Measuring emotional management abilities: Further evidence of the importance to distinguish between typical and maximum performance

Freudenthaler and Neubauer (2005) have recently developed and validated performance measures of emotional management abilities (EMA), requiring subjects to indicate their typical behaviour in emotional situations (typical-performance instruction, TP) instead of assessing the effectiveness of different behavioural alternatives or indicating the most adequate response (maximum-performance instruction, MP). In the present study (n = 176), we examined the effects of these two instruction forms (TP vs. MP) on the EMA-scores in a between-subject design. In addition, the relations of typical and maximum EMA to cognitive intelligence components and personality traits were tested. Instruction-related comparisons of the EMA-scores yielded not only lower means but also higher standard deviations and higher reliabilities in the TP-condition. As expected, maximum EMA were significantly correlated with cognitive intelligence components but not with personality traits. In contrast, the typical EMA were moderately associated with personality traits but not related to cognitive abilities, providing further evidence of the importance to distinguish between typical and maximum performance.     

Big five factors and facets and the prediction of behavior

The authors compared the Big 5 factors of personality with the facets or traits of personality that constitute those factors on their ability to predict 40 behavior criteria. Both the broad factors and the narrow facets predicted substantial numbers of criteria, but the latter did noticeably better in that regard, even when the number of facet predictors was limited to the number of factor predictors. Moreover, the criterion variance accounted for by the personality facets often included large portions not predicted by the personality factors. The narrow facets, therefore, were able to substantially increase the maximum prediction achieved by the broad factors. The results of this study are interpreted as supporting a more detailed approach to personality assessment, one that goes beyond the measurement of the Big 5 factors alone.     

Broad versus narrow personality measures and the prediction of behaviour across cultures

Measures of several personality variables, from both within and beyond the domain of the Big Five personality factors, were used to predict a variety of complex behaviour outcomes of some social and cultural significance (e.g. alcohol consumption and grade point average). Analyses focused on replicated predictions across participants in four countries (Canada, England, Germany, and Finland) and on the relative predictive accuracies of narrow trait predictors versus broad factor predictors. The results indicated substantial consistency in those predictions across cultures for several of the criteria. Furthermore, the narrow traits were able to account for more criterion variance than were the broad factors underlying those traits. Our data contraindicate the increasingly common practice of using only a few personality factor measures to predict complex human behaviours. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Predicting Training and Job Performance for Transit Operators

Although considerable meta‐analytic research has validated the use of cognitive ability tests, structured interviews, and personality tests with training and job performance criteria, few studies have investigated the validity of these measures with transit operators. There are the only two single studies of concurrent validation research specifically with transit operators. This article presents the results of a predictive validation study conducted with transit operator applicants for a large urban transit authority in Canada. Key knowledge, skills, and abilities were determined for the role and used as a basis for the design and choice of predictors and criteria. Four predictors were used in the study: education, cognitive ability, personality assessment, and structured interview. Criteria included training performance (formative and summative), probationary performance, preventable accidents, and lost time injuries. Validation results supported cognitive ability, structured interview, and several personality factors as predictors of training performance, but less so for job performance. The use of formative training ratings greatly augmented the evidence supporting the predictors beyond typical organizational criteria.     

Metatraits: Enhancing Criterion‐Related Validity Through the Assessment of Traitedness1

With the growing use of personality tests as predictors of job performance, the reliable measurement of these personality variables has become important to selection researchers and practitioners. Metatrait researchers have examined the possibility that personality traits are not equally relevant for all people. This study sought to examine whether considering the relevance of a trait to an individual (i.e., traitedness) would enhance the predictive validity of a measure. Specifically, traitedness was expected to moderate the relationship between predictor and criterion scores such that the predictor‐criterion relationship would be stronger for traited than for untraited individuals. Consistent with this hypothesis, a strong moderating effect was found for traitedness between a measure of personality and an objective criterion. Contrary to what was predicted, traitedness only provided incremental validity, above personality, for supervisor ratings of job performance.     

Bifactor Models of Personality and College Student Performance: A Broad Versus Narrow View

Research in the area of personality traits and academic performance has been supported by consistent meta‐analytic evidence demonstrating positive relationships between Conscientiousness and grade point average (GPA). However, academic performance is not solely a function of GPA but also a number of other important intellectual, interpersonal and intrapersonal behaviours. This wider criterion space opens up the possibility for many personality factors and their underlying facets to relate to academic performance. Using bifactor latent variable modelling, the current study investigates the six‐factor HEXACO model of personality, along with their 24 underlying facets, for predicting students' academic performance. Model results reveal interpretable and meaningful relationships between both broad factors and narrow personality facets in predicting college student outcomes. Implications for measurement, modelling and prediction are discussed. Copyright © 2014 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Personality,confirmation bias,and forensic interviewing performance

Confirmation bias is a universal characteristic of human cognition, with consequences for information processing and reasoning in everyday situations as well as in professional work such as forensic interviewing. Cognitive measures such as general intelligence are also related to personality traits, but there is a lack of research on personality and confirmation bias specifically. This study focuses, firstly, on the relationship between Big Five personality traits and confirmation bias as measured by the Wason selection task, and secondly, how these dispositions are related to observed performance in real forensic interviews of child victims. In a sample of police interviewers, Openness (i.e., the facets Ideas and Fantasy) and Neuroticism (i.e., the facets Anxiety and Vulnerability) were independently associated with confirmation bias (N = 72). Scores on the selection task, the Openness facet values, and the Extraversion facets Assertiveness and Activity were consistently related to interview performance (N = 46). Implications of these findings are discussed for the empirical and conceptual relations of cognitive ability to personality and for the selection and training of police interviewers and their professional development.     

Personality and performance in real-world competitions: Testing trait activation of fear of negative evaluation,dispositional reinvestment,and athletic identity in the field

ObjectivesBased on the trait activation principle, researchers have tested whether personality traits are capable of predicting sport performance (under pressure). Typically, however, these investigations followed experimental approaches in the laboratory and only rarely in the field. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to test for the generalizability of findings gained in these experimental studies and to investigate potential trait activation for real-world performance in competitions. Based on prior studies on the prediction of performance under pressure, the selected personality traits involved fear of negative evaluation, dispositional reinvestment, and athletic identity.DesignPersonality traits were used as predictors for low-pressure and high-pressure basketball free-throw performance.MethodFirst, 53 basketball players completed trait questionnaires. Second, directly prior to performance assessments, participants reported on perceived importance, their somatic and cognitive state anxiety, and confidence. Third, free-throw performance was assessed in a low-pressure condition (i.e., successful free-throw percentage for 30 attempts) and repeatedly in 12 high-pressure conditions within real basketball matches (i.e., successful free-throw percentage for total attempts).ResultsTwo main findings were identified: First, none of the traits predicted performance under low pressure. Second, under high-pressure, only fear of negative evaluation as well as state anxiety were significantly negatively associated with performance in competitions.ConclusionThese results extend existing literature and add applied and ecologically valid empirical support for the relevance of anxiety-related traits (i.e., fear of negative evaluation) and states for performance under pressure in real-world competitions, emphasizing the importance of self-presentational considerations in athletes when the stakes are high.     

Extraversion and job performance: How context relevance and bandwidth specificity create a non-linear,positive, and asymptotic relationship

The personality factor of extraversion has been associated with performance in some occupations (e.g., sales), and it has been one of the most consistent personality predictors of leadership. Recent research indicates that extraversion could have a non-linear relation with performance. At the same time, many researchers have contended that scholars should utilize measures of personality narrower than factors and that the bandwidth and relevance of personality should fit both the criterion and the context of a study. We argue and find that by examining an aspect of extraversion (i.e., social potency) in a particular vocational context (i.e., enterprising job demands), non-linear, asymptotic (diminishing marginal benefits) effects will be demonstrated on a relevant type of performance (i.e., enterprising job performance). We review implications, limitations, and avenues for future research.     

Cognitive ability in virtual reality: Validity evidence for VR game‐based assessments

Virtual reality (VR) technology may provide unique benefits for assessing individual characteristics, in contrast with traditional assessments. This study examined validity evidence for the use of VR game (VRG) scores to indicate specific cognitive abilities. Participants completed three VRGs, three computer‐based assessments (CBAs), and additional scales. To evaluate convergent validity, VRG scores were compared with CBA scores. For divergent validity, VRG scores were compared with five factors of personality based on the Five Factor Model. For criterion‐related validity, VRG scores were compared with academic achievement (i.e., grade point average). Findings generally provided support that the VRG scores are related to certain spatial reasoning subdimensions of cognitive ability. However, further research is needed to examine the qualities of VRGs as assessment tools.     

Characteristics of Successful Direct Support Professionals: An examination of personality and cognitive ability requirements

Service jobs in the health care industry continue to face difficulties in recruiting, selecting, and retaining quality employees. We conducted two studies to examine potential cognitive and personality predictors of job performance, satisfaction, and turnover among direct support professionals (i.e., individuals providing long‐term residential care and support to persons with disabilities). Data from a concurrent validation study was used to create a unit‐weighted combination of agreeableness, conscientiousness, optimism, and numerical ability. This composite predictor was significantly correlated with job performance and job satisfaction. The composite was further supported in a follow‐up predictive validation study of turnover.     

Testing an interactionist perspective on the relationship between personality traits and performance under public pressure

Objectives

The interactionist principle of trait activation [Tett & Gutermann (2000). Situation trait relevance, trait expression, and cross-situational consistency: testing a principle of trait activation. Journal of Research in Personality, 34, 397-423.] explains human behavior through the stimulation of traits by trait-relevant situational cues (i.e., situation-trait relevance). In applied (real-world) high-pressure situations, audiences provide the situational demand of public evaluation. Therefore, traits that are related to public evaluation are appraised as situation-relevant. The purpose of the current study was to test if situation-relevant traits (i.e., narcissism, public self-consciousness) predict performance in applied high-pressure situations, while situation-irrelevant traits (i.e., private self-consciousness) do not contribute to the performance explanation.

Design/Method

Experienced handball players (N = 55) completed personality questionnaires and performed a throwing task in low and high-pressure conditions, whereby the high-pressure condition involved 1500-2000 spectators during halftime breaks of professional handball games.

Results

Findings supported the assumptions about situation-trait relevancies and indicated that narcissism and public self-consciousness were relevant to high-pressure performance (i.e., positively associated), whereas private self-consciousness was found to be irrelevant. No predictors were correlated to low-pressure performance.

Conclusions

Results emphasize that trait activation is a promising explanation for the relevance of personality characteristics to performance under pressure. A systematic consideration of situational demands of high-pressure situations will result in adequate appraisals of situation-trait relevance and help predict performance with trait scores.     

The relationship between Big-5 personality traits and cognitive ability in older adults – a review

It is well established that fundamental aspects of cognition such as memory and speed of processing tend to decline with age; however, there is substantial between-individual variability in levels of cognitive performance in older adulthood and in rates of change in cognitive abilities over time. Recent years have seen an increasing number of studies concerned with examining personality characteristics as possible predictors of some of this variability in cognitive aging. The purpose of this article is to review the literature, and identify patterns of findings regarding the relationships between personality (focusing on the Big-5) and cognitive ability across nonclinical populations of older adults. Possible mechanisms underlying associations of personality characteristics with cognition are reviewed, and assessed in the context of the current literature. Some relatively consistent relationships are identified, including positive associations between openness and cognitive ability, and associations of conscientiousness with slower rates of cognitive decline. However, the relationships between several personality traits and cognitive abilities in older adults remain unclear. We suggest some approaches to research design and analysis that may help increase our understanding of how personality differences may contribute to cognitive aging.     

Predicting Stereotype Threat,Test Anxiety,and Cognitive Ability Test Performance: An Examination of Three Models

As the classroom and workplace, among other contexts, become more diverse in their population characteristics, the need to be aware of specific factors impacting testing outcome issues correspondingly increases. The focus in this study, among other purposes, was to identify possible interactions between examinee's individual-difference characteristics (e.g., personality) and characteristics of the testing environment on test anxiety reactions and cognitive ability test performance. This study assessed reactions and performance in 4 different testing conditions through a path-analytic testing of 3 well-established theoretical models of stress appraisal and coping (i.e., cognitive appraisal, personality trait, and transactional). The transactional model, incorporating both personality and testing condition factors, was best in predicting the variance associated with the cognitive ability test scores, the 3 test anxiety score indexes (i.e., social derogation, physical tenseness, and cognitive obstruction), and the stereotype threat scores. With personality traits, for example, agreeableness was a relatively strong and consistent predictor of all study measures. Regarding testing condition factors, only the manipulation of stereotype threat level (low or high) produced some significant accounting of variance. Higher perceived stereotype threat levels were generally associated with heightened stereotype threat belief perceptions, lower cognitive ability test scores, and, interestingly, reduced feelings of cognitive obstruction in test anxiety.     

Comparing the validity of structured interviews for managerial‐level employees: Should we look to the past or focus on the future?

The current research investigated questions that persist regarding the criterion‐related and construct validity of situational (SI) versus past‐behaviour (PBI) structured interview formats in predicting the job performance of managers. Analyses of data collected from 157 applicants to managerial positions showed that the PBI format significantly predicted job performance ratings (r = .32, p <.01), whereas the SI format did not (r = .09, ns). Investigation of potential construct differences between the SI and PBI formats showed that the PBI was more highly related to manager‐relevant cognitive ability measures, assessment centre exercises and personality traits, as compared with the SI. Such differences help to explain the predictive validity differences between the SI and PBI observed in current and previous research.     

TEST OF A MULTISTAGE MODEL OF DISTAL AND PROXIMAL ANTECEDENTS OF LEADER PERFORMANCE

The authors developed and tested a multistage model of distal and proximal predictors of leader performance in an effort to shed greater light on the intermediate linkages between broad leader traits and performance. Predictor and criterion data were obtained from 471 noncommissioned officers in the U.S. Army. A model with cognitive ability and 3 of the Big 5 personality factors as distal antecedents, leadership experiences and motivation to lead as semidistal antecedents, and the knowledge, skills, and ability (KSAs) to lead as proximal antecedents of leader performance provided a good fit to the data. More specifically, the effects of the distal and semidistal antecedents on leader performance were partially mediated by more proximal variables, whereas leader KSAs demonstrated a relatively strong, direct influence on performance. The 1 exception was that Conscientiousness—a hypothesized distal antecedent—had a notable direct effect on leader performance. The implications of these findings for leadership research and practice are discussed.     

Relations among Personality Characteristics,Environmental Events,Coping Behavior and Adolescents’ Life Satisfaction

This study extended current positive psychological research by examining the mediating role of coping behavior in the relations between environmental and intrapersonal variables as predictors of adolescent global life satisfaction, based on Evans’ (Soc Indic Res 33:47–88, 1994) proposed model. Specifically, we assessed the relations between personality traits (extraversion, neuroticism) and environmental experiences (stressful life events) predicting early adolescents’ global life satisfaction as mediated by approach and avoidance coping behaviors using a sample of 529 students from one middle school in the southeastern United States. The results supported portions of Evans’ model. Statistically significant relations were found for a number of individual pathways between personality and environmental variables (i.e., predictors) and coping variables (i.e., mediators) as well as between approach coping (i.e., one mediator) and life satisfaction (i.e., outcome). Additionally, a small but statistically significant pathway was found between extraversion and life satisfaction when mediated by approach coping. Results suggest that personality, environmental stressors and coping behaviors may play a role in the development of life satisfaction among early adolescents.     

Academic performance, career potential, creativity, and job performance: can one construct predict them all?

This meta-analysis addresses the question of whether 1 general cognitive ability measure developed for predicting academic performance is valid for predicting performance in both educational and work domains. The validity of the Miller Analogies Test (MAT; W. S. Miller, 1960) for predicting 18 academic and work-related criteria was examined. MAT correlations with other cognitive tests (e.g., Raven's Matrices [J. C. Raven, 1965]; Graduate Record Examinations) also were meta-analyzed. The results indicate that the abilities measured by the MAT are shared with other cognitive ability instruments and that these abilities are generalizably valid predictors of academic and vocational criteria, as well as evaluations of career potential and creativity. These findings contradict the notion that intelligence at work is wholly different from intelligence at school, extending the voluminous literature that supports the broad importance of general cognitive ability (g).     

Validation of personality and cognitive measures for insurance claims examiners

Claims Examiners are critical for the profitability of large insurance companies. Mistakes in hiring these people can result in improperly processed claims and/or turnover, and this yields negative financial consequences for the company. This paper describes research evaluating the validity of selection procedures for the position of claims examiner at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Oklahoma. A job analysis indicated that both cognitive skills and personal abilities are necessary for successful performance as a claims examiner. The job analysis also indicated that both subjective and objective criterion measures reflect important aspects of job performance. The criterion data included nine supervisory ratings, employee nominations, average percent of performance, absences, disciplinary actions, and sick leave. In a concurrent validation strategy, we tested a sample of experienced incumbents (N=50) using four cognitive ability tests (Basic Skills Tests: BST) and two measures of personality (Hogan Personality Inventory and PROFILE). Scales from two personality inventories were combined to form the Claims Examiner Inventory (CEI). Scores from the CEI and three of the four cognitive tests correlated significantly with the average percent of performance and six of the supervisory ratings, including the average supervisory rating. In addition to the cognitive measures, the personality measure contributed significantly to the prediction of percent of performance achieved with R=.64. These results are consistent with other research findings that support the use of both personality and cognitive measures as predictors of job performance.     

Predicting Military Performance from Specific Personality Measures: A validity study

This study examined the criterion‐related validity of the dimensions of a customized personality inventory in predicting different aspects of military performance. A cross‐validity study was also carried out to establish the stability of the obtained regression weights. The sample consisted of 733 non‐commissioned officers who filled out the personality inventory. Three different measures of performance (i.e., commendations, reprimands, and cumulative ranking) were used as the criteria in validating the inventory. Among the 11 dimensions of the inventory, emotional stability, directing and monitoring, self‐discipline, and military bearing predicted commendations; determination was the only predictor for reprimands, and cumulative ranking was predicted by determination and adaptability. The cross‐validity procedure showed that the obtained regression weights were stable, providing further support for the validity of the personality measures. Results yielded support for the argument that specific personality measures could be respectable predictors of different aspects of military performance.