study and there are also lots of confounds, how are you supposed to react?
After reading this article I was left feeling a little icky inside. But it reminded me that reading research with a discerning amount of skepticism is not only healthy, it is mandatory. It reminded me of a wonderful quote by the philosopher George Santayana: “Skepticism, like chastity, should not be relinquished too readily.”
Job performance and personality
Topic: Personality
Publication: Personnel Psychology (1991)
Article: The big five personality dimensions and job performance: A meta-analysis
Authors: Murray R. Barrick & Michael K. Mount
Reviewed By: Scott Charles Sitrin
Personality and job performance are related, according to a study performed by Murray Barrick of Texas A & M University and Michael K. Mount of the University of Iowa. Those who are conscientious – which refers to, among other things, being punctual, orderly, detail oriented, and organized – performed their job better. This finding is particularly strong because, in terms of methodology, it was found through a process known as a meta-analysis in which the results of many studies – 117 in the case of this investigation that yielded a sample size of nearly 24,000 – are combined.
In an attempt to explain what a meta-analysis is through the use of an analogy, imagine that you’re trying to decide if you should see Breaking Dawn, the last movie in the Twilight series. If you just ask one friend, he could steer your wrong, but if you ask 10 friends, you should be able to average out their opinions to get a better sense of the quality of the movie. The latter option is akin to a meta-analysis, and through this procedure, the authors found that conscientiousness predicted performance ratings, levels of productivity, training proficiency, salary level, tenure, and turnover. The subjects in these studies were professionals (e.g., engineers, doctors), police, managers, salespeople, and skilled workers (e.g., flight attendants, medical assistants).
Barrick, M. R. & Mount, M. K. (1991). The big five personality dimensions and job
performance: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 44(1), 1-26.
human resource management, organizational industrial psychology, organizational management
source for picture: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/Business_People_g201-Smiling_Business_Team_p100142.html
Your personality in 140 characters or less
Topic: Personality
Publication: 2011 IEEE International Conference on Privacy, Security, Risk, and Trust, and IEEE International Conference on Social Computing
Article: Our twitter profiles, our selves: Predicting personality with Twitter
Authors: Daniele Quercia, Michal Kosinskii, David Stillwell, & Jon Crowcroft
Reviewed By: Scott Charles Sitrin
When you use Twitter, you may be revealing even more of yourself than you know.
According to research by Daniele Quercia, Michal Kosinskii, David Stillwell, & Jon Crowcroft, Twitter users who are popular, which is determined by the number of followers that a user has, and users who are considered influential, which is calculated by determining the number of social contacts on Facebook and if a user’s tweets are clicked on, responded to, or retweeted, are both outgoing and unanxious, and populars are also creative, while influentials are also organized and detail oriented.
Further, by knowing how many people a user is following, how many people are following that user, and their listed counts – all of which is public information – a relatively accurate prediction of the user’s personality can be made. In this study, the Big Five personality traits – openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism – measured personality, and in regard to the procedure, the investigators gathered personality data for 335 users and then saw how it related to personality. #QuickPersonalityTest
human resource management, organizational industrial psychology, organizational management
source for picture: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/Computing_g368-Casual_Businessman_Typing_On_Keyboard_p111216.html
Could Your Facebook Persona Cost You a Job? (IO Psychology)
Topic: Selection, Personality, Recruiting
Publication: Journal of Applied Social Psychology (MAY 2012)
Article: Social Networking Websites: Personality Ratings, and the Organizational Context: More Than Meets the Eye?
Authors: D. H. Kluemper, P. A. Rosen, and K. W. Mossholder
Reviewed By: Megan Leasher
We are used to companies having candidates take personality tests. Candidates answer a ton of seemingly annoying and repetitive questions about themselves, and poof! They magically and accurately clue companies in to whether or not they will be a strong performer and/or a good fit. (When I say “poof,” please envision the happy leprechaun opening his box of Lucky Charms and witnessing the jubilant rainbow explosion of marshmallows. It will ensure you are in the right frame of mind.) But have you heard of other people taking a personality test, answering the questions based on what they think YOUR personality is like? Holy creepy, Batman. And what if I told you the “other people” were complete strangers answering those questions about YOUR personality based on what they saw on YOUR Facebook page? Holy switcheroo, Batman!
We all make judgments of others based on what they post on their Facebook page. For example, if you post a picture of yourself doing the “I’m the king of the world” pose on a cruise ship, I will deem you an idiot. If you update your status with random movie quotes from Best in Show, I will proclaim your brilliance. This study took those judgments and morphed them into a scientific evaluation of a candidate’s personality.
Trained evaluators viewed an individual’s Facebook page then completed a personality test, answering the questions about the individual, utilizing only their impressions from seeing the Facebook page. The individuals themselves also took the same personality test answering the questions about their own personality. In addition, the researchers obtained on-the-job performance ratings from the individuals’ supervisors. Can strangers accurately rate your personality based on your Facebook persona? If so, do those perceptions of your personality statistically predict job performance?
The answer to the first question is yes. Sorta. Evaluators’ perceptions of individuals’ personalities based on their Facebook pages had some overlap with how individuals rated their own personalities, but they certainly didn’t agree 100%. So they had some similar impressions and some unique impressions, as well. To answer the second question, the study found that evaluator-rated personality was a slightly stronger predictor of job performance than an individual’s self-reported personality. But the difference wasn’t that large in a practical sense. I have to wonder, if evaluator ratings of a candidate’s personality don’t predict job performance much more than a candidate completing a personality test about themselves, why add all of those work hours to the organization? The time it takes a candidate to complete a personality test does not generally cost an organization anything.
But is a stranger rating a candidate’s personality from a Facebook page even the right thing to do? I feel like you are taking away a bit of the candidate’s say in the matter. Sure, they have full control over what they put on their Facebook page, but that’s certainly not the end-all-be-all of a person. (Note: If it is, don’t hire them.) Where is the candidate’s ability to speak up in all of this? If Facebook does all of the “talking” early on in the screening process, will the candidate ever get a chance to speak for themselves in an interview? Just playing devil’s advocate here, as I see both sides to this argument. And what about candidates who have their Facebook privacy settings up high and a random outsider can’t see it? Or don’t use Facebook? What might that mean about their personalities? Are they the savviest of all?
This study, despite its limitations, is hopefully one of many to come on this sexy and timely topic. But there are tons of caveats to consider, including potential adverse impact, ever-changing Facebook privacy settings, and how to implement consistent processes when social networking is involved…Many unknowns. Holy puzzlers, Batman.
human resource management, organizational industrial psychology, organizational management
source for picture: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/Dancing_g399-People_Dancing_In_Disco_Night_Club_p54133.html
Can Personality Become a Better Predictor of Performance? (IO Psychology)
Topic: Personality, Performance
Publication: Journal of Applied Psychology (NOV 2012)
Article: Implicit motives, explicit traits, and task and contextual performance at work
Authors: Lang, J. W. B., Zettler, I., Ewen, C., and Hulsheger, U. R.
Reviewer: Neil Morelli
In the world of selection, personality has often been looked at as a useful predictor of job performance. But what if current personality measures are missing an important part of someone’s personality and an opportunity to be a better predictor of performance? Some research suggests that the missing piece of the personality pie is our implicit motives, or our wishes and desires, which are typically boiled down to three main areas: affiliation, power, and achievement.
When we look at how these inner motives are expressed, or “channeled”, by the explicit personality traits, such as extraversion or agreeableness, we are able to get a more complete picture of how personality shapes behavior. Lang et al., tested whether considering this channeling approach when measuring personality would increase its usefulness as a predictor of work performance.
For example, extroverted people with a high inner motive for affiliation might have increased work performance through the building of strong working relationships and the desire to meet expectations. In other words, their extroverted personality channels their motive in a way that results in a beneficial outcome at work.
Along with supervisor ratings of task and contextual performance, Lang et al. gathered explicit worker personality traits and used IRT to determine implicit motives from coded responses to free response narratives. They discovered that inner motives worked together with explicit personality traits to explain 8% more variance in performance ratings.
Lang et al. understand that there are practical measurement issues for practitioners to consider the channeling effects of inner motives, but they note that as measurement methods improve it should be more feasible to use both to increase the predictability of personality.
human resource management, organizational industrial psychology, organizational management
Not So Fast! Rethinking the Use of the Five-Factor Model of Personality When Studying Vocational Interests
Topic: Personality
Publication: Journal of Vocational Behavior (OCT 2012)
Article: The HEXACO and Five-Factor Models of Personality in Relation to RIASEC Vocational Interests
Authors: Derek A. McKay & David M. Tokar
Reviewed By: Thaddeus Rada
In human resource management, there is a longstanding interest in the relationship between personality traits and vocational interests. To date, most research has focused on the relationship between the five-factor model (FFM) of personality and Holland’s RIASEC job interests taxonomy. However, it is possible that this reliance on the FFM is unwarranted, and that a different personality model may show more substantial relationships with the RIASEC dimensions. This possibility was the motivation for a recent study conducted by Derek McKay and David Tokar, who evaluated relationships between the six-factor HEXACO model of personality and RIASEC interests.
The HEXACO model has many similarities with the more familiar FFM; the most notable difference between them is the addition of a sixth factor in the HEXACO model, an honesty-humility factor. McKay and Tokar predicted that the HEXACO model would not only show important relationships between personality traits and vocational interests, but that the HEXACO model would improve prediction of vocational interests over and above what the FFM has been shown to do. Overall, using a sample of several hundred undergraduate students, the authors found support for their hypotheses.
Research will undoubtedly continue to evaluate the relationship between personality and vocational interests, and practitioners are uniquely suited making contributions in this area. Specifically, given that the present study used a student sample, it would be interesting to evaluate the generalizability of these relationships by assessing them among working adults in an organizational setting.
human resource management, organizational industrial psychology, organizational management
A Breath of Fresh AER for Leadership Development! (IO Psychology)
Topic: Leadership, Coaching, Personality
Publication: Journal of Applied Psychology (SEP 2012)
Article: A Quasi-Experimental Study of After-Event Reviews and Leadership
Development
Authors: D.S. DeRue, J.D. Nahrgang, J.R. Hollenbeck, K. Workman
Reviewed By: Ben Sher
How can we train people to become better leaders? New research by DeRue, et al.
(2012) has identified the benefits of a strategy called after-event reviews, or AERs.
What are AERs, and when will they work best?
The authors explain that leadership is difficult because it involves high pressure and
high uncertainty. Even in hindsight, complex situations make it difficult to know if
leaders performed well or made good decisions. In order to improve leadership skills,
leaders must reflect on what happened, and analyze their decisions and the outcomes
that they led to. An AER is a technique that provides structure for this kind of analysis.
An AER has three steps. In the first step, leaders must explain what they did and
how this contributed to the outcome. This is called self-explanation. In the second
step, called data verification, leaders consider other possible explanations for how
their decisions led to the outcome. Finally, leaders provide themselves with a type of
feedback by considering how changes in their behavior can lead to future improvement.
The authors conducted a quasi-experiment involving emerging leaders in a
business school and found that using the AER technique led to improved leadership
development. This is because AERs provide needed structure to the reflection process,
and force leaders to truly deconstruct and consider their actions. Generic reflection
processes are not as effective because they allow people to reflect in an automatic and
superficial way.
When do AERs work best? The authors found that several different types of people
gain more from AERs. People who are conscientious benefit more from AERs, as
do people who are emotionally-stable, and people who are open to new experiences.
If you think about it, this makes sense. These kinds of people will be more likely
to dutifully, objectively, or readily consider alternative explanations that may prove
useful to their development. The authors also found that people who have already
experienced some kind of leadership development gain more from AERs than people
without this past experience.
What does this all mean? First, AERs are a great way to provide needed structure to
the leadership development process. They are cheap, easy, and they work! Second,
the authors explain that leadership coaching is great way to improve and develop
leaders. But the presence of a coach is not a cure-all. Coaches will be most successful
when they utilize strategies that are supported by research.
DeRue, D.S., Nahrgang, J.D., Hollenbeck, J.R., & Workman, K. (2012). A quasi-
experimental study of after-event reviews and leadership development. Journal of
Applied Psychology, 97(5), 997-1015.
human resource management, organizational industrial psychology, organizational management
Making personality tests better for selection (IO Psychology)
Topic: Personality, Selection
Publication: Journal of Applied Psychology (AUTUMN 2012)
Article: A matter of context: A meta-analytic investigation of the relative validity of contextualized and noncontextualized personality measures
Authors: J. A. Shaffer & B. E. Postlethwaite
Reviewed by: Alexandra Rechlin
Whether or not you agree with it, your organization likely uses personality assessments as part of the selection process. Personality assessments do appear to be valid predictors of job performance, but can we do anything to make them be even better predictors? Recent research indicates that the answer is yes.
Jonathan Shaffer and Bennett Postlethwaite conducted a meta-analysis that compared generic (noncontextualized) personality measures with those that were presented in a work context (contextualized). For example, noncontextualized personality measures might include an item such as “I am on good terms with everyone,” whereas a contextualized version might be “I am on good terms with everyone at work.” The authors found that contextualized personality assessments were much better predictors of job performance than were noncontextualized assessments.
Making personality assessments contextualized is incredibly easy; it’s as simple as adding “at work” to the end of each item. This study found that contextualized measures designed for general use were just as good as those designed for use in the workplace, so you can use a publicly available measure and make it contextualized to improve its validity. Finally, one of the best implications of using contextualized measures is that they will be better accepted by applicants, as it’s clearer to the applicant how the personality tests are relevant to the workplace.
human resource management, organizational industrial psychology, organizational management
Can’t we just get along? Team personality and conflict (IO Psychology)
Topics: Teams, Personality, Selection
Publication: Journal of Applied Psychology (SEP 2012)
Article: Ready to rumble: How team personality composition and task conflict interact to
improve performance.
Authors: Bret H. Bradley, Anthony C. Klotz, Bennett E. Postlethwaite, & Kenneth G. Brown
Reviewed By: Aaron Manier
Team members need to get along in order to perform well. Unfortunately, we’re all different people, so sometimes conflict arises. Often this conflict arises around different takes on the team’s task. However, scientific understanding of the relationship between task conflict and effective team performance has been inconclusive.
Personality impacts team dynamics and processes. Specifically, openness to experience and emotional stability can help or hinder team communication and conflict resolution. Team members who are open to experience are generally open-minded and curious, resulting in greater adaptability and a willingness to discuss conflict openly. Members with emotional stability have a steady sense of composure and generally have a positive view of others that allows them to use others effectively in conflict resolution.
Teams with members high in emotional stability and openness to experience perform stronger in the face of task conflict than teams with members low in these personality characteristics. Because of these findings, management should consider personality when building teams for unique tasks. Employees with high levels of emotional stability and openness will be able to tackle non-routine, challenging tasks with more grace and dignity, effectively resolving task conflict as it arises.
Makes sense, right? Who wants to work with a neurotic, closed-minded team member? Unless you’re just into that kind of thing.
Bradley, B. H., Klotz, A. C., Postlethwaite, B. E., & Brown, K. G. (2012). Ready to rumble:
How team personality composition and task conflict interact to improve performance.
Journal of Applied Psychology, Advance online publication. Doi: 10.1037/a0029845
human resource management, organizational industrial psychology, organizational management
