1. Ch 4: Personality and Abilities
Part 1 – Feb. 5, 2009

2. Personality Unique and stable pattern of behaviors, thoughts, emotions
Interactionist approach – behavior result of personality and situation
When does it have the most influence?
How is personality measured?
Objective –
Projective –

3. Controversy: Personality in Selection
3 points – historically, conventional wisdom in psych was that personality measures… 1) 2) 3)
What is the current view of personality in the I/O literature?

4. Taxonomies Terminological confusion abounds! 1 answer is Big 5 model
Many researchers agree most measures assess at least the “Big 5”
Check to make sure you assess these 5 reliably, validly…
Anything extra is optional
Accepted Big 5 measure is “NEO”

5. Big 5 Model 5 key dimensions of personality (know def of each…)
Openness to Experience –
Conscientiousness –
Extraversion –
Agreeableness –
Neuroticism (or its opposite, positively-termed “emotional stability”) –

6. Does personality predict job performance?
As recently as ’90, most said ‘no’
Barrick & Mount (1991)
What did this study suggest?
Later studies found C & A predict job perf about as well as what other construct?
(correlation range?)

7. Cont..
Conscientiousness most highly related to job performance (of the Big 5 dimensions)
related to …?
But jobs where this isn’t good? And why?

8. Faking personality scores
What is the controversy?
Hogan & Hogan’s view: (they publish the HPI)
Some items are transparent & easy to fake, is this a problem?
How can methodology be used to assess faking?
How do corrections for faking affect validity?
Their conclusion?

9. Levin & Zickar (2002) “Self-presentation, lies, and bullshit”
What is their issue with the Hogans’ conclusions?
Levin & Zickar distinctions:
Field studies compared those instructed to fake w/those instructed to be honest:
What did they find?

10. Other Personality Constructs
Positive/Negative Affectivity (PA/NA) – stable mood
Strong relationship with job satisfaction
Is there such a construct as group affect (or affective tone?)
How could we measure this?

11. Abilities Capacity to perform a task Intellectual abilities
Cognitive ability (g): general intelligence, reasoning
Traditionally most importance placed on this (IQ tests)
Highly related to job perf
Practical Intelligence – devise effective ways to get things done

12. Will ‘g’ & conscientiousness do the job?
Focus on precise matching of applicant abilities w/those required by job?
Or focus on conscientiousness & ‘g’?
Distinguish between dependent variables used in studies
In past, focused on ?
Current focus shifting to ?
Final choice of which to use may depend on…

13. When to focus on g & cons. Focus on g & cons when…1) 2) 3)
Otherwise focus on precise matching of skills with job