Industrial-Organizational Psychology Learning Module

Personality and Work

Prepared by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - SIOP

Lesson Objectives
At the end of this lecture, you should understand:

What is meant by personality. A brief history of personality theory and research. The elements of the most commonly accepted model of personality - the Five-Factor Model (Big Five or FFM). How personality has been shown to affect job performance and other work-related outcomes. Why and how organizational managers use personality assessment as a tool in decision-making.

Prepared by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - SIOP

What is Personality?

Internal perspective: Processes within an individual that explain why he or she behaves in characteristic ways. Attitudes, emotions, ways of thinking Fairly stable across time and situations Partly inherited External perspective: How the individual is perceived by others that he or she interacts with (reputation). She has a great personality! Shaped by two fundamental motives related to social interaction

Getting along with others (cooperation) Getting ahead of others (competition)

Personality Theory and Research

Allport: Cardinal and Central Traits

Cattell: Sixteen Personality Factors

Eysenck: Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Psychoticism

Prepared by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - SIOP

Personality, Organizations, and the Organization of Personality

Early researchers believed the personality-job performance relationship was weak. Reasons:

Comparatively weak analytic techniques. Inappropriate measures (most used psychopathology inventories, e.g., MMPI). No theoretical framework on which to base research findings. The belief that behavior is determined more by situations than by traits (Mischel,1968).

Research and theoretical innovations that rehabilitated personality in late 80s, early 90s.

Meta-analysis: A new quantitative method for summarizing research findings. The Five-Factor Model: A new organizing taxonomy for personality structure (The Big Five).

The Five-Factor Model

Premise: Personality can be efficiently described with five relatively independent trait dimensions. Model derived from factor-analytic studies of much larger sets of traits. Factor analysis: A method for reducing a large set of data into something interpretable Allport & Odbert (1936): Identified more than 18,000 trait terms in unabridged dictionary

Eventually factor analyzed into five dimensions

Five-factor model reproduced across many cultures and languages (Saucier, Hampson, & Goldberg, 2000). Research evidence points to the heritability (Rowe, 1997) and stability (Costa & McCrae, 1997) of the FFM.

The Five-Factor Model

The Five Factors and their Characteristics:

Extraversion: Assertive, competitive, positive emotionality, sociable Agreeableness: Warm, likeable, gentle, cooperative Conscientiousness: Orderly, dependable, industrious, disciplined Emotional Stability: Relaxed, free from anxiety, depression, negative emotionality Openness to Experience: Creative, cultured, intellectual, perceptive

The Five-Factor Model and Job Performance: Research Findings

Summary of meta-analytic findings (Barrick & Mount, 1991): Conscientiousness and Emotional Stability are the best personality predictors of job performance across nearly all jobs. Extraversion and Agreeableness are important in jobs requiring a high degree of interpersonal work Less consistent evidence for Openness to Experience Personality has been shown to predict: Job performance and results (e.g. $ sales volume) Job satisfaction Training performance Leadership .and many more important job-related behaviors and attitudes

How Does Personality Affect Job Performance?

Theory and research show that Big Five factors impact motivation, which in turn affects performance. For example

Self-efficacy
Conscientiousness Goals

Performance

Thus, personalitys effect on performance may be fully or partially (dotted line) mediated by motivation

Why Should Organizations Test Personality?

Personality predicts aspects of job performance that may not be strongly related to knowledge, skills or abilities.
Incremental validity Predicts what a person will do, as opposed to what they can do. Contextual job performance (Borman & Motowidlo, 1993)

Organizational Citizenship Behaviors: Willingness to go above and beyond the call of duty

Unlike other selection tools, little or no evidence of adverse impact (different selection ratios between demographic groups).

Personality in Selection Decisions: A Case Study

Youve been hired to design a selection system for customer service workers at McToxic Pizza

Step 1: Conduct a thorough Job Analysis

You discover that high-performers are friendly, dependable, and low in imagination

Step 2: Refer worker attributes to a validated model of personality (e.g., the Big Five)

Friendly: Agreeableness; Dependable: Conscientiousness; Unimaginative: (Low) Openness to Experience.

Step 3: Incorporate a personality test as one factor guiding selection decisions

DO NOT base selection decisions solely on a single test score of any kind!!

Big Five Mini-Marker Exercise

How Accurately Can You Describe Yourself?

1 Inaccurate 2 Slightly Inaccurate 3 Neither 4 Slightly Accurate 5 Accurate

1. Bashful 2. Bold 3. Careless 4. Cold 5. Complex 6. Cooperative 7. Creative 8. Deep 9. Disorganized 10. Efficient 11. Energetic 12. Envious 13. Extraverted 14. Fretful

15. Harsh 16. Imaginative 17. Inefficient 18. Intellectual 19. Jealous 20. Kind 21. Moody 22. Organized 23. Philosophical 24. Practical 25. Quiet 26. Relaxed 27. Rude 28. Shy

29. Sloppy 30. Sympathetic 31. Systematic 32. Talkative 33. Temperamental 34. Touchy 35. Uncreative 36. Unenvious 37. Unintellectual 38. Unsympathetic 39. Warm 40. Withdrawn

Reverse score items: 1, 3, 4, 9, 12, 14, 15, 17, 19, 21, 25, 27, 28, 29,33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 40
1=5 2=4 3=3 4=2 5=1 Sum items: 1, 2, 11, 13, 25, 28, 32, 40 = Factor I 12, 14, 19, 21, 26, 33, 34, 36 = Factor II 4, 6, 15, 20, 27, 30, 38, 39 = Factor III 3, 9, 10, 17, 22, 24, 29, 31 = Factor IV 5, 7, 8, 16, 18, 23, 35, 37 = Factor V

Extraversion (Factor I)
1. Bashful 2. Bold 3. Careless 4. Cold 5. Complex 6. Cooperative 7. Creative 8. Deep 9. Disorganized 10. Efficient 11. Energetic 12. Envious 13. Extraverted 14. Fretful 15. Harsh 16. Imaginative 17. Inefficient 18. Intellectual 19. Jealous 20. Kind 21. Moody 22. Organized 23. Philosophical 24. Practical 25. Quiet 26. Relaxed 27. Rude 28. Shy 29. Sloppy 30. Sympathetic 31. Systematic 32. Talkative 33. Temperamental 34. Touchy 35. Uncreative 36. Unenvious 37. Unintellectual 38. Unsympathetic 39. Warm 40. Withdrawn

Emotional Stability (Factor II)

1. Bashful 2. Bold 3. Careless 4. Cold 5. Complex 6. Cooperative 7. Creative 8. Deep 9. Disorganized 10. Efficient 11. Energetic 12. Envious 13. Extraverted 14. Fretful 15. Harsh 16. Imaginative 17. Inefficient 18. Intellectual 19. Jealous 20. Kind 21. Moody 22. Organized 23. Philosophical 24. Practical 25. Quiet 26. Relaxed 27. Rude 28. Shy 29. Sloppy 30. Sympathetic 31. Systematic 32. Talkative 33. Temperamental 34. Touchy 35. Uncreative 36. Unenvious 37. Unintellectual 38. Unsympathetic 39. Warm 40. Withdrawn

Agreeableness (Factor III)

1. Bashful 2. Bold 3. Careless 4. Cold 5. Complex 6. Cooperative 7. Creative 8. Deep 9. Disorganized 10. Efficient 11. Energetic 12. Envious 13. Extraverted 14. Fretful 15. Harsh 16. Imaginative 17. Inefficient 18. Intellectual 19. Jealous 20. Kind 21. Moody 22. Organized 23. Philosophical 24. Practical 25. Quiet 26. Relaxed 27. Rude 28. Shy 29. Sloppy 30. Sympathetic 31. Systematic 32. Talkative 33. Temperamental 34. Touchy 35. Uncreative 36. Unenvious 37. Unintellectual 38. Unsympathetic 39. Warm 40. Withdrawn

Conscientiousness (Factor IV)

1. Bashful 2. Bold 3. Careless 4. Cold 5. Complex 6. Cooperative 7. Creative 8. Deep 9. Disorganized 10. Efficient 11. Energetic 12. Envious 13. Extraverted 14. Fretful 15. Harsh 16. Imaginative 17. Inefficient 18. Intellectual 19. Jealous 20. Kind 21. Moody 22. Organized 23. Philosophical 24. Practical 25. Quiet 26. Relaxed 27. Rude 28. Shy 29. Sloppy 30. Sympathetic 31. Systematic 32. Talkative 33. Temperamental 34. Touchy 35. Uncreative 36. Unenvious 37. Unintellectual 38. Unsympathetic 39. Warm 40. Withdrawn

Openness to Experience (Factor V)

1. Bashful 2. Bold 3. Careless 4. Cold 5. Complex 6. Cooperative 7. Creative 8. Deep 9. Disorganized 10. Efficient 11. Energetic 12. Envious 13. Extraverted 14. Fretful 15. Harsh 16. Imaginative 17. Inefficient 18. Intellectual 19. Jealous 20. Kind 21. Moody 22. Organized 23. Philosophical 24. Practical 25. Quiet 26. Relaxed 27. Rude 28. Shy 29. Sloppy 30. Sympathetic 31. Systematic 32. Talkative 33. Temperamental 34. Touchy 35. Uncreative 36. Unenvious 37. Unintellectual 38. Unsympathetic 39. Warm 40. Withdrawn

Caveats and Future Research Directions

Is the Big Five the best model?

Its a model of personality, not a theory Some research suggests that 3, 7, or 9 factor models best represent human personality Studies have shown greater predictive validity for finer-grained facets of personality - measure predictors and criteria at the same level. Personality test-takers can distort responses when instructed to do so Most research suggests that distortion does not undermine validity of personality tests Are there other mechanisms besides motivation?

Are self-report personality tests accurate?

Again: How does personality affect performance?

References

General overview

Barrick, M.R., & Ryan, A.M. (Eds.). (2003). Personality and work: Reconsidering the role of personality in organizations. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Roberts, B.W., & Hogan, R. (Eds.). (2001). Personality psychology in the workplace. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association. Hogan, R. (1991). Personality and personality measurement. In M.D. Dunnette & L.M. Hough (Eds.), Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology (Vol 2). Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press. Hogan, R., Hogan, J., & Roberts, B.W. (1996). Personality measurement and employment decisions. American Psychologist, 51, 469-477. Barrick, M.R., & Mount, M.K. (1991). The Big Five personality dimensions and job performance: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 44, 1-26. Hough, L.M., Eaton, N.L., Dunnette, M.D., Kamp, J.D., & McCloy, R.A. (1990). Criterion-related validities of personality constructs and the effect of response distortion on those validities. Journal of Applied Psychology, 75, 581-595. Wiggins, J.S. (Ed.) (1996). The Five-Factor Model of personality. New York: Guilford. Saucier, G., Hampson, S.E., & Goldberg, L.R. (2000). Cross-language studies of lexical personality factors. In S.E. Hampson (Ed.), Advances in personality psychology (Vol. 1). Philadelphia: Taylor & Francis. Costa, P.T., & McCrae, R.R. (1997). Longitudinal stability in adult personality. In R. Hogan, J. Johnson, & S. Briggs (Eds.), Handbook of personality psychology. San Diego: Academic Press. Rowe, D.C. (1997). Genetics, Temperament, and personality. In R. Hogan, J. Johnson, & S. Briggs (Eds.), Handbook of personality psychology. San Diego: Academic Press.

Meta-analyses

The Five-Factor Model

References (cont)

Personality, Motivation, and Performance

Kanfer, R., & Ackerman, P.L. (2000). Individual differences in work motivation: Further explorations of a trait framework. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 49, 470-482. Judge, T.A., & Ilies, R. (2002). Relationship of personality to performance motivation: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 797-807. Barrick, M.R., Mount, M.K., & Strauss, J.P. (1993). Conscientiousness and performance of sales representatives: Test of the mediating effects of goal-setting. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78, 715-722. Borman, W.C., & Motowidlo, S.J. (1993). Expanding the criterion domain to include elements of contextual performance. In N. Schmitt & W.C. Borman (Eds.), Personnel selection in organizations. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Block, J. (1995). A contrarian view of the five-factor approach to personality description. Psychological Bulletin, 117, 187-215. Schneider, R.J., Hough, L.M., & Dunnette, M.D. (1996). Broadsided by broad traits: How to sink science in five dimensions or less. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 17, 639-655.

Contextual Performance/OCBs

Alternatives to the Big Five

Incremental validity for facets

Stewart, G.L. (1999). Trait bandwidth and stages of job performance: Assessing differential effects for conscientiousness and its subtraits. Journal of Applied Psychology, 84, 959-968.
Hough, L.M. (1998). Effects of intentional distortion in personality measurement and evaluation of suggested palliatives. Human Performance, 11, 209-244.

Distortion