Problem 3
Van der linden – personality, personnel selection and job performance
definitions:
- job performance: objective or subjective outcomes one achieves in a specific job
- personnel selection: process of selecting the best employees for specific jobs
The big five and job performance:
- personality assessment is part of the selection procedure in many organizations
- big five traits show consistent, but low to moderate criterion-related validity
regarding job performance
- conscientiousness is the broadest, most consistent predictor of overall performance
- emotional stability is also significantly correlated with overall job performance
- all big five traits are positively related to most measures of OCB
- conscientiousness, agreeableness and emotional stability are negatively related to
counterproductive work behavior (CWB)
- 4 out 5 traits (except agreeableness) are positively related to overall leadership and
leadership emergence
- all 5 traits are significantly related to leadership effectiveness and transformational
leadership
Alternative personality taxonomies:
- the HEXACO personality model:
o includes big-five and an extra dimension: honesty-humility
o tendency to be honest and a lower drive for status and material gain
o this can add to the prediction of performance especially to the ethical aspect
o high honesty-humility lower probability of socially undesirable and
counterproductive work behavior
- Dark Triad:
o a mix of 3 intercorrelated negative traits: Machiavellianism, narcissism and
psychopathy
o Machiavellianism refers to unconventional view on morality, low empathy,
and willingness to deceive and manipulate others for one’s own gain
o narcissism refers to tendency for self-enhancement and unrealistic positive
views of one’s self
o psychopathy refers to impulsiveness and thrill-seeking, low empathy, anxiety
and tendency towards being antagonistic
o relationship with job performance depends on type of job and time frame,
there’s a complex link
o Machiavellianism and psychopathy showed negative meta-analytic correlation
with performance (small effect sizes)
o all 3 traits show negative associations with CWB
o Individuals tend to optimize the traits they have, finding jobs that fit the
characteristic
- emotional intelligence:
1
, o difficult to agree on the theoretical definition of EI and its operationalization
o some said EI is an ability and should be measured as such
o others said EI is a trait and should be classified under personality
o EI and job performance: 3 streams
1. ability definition, performance tests
2. ability definition, self-report tests
3. trait definition, self-report tests
each stream is relevant to job performance
determining the optimal level of trait measurement for predicting job performance: the
bandwidth fidelity discussion:
- bandwidth fidelity: addresses the question whether it is better to use narrow or
broad traits to predict job performance
- e.g. the big five measures are broader categories of more facets
- Why broad measures are better?
o narrower measures include less items (lower reliability)
o combining facets increases reliability
o people overestimate the unique features of different jobs
o jobs are affected by general traits such as persistence, reliability etc.
o what you want to predict is broad too (job performance)
o better validity
- Why narrow measures are better?
o predictor and criterion alignment: when you want to predict a narrow aspect
of performance, use a narrow measure
- general factor of personality (GFP)
o captures the socially desirable end of personality measures
o some say it’s a substantive factor that has important relevance to
understanding individual differences in personality
o some say it’s merely about methodological/measurement artifact
o several studies showed GFP is associated to supervisor-rated and objective
performance
o seems rather favorable in comparison to Big Five (bc incremental validity is
higher)
- a study compared 3 different hierarchical levels: personality facets, big five and GFP
o GFP was the best and most consistent predictor and it was strongly related to
supervisor rated performance more than objective performance
Conclusion:
- GFP has high overlap with EI
- to improve predictive validity: frame of reference method
o provides test-takers a clear context for filling the items
o FoR interventions can occur on different levels/contexts
validity of non-contextualized measures 0.11
validity of contextualized measures 0.24
o FoR has a relevant and positive effect on the validity of personality measures
- another method: other-ratings
2
Van der linden – personality, personnel selection and job performance
definitions:
- job performance: objective or subjective outcomes one achieves in a specific job
- personnel selection: process of selecting the best employees for specific jobs
The big five and job performance:
- personality assessment is part of the selection procedure in many organizations
- big five traits show consistent, but low to moderate criterion-related validity
regarding job performance
- conscientiousness is the broadest, most consistent predictor of overall performance
- emotional stability is also significantly correlated with overall job performance
- all big five traits are positively related to most measures of OCB
- conscientiousness, agreeableness and emotional stability are negatively related to
counterproductive work behavior (CWB)
- 4 out 5 traits (except agreeableness) are positively related to overall leadership and
leadership emergence
- all 5 traits are significantly related to leadership effectiveness and transformational
leadership
Alternative personality taxonomies:
- the HEXACO personality model:
o includes big-five and an extra dimension: honesty-humility
o tendency to be honest and a lower drive for status and material gain
o this can add to the prediction of performance especially to the ethical aspect
o high honesty-humility lower probability of socially undesirable and
counterproductive work behavior
- Dark Triad:
o a mix of 3 intercorrelated negative traits: Machiavellianism, narcissism and
psychopathy
o Machiavellianism refers to unconventional view on morality, low empathy,
and willingness to deceive and manipulate others for one’s own gain
o narcissism refers to tendency for self-enhancement and unrealistic positive
views of one’s self
o psychopathy refers to impulsiveness and thrill-seeking, low empathy, anxiety
and tendency towards being antagonistic
o relationship with job performance depends on type of job and time frame,
there’s a complex link
o Machiavellianism and psychopathy showed negative meta-analytic correlation
with performance (small effect sizes)
o all 3 traits show negative associations with CWB
o Individuals tend to optimize the traits they have, finding jobs that fit the
characteristic
- emotional intelligence:
1
, o difficult to agree on the theoretical definition of EI and its operationalization
o some said EI is an ability and should be measured as such
o others said EI is a trait and should be classified under personality
o EI and job performance: 3 streams
1. ability definition, performance tests
2. ability definition, self-report tests
3. trait definition, self-report tests
each stream is relevant to job performance
determining the optimal level of trait measurement for predicting job performance: the
bandwidth fidelity discussion:
- bandwidth fidelity: addresses the question whether it is better to use narrow or
broad traits to predict job performance
- e.g. the big five measures are broader categories of more facets
- Why broad measures are better?
o narrower measures include less items (lower reliability)
o combining facets increases reliability
o people overestimate the unique features of different jobs
o jobs are affected by general traits such as persistence, reliability etc.
o what you want to predict is broad too (job performance)
o better validity
- Why narrow measures are better?
o predictor and criterion alignment: when you want to predict a narrow aspect
of performance, use a narrow measure
- general factor of personality (GFP)
o captures the socially desirable end of personality measures
o some say it’s a substantive factor that has important relevance to
understanding individual differences in personality
o some say it’s merely about methodological/measurement artifact
o several studies showed GFP is associated to supervisor-rated and objective
performance
o seems rather favorable in comparison to Big Five (bc incremental validity is
higher)
- a study compared 3 different hierarchical levels: personality facets, big five and GFP
o GFP was the best and most consistent predictor and it was strongly related to
supervisor rated performance more than objective performance
Conclusion:
- GFP has high overlap with EI
- to improve predictive validity: frame of reference method
o provides test-takers a clear context for filling the items
o FoR interventions can occur on different levels/contexts
validity of non-contextualized measures 0.11
validity of contextualized measures 0.24
o FoR has a relevant and positive effect on the validity of personality measures
- another method: other-ratings
2
