Applications of Personality Assessment to the Workplace: A Review

Our review of the relevant research literature in the recent past strongly supports the view that personality assessment has high utility in the workplace. We review the evidence that personality assessment measures, especially those based upon the Big Five factors of personality, can effectively predict job performance and thus can be used for personnel selection. The validity of integrity testing in predicting counterproductivity on the job has been demonstrated both for overt measures of integrity and, to a lesser degree, for more general (subtle) measures of personality. We also found good evidence of validity for measures of (supervisory) management and (transformational) leadership, a complex field which includes a number of multidimensional instruments each built around its own theory. Finally, we review the empirical literature that supports the use of assessment centers and the use of personality assessment in training and development.

[1]  F. Fiedler.  The Contribution of Cognitive Resources and Leader Behavior to Organizational Performance1 , 1986 .

[2]  L. R. Goldberg,et al.  Better than the Alphabet: taxonomies of personality-descriptive terms in English, Dutch, and German , 1984 .

[3]  David T. Lykken.  A Tremor In The Blood , 1998 .

[4]  H. Eysenck.  Personality psychology in Europe: Theoretical and empirical developments: H. Bonarius, G. Van Heck and N. Smid (Eds): Swets & Zeitlinger, Lisse, The Netherlands (1984). 90.00G , 1985 .

[5]  Wayne F. Cascio,et al.  Whither industrial and organizational psychology in a changing world of work , 1995 .

[6]  Murray R. Barrick,et al.  Autonomy as a moderator of the relationships between the Big Five personality dimensions and job performance. , 1993 .

[7]  David D. Van Fleet,et al.  Theory and research on leadership in organizations. , 1992 .

[8]  Murray R. Barrick,et al.  Effects of impression management and self-deception on the predictive validity of personality constructs. , 1996, The Journal of applied psychology.

[9]  H. Gough.  A managerial potential scale for the California Psychological Inventory. , 1984 .

[10]  H. Eysenck.  Dimensions of Personality , 1947 .

[11]  D. Crowne,et al.  Conformity under varying conditions of personal commitment. , 1963, Journal of abnormal and social psychology.

[12]  Charles Morris,et al.  Varieties of Human Value , 1957 .

[13]  C. Spielberger,et al.  Advances in personality assessment , 1982 .

[14]  Joyce Hogan,et al.  Personality Measurement and Employment Decisions. Questions and Answers. , 1996 .

[15]  Harrison G. Gough,et al.  Testing for leadership with the California Psychological Inventory. , 1990 .

[16]  D. Bray,et al.  Managerial Lives in Transition: Advancing Age and Changing Times , 1988 .

[17]  J Hogan,et al.  What we know about leadership. Effectiveness and personality. , 1994, The American psychologist.

[18]  John W. Fleenor.  Constructs and developmental assessment centers: Further troubling empirical findings , 1996 .

[19]  J. M. Digman.  PERSONALITY STRUCTURE: EMERGENCE OF THE FIVE-FACTOR MODEL , 1990 .

[20]  D. Campbell,et al.  Convergent and discriminant validation by the multitrait-multimethod matrix. , 1959, Psychological bulletin.

[21]  P. Costa,et al.  Four ways five factors are basic , 1992 .

[22]  Newell K. Eaton,et al.  Criterion-related validities of personality constructs and the effect of response distortion on those validities , 1990 .

[23]  Raymond B. Cattell,et al.  The principal trait clusters for describing personality. , 1945 .

[24]  K. Clark.  Impact of Leadership. , 1992 .

[25]  M. Cunningham,et al.  Self-presentation dynamics on overt integrity tests: experimental studies of the Reid Report. , 1994, The Journal of applied psychology.

[26]  L. Wheeler,et al.  Review of personality and social psychology , 1980 .

[27]  F. Schmidt,et al.  Controversies over integrity testing: Two viewpoints , 1996 .

[28]  Samuel B. Pond,et al.  MANAGERIAL FUNCTIONS: AN ALTERNATIVE TO TRADITIONAL ASSESSMENT CENTER DIMENSIONS? , 1994 .

[29]  C. Mills,et al.  The Lonely Crowd , 1959 .

[30]  Paul T. Costa,et al.  Emerging Lives, Enduring Dispositions: Personality In Adulthood , 1984 .

[31]  Paul R. Sackett,et al.  INTEGRITY TESTING FOR PERSONNEL SELECTION: AN UPDATE , 1989 .

[32]  Richard I. Lanyon,et al.  Personality assessment, 3rd ed. , 1997 .

[33]  R. Hollinger,et al.  Theft by Employees. , 1984 .

[34]  F. Schmidt,et al.  Comprehensive meta-analysis of integrity test validities: Findings and implications for personnel selection and theories of job performance. , 1993 .

[35]  R. McCrae.  Social consequences of experiential openness. , 1996, Psychological bulletin.

[36]  L. R. Goldberg.  THE DEVELOPMENT OF MARKERS FOR THE BIG-FIVE FACTOR STRUCTURE , 1992 .

[37]  J. Kramer,et al.  The Tenth mental measurements yearbook , 1989 .

[38]  G. Yukl,et al.  Leadership in Organizations , 1981 .

[39]  George C. Thornton,et al.  Meta-analysis of assessment center validity. , 1987 .

[40]  R. Campbell,et al.  A Theory of Leadership Effectiveness. , 1968 .

[41]  P. Costa,et al.  Validation of the five-factor model of personality across instruments and observers. , 1987, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[42]  B. Posner,et al.  The Leadership Challenge: How To Get Extraordinary Things Done in Organizations. First Edition. The Jossey-Bass Management Series. , 1987 .

[43]  Kevin R. Murphy,et al.  Honesty in the workplace. , 1993 .

[44]  Ralph M. Stogdill,et al.  Manual for the leader behavior description questionnaire - Form XII , 1963 .

[45]  R. Guion,et al.  Validity Of Personality Measures In Personnel Selection , 1965 .

[46]  A. Ryan,et al.  Pre-employment honesty testing: Fakability, reactions of test takers, and company image , 1987 .

[47]  Chockalingam Viswesvaran,et al.  Integrity tests: Overlooked facts, resolved issues, and remaining questions. , 1995 .

[48]  Murray R. Barrick,et al.  THE BIG FIVE PERSONALITY DIMENSIONS AND JOB PERFORMANCE: A META-ANALYSIS , 1991 .

[49]  Kenneth E. Clark,et al.  Measures of leadership , 1990 .

[50]  George C. Thornton,et al.  Assessment Centers in Human Resource Management , 1992 .

[51]  J. Matarazzo.  Psychological testing and assessment in the 21st century. , 1992, The American psychologist.

[52]  George C. Thornton,et al.  Number of assessment center dimensions as a determinant of assessor accuracy. , 1989 .

[53]  L. R. Hoffman,et al.  Management of Organizational Behavior. , 1970 .

[54]  W. T. Norman,et al.  Toward an adequate taxonomy of personality attributes: replicated factors structure in peer nomination personality ratings. , 1963, Journal of abnormal and social psychology.

[55]  A. Halpin.  Manual for the leader behavior description questionnaire , 1957 .

[56]  Morgan W. McCall,et al.  Stogdill's Handbook of Leadership , 1982 .

[57]  J. S. Wiggins,et al.  Personality: structure and assessment. , 1992, Annual review of psychology.

[58]  D. W. Fiske.  Consistency of the factorial structures of personality ratings from different sour sources. , 1949, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[59]  J. W. Dunlap,et al.  The Vectors of the Mind , 1937 .

[60]  K. B. Slora.  An empirical approach to determining employee deviance base rates , 1989 .

[61]  A. Ryan,et al.  Direct, indirect, and controlled observation and rating accuracy , 1995 .

[62]  Murray R. Barrick,et al.  Validity of observer ratings of the big five personality factors , 1994 .

[63]  Michael P. Kirsch,et al.  METAANALYSES OF VALIDITY STUDIES PUBLISHED BETWEEN 1964 AND 1982 AND THE INVESTIGATION OF STUDY CHARACTERISTICS , 1984 .

[64]  L. R. Goldberg.  The structure of phenotypic personality traits. , 1993, The American psychologist.

[65]  Murray R. Barrick,et al.  Conscientiousness and performance of sales representatives: Test of the mediating effects of goal setting. , 1993 .

[66]  Paul T. Costa,et al.  The Stability of Personality: Observations and Evaluations , 1994 .

[67]  W. J. Schrader,et al.  An empirically-derived managerial key for the California Psychological Inventory. , 1963 .

[68]  Paul R. Sackett,et al.  Honesty testing for personnel selection: a review and critique , 1984 .

[69]  Stephen J. Guastello,et al.  A review and critique of honesty test research , 1991 .

[70]  Paul R. Sackett,et al.  Constructs and assessment center dimensions: Some troubling empirical findings , 1982 .

[71]  B. Posner,et al.  Psychometric Properties of the Leadership Practices Inventory-Updated , 1993 .