Use of Personality Variables in Work Settings

This chapter describes the history of personality theory, taxonomies, constructs, and their role in I/O psychology. Taxonomies have been critically important in enabling researchers to summarize and examine the importance of personality variables, resulting in better theories and understanding of workplace behavior and performance. More than twice the variance in supervisory ratings of overall job performance is accounted for when personality variables are included in our performance models. When customer service, interpersonal effectiveness, and integrity, for example, are important to the job, personality variables become even more useful for predicting behavior and performance, with predictive accuracy of personality variables increasing when predictors and criteria are matched in terms of complexity and theoretical relevance. The chapter also summarizes evidence regarding potential moderator variables, such as intentional distortion and item frame-of-reference (e.g., contextualization), and describes methods for increasing validity. Methods and issues of personality measurement are discussed according to self-report/self-evaluation, others' reports and descriptions, objective measures, interviews, mode of assessment, and culture and language. In addition, legal issues and their implications and evidence related to use of personality inventories in the workplace in the United States are presented. Keywords: cross-cultural; faking; job performance; legal; meta-analysis; personality; validity