The validity of the Big Five personality traits for job performance: Meta‐analyses of South African studies

Previous meta‐analyses have established the Big Five personality traits as important predictors of job performance around the globe. This study extends the international generalizability of Big Five criterion‐related validity through systematic review and meta‐analyses of personality–performance research conducted in South Africa. We meta‐analyzed data from 33 studies and 6,782 individuals to estimate validities of Big Five traits for various job performance criteria. Results showed that the Big Five traits have similar validity for job performance criteria as found in other cultural contexts. Conscientiousness was the strongest predictor across performance criteria, while other traits showed validity for specific criteria or subsamples. Results demonstrate the importance of psychometric meta‐analysis for building cumulative knowledge and support applied use of personality assessments in South Africa. Consistency of the results of this study with those of previous meta‐analyses in other national contexts supports the argument that personality–performance relations are a cultural universal.     

Incremental validity of person-organization fit over the Big Five personality measures

Few studies have provided the validity evidence of a measure of objective person-organization fit (P-O fit) as a selection tool. The present study used a concurrent validation design to examine the criterion-related validity and the incremental validity of a P-O fit measure beyond the validity of the Big Five personality test for predicting job performance (task performance and organizational citizenship behavior) and employee commitment (organizational commitment and supervisory commitment) for a group of high-tech professional employees in Taiwan. Results showed that P-O fit predicted the contextual component of overall job performance and was significantly related to two types of employee commitment. Moreover, P-O fit had an incremental validity beyond that of the personality measures for predicting some of our outcome variables.     

The Development and Validation of a Personological Measure of Work Drive

Using six studies based on 23,823 individuals in diverse settings, we developed and validated a personality measure of Work Drive—a disposition to work long hours and extend oneself for one's job. The factor structure was confirmed in four settings. Work Drive was related to job performance showing incremental validity beyond cognitive aptitude and Big Five personality traits in five validation studies. It predicted academic performance at six different grade levels, even beyond Big Five traits. Construct validity was examined via work values, job involvement, normal personality scales, satisfaction measures, and cognitive ability. Little adverse impact was found. Occupational groups differed on Work Drive. Overall validity and areas of application were discussed.     

Investigating the Uniqueness and Usefulness of Proactive Personality in Organizational Research: A Meta-Analytic Review

Using meta-analysis (283 effect sizes from 122 studies), we extend prior qualitative and quantitative reviews of research on proactive personality in a number of meaningful ways. First, we examine the discriminant and incremental validity of proactive personality using meta-analytic regression analyses. Our results reveal that more than 50% of variance in proactive personality is unrelated to the Big Five personality traits collectively. Also, proactive personality accounts for unique variance in overall job performance, task performance, and organizational citizenship behaviors, even after controlling for the Big Five personality traits and general mental ability (for overall job performance and task performance). Moreover, we find no subgroup differences in proactive personality, highlighting its potential use in selection contexts. In conclusion, we discuss implications of our findings for research and practice.     

IN SUPPORT OF PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT IN ORGANIZATIONAL SETTINGS

Personality constructs have been demonstrated to be useful for explaining and predicting attitudes, behaviors, performance, and outcomes in organizational settings. Many professionally developed measures of personality constructs display useful levels of criterion-related validity for job performance and its facets. In this response to Morgeson et al. (2007) , we comprehensively summarize previously published meta-analyses on (a) the optimal and unit-weighted multiple correlations between the Big Five personality dimensions and behaviors in organizations, including job performance; (b) generalizable bivariate relationships of Conscientiousness and its facets (e.g., achievement orientation, dependability, cautiousness) with job performance constructs; (c) the validity of compound personality measures; and (d) the incremental validity of personality measures over cognitive ability. Hundreds of primary studies and dozens of meta-analyses conducted and published since the mid 1980s indicate strong support for using personality measures in staffing decisions. Moreover, there is little evidence that response distortion among job applicants ruins the psychometric properties, including criterion-related validity, of personality measures. We also provide a brief evaluation of the merits of alternatives that have been offered in place of traditional self-report personality measures for organizational decision making. Given the cumulative data, writing off the whole domain of individual differences in personality or all self-report measures of personality from personnel selection and organizational decision making is counterproductive for the science and practice of I-O psychology.     

Why Openness to Experience is not a Good Predictor of Job Performance

Recent meta‐analyses investigating the relationship between personality and job performance have found that openness to experience is the least predictive of the Big Five factors. Unlike other research that has sought to explain the low criterion‐validity with relation to job performance, this study explores the actual construct of openness to experience, suggesting that it consists of two dimensions that relate differentially to job performance thus reducing correlations between overall measures of openness to experience and performance criteria. Exploratory factor analysis of the six sub‐dimensions, or facets, of the NEO PI‐R (a popular measure of the Big Five factors) produced two factors of openness to experience corresponding to different areas to which people are open. A confirmatory factor analysis on a second set of data provided some support for this result. A pattern of differential relationships between the two factors and other variables including personality, biodata and supervisor‐rated performance offered further support for the multidimensionality of openness to experience. The implications of these findings for future research in the selection context are discussed.     

Relative importance of personality dimensions for expatriate selection: A policy capturing study

Policy capturing was used to examine relative importance placed by managers on the Big Five personality factors (Emotional Stability, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness) in the context of expatriate selection. Ninety‐six managers with expatriate staffing and management experience made judgments about 32 expatriates based on characteristics associated with the Big Five. Judgments were made about (a) completion of overseas assignment, (b) adjustment, (c) interpersonal relations with host‐country nationals, and (d) overseas job performance. Across all four decisions, the raters tended to use the cues (i.e., the Big Five personality factors) in a similar manner. Conscientiousness was perceived to be the most important personality factor for all four judgments examined. Openness to Experience was perceived to be important for completion of overseas assignment. These results from policy capturing are compared and contrasted with those from criterion‐related validity studies of the Big Five for expatriate selection. Implications for expatriate selection systems are discussed.     

THE "BIG FIVE" PERSONALITY FACTORS IN THE IPI AND MMPI: PREDICTORS OF POLICE PERFORMANCE

Rational and empirical linkages were formed between the "Big Five" personality factors and two personality inventories: the Inwald Personality Inventory (IPI), which is a personality inventory designed especially for use in the selection of corrections officers, and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). A criterion-related validation of the study was then conducted to assess the validity of these two measures of the Big Five in predicting various measures of police performance. Results indicated that while both inventories provided adequate measures of Neuroticism, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness, neither inventory consistently contributed incremental validity over the Civil Service exam.     

Social Networking Websites,Personality Ratings,and the Organizational Context: More Than Meets the Eye?1

We examined the psychometric properties of the Big Five personality traits assessed through social networking profiles in 2 studies consisting of 274 and 244 social networking website (SNW) users. First, SNW ratings demonstrated sufficient interrater reliability and internal consistency. Second, ratings via SNWs demonstrated convergent validity with self‐ratings of the Big Five traits. Third, SNW ratings correlated with job performance, hirability, and academic performance criteria; and the magnitude of these correlations was generally larger than for self‐ratings. Finally, SNW ratings accounted for significant variance in the criterion measures beyond self‐ratings of personality and cognitive ability. We suggest that SNWs may provide useful information for potential use in organizational research and practice, taking into consideration various legal and ethical issues.     

Introduction

This article reports a comprehensive meta-analysis of the criterion-oriented validity of the Big Five personality dimensions assessed with forced-choice (FC) inventories. Six criteria (i.e., performance ratings, training proficiency, productivity, grade-point average, global occupational performance, and global academic performance) and three types of FC scores (i.e., normative, quasi-ipsative, and ipsative) served for grouping the validity coefficients. Globally, the results showed that the Big Five assessed with FC measures have similar or slightly higher validity than the Big Five assessed with single-stimulus (SS) personality inventories. Quasi-ipsative measures of conscientiousness (K = 44, N = 8794, ρ = .40) are found to be better predictors of job performance than normative and ipsative measures. FC inventories also showed similar reliability coefficients to SS inventories. Implications of the findings for theory and practice in academic and personnel decisions are discussed, and future research is suggested.     

Effects of Self‐Deceptive Enhancement on Personality–Job Performance Relationships

Theoretical and empirical evidence distinguishes between two types of response distortion: impression management (IM) and self‐deceptive enhancement (SDE), although most research in Industrial/Organizational Psychology has focused on the effects of IM. The present study compared the effects of IM and SDE on job performance and personality validity. Two‐hundred and sixty‐one managers completed Big Five Personality, SDE, and IM measures. The managers' supervisors, peers, and subordinates rated their job performance. In accordance with previous research, accounting for managers' IM scores did not increase prediction of job performance. On the other hand, accounting for SDE did increase prediction. Increased prediction was due to an interaction between Extraversion and SDE, and an increase in the predictive validity of Emotional Stability when SDE was held constant. Results suggested that findings from previous research demonstrating that IM does not affect job performance or personality validity cannot be extended to SDE.     

Personality and the prediction of team performance

Although much is known about personality and individuals' job performance, only a few studies have considered the effects of team‐level personality on team performance. Existing research examining the effects of personality on team performance has found that, of the Big Five factors of personality, Conscientiousness is often the most important predictor. Accordingly, we investigated the criterion validity of lower‐level Conscientiousness traits to determine whether any one trait is particularly predictive of team performance. In addition to Conscientiousness, we examined the criterion validity of the other Big Five personality factors. We found that Conscientiousness and its facets predicted team performance. Agreeableness, Extraversion and Neuroticism were not predictive of team performance, whereas Openness had a modest negative relation with team performance. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Personality and job performance: the Big Five revisited

Prior meta-analyses investigating the relation between the Big 5 personality dimensions and job performance have all contained a threat to construct validity, in that much of the data included within these analyses was not derived from actual Big 5 measures. In addition, these reviews did not address the relations between the Big 5 and contextual performance. Therefore, the present study sought to provide a meta-analytic estimate of the criterion-related validity of explicit Big 5 measures for predicting job performance and contextual performance. The results for job performance closely paralleled 2 of the previous meta-analyses, whereas analyses with contextual performance showed more complex relations among the Big 5 and performance. A more critical interpretation of the Big 5-performance relationship is presented, and suggestions for future research aimed at enhancing the validity of personality predictors are provided.     

Applications of Personality Assessment to the Workplace: A Review

Our review of the relevant research literature in the recent past strongly supports the view that personality assessment has high utility in the workplace. We review the evidence that personality assessment measures, especially those based upon the Big Five factors of personality, can effectively predict job performance and thus can be used for personnel selection. The validity of integrity testing in predicting counterproductivity on the job has been demonstrated both for overt measures of integrity and, to a lesser degree, for more general (subtle) measures of personality. We also found good evidence of validity for measures of (supervisory) management and (transformational) leadership, a complex field which includes a number of multidimensional instruments each built around its own theory. Finally, we review the empirical literature that supports the use of assessment centers and the use of personality assessment in training and development.     

Personality at Work: Raising Awareness and Correcting Misconceptions

Personality variables have always predicted important behaviors and outcomes in industrial, work, and organizational psychology. In this commentary, we first review empirically supported structural models of personality that show the following: (a) Personality traits are hierarchically organized, (b) the Big Five are not orthogonal, (c) abnormal personality measures assess the same continuum of traits as normal adult personality measures, and (d) there are compound personality traits that are especially useful in the prediction of organizational behaviors. Second, we provide a brief overview of meta-analyses of compound personality variables. The highest operational validities of single scales (.40s) are associated with personality measures assessing broad, compound personality characteristics, such as integrity, violence potential, customer service orientation, and managerial potential, that incorporate aspects from multiple dimensions of the Big Five. Third, we also review meta-analytic evidence that has linked personality attributes to other important organizational attitudes and behaviors, such as job satisfaction, motivation, and leadership, with multiple correlations for the Big Five in the .40 to .50 range. Fourth, we discuss the important role that meta-analysis has had in establishing the predictive and explanatory value of personality variables. We conclude with some caveats and directions for future research.     

A Meta‐Analytic Investigation of Job Applicant Faking on Personality Measures

This study investigates the extent to which job applicants fake their responses on personality tests. Thirty‐three studies that compared job applicant and non‐applicant personality scale scores were meta‐analyzed. Across all job types, applicants scored significantly higher than non‐applicants on extraversion (d=.11), emotional stability (d=.44), conscientiousness (d=.45), and openness (d=.13). For certain jobs (e.g., sales), however, the rank ordering of mean differences changed substantially suggesting that job applicants distort responses on personality dimensions that are viewed as particularly job relevant. Smaller mean differences were found in this study than those reported by Viswesvaran and Ones (Educational and Psychological Measurement, 59 (2), 197–210), who compared scores for induced “fake‐good” vs. honest response conditions. Also, direct Big Five measures produced substantially larger differences than did indirect Big Five measures.     

The Impact of Contextual Self‐Ratings and Observer Ratings of Personality on the Personality–Performance Relationship1

This study examined 2 possible ways of increasing the predictive validity of personality measures: using observer (i.e., supervisor and coworker) ratings and work‐specific self‐ratings of Big Five personality factors. Results indicated that among general self‐ratings of Big Five personality dimensions, Conscientiousness was the best predictor of in‐role performance, and Agreeableness and Emotional Stability were the best predictors of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Observer ratings of personality accounted for incremental variance in job performance (in‐role performance and OCB) beyond that accounted for by general self‐ratings. However, contrary to our expectations, work‐specific (i.e., contextual) self‐ratings of personality generally did not account for incremental variance in job performance beyond that accounted for by general self‐ratings.     

“Dark Side” Personality Styles as Predictors of Task,Contextual, and Job Performance

Many meta‐analyses and hundreds of primary studies have been carried out on the criterion‐oriented validity of personality measures for predicting job performance. The Five‐Factor Model of personality has been used as a frame for analyzing the empirical evidence. However, the research in industrial, work and organizational psychology has not examined the relationship between the dysfunctional tendencies of personality and the personality disorders as described in DSM‐IV (Axis II) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and job performance. The present paper examines the relationship between job performance and the dysfunctional personality styles included in a non‐clinical personality inventory developed to assess personality tendencies related to the dysfunctional (normal) personality styles and the personality disorders in work settings. This inventory assesses 14 dysfunctional personality styles and was given to a sample of 85 applicants. The job performance was rated by the direct supervisor 8 months later, and three measures were obtained: task performance, contextual performance, and overall job performance. The results showed that the seven dysfunctional personality styles (suspicious, shy, sad, pessimistic, sufferer, eccentric, and risky) predicted the three measures of job performance. The egocentric personality style negatively predicted contextual performance. Finally, the submitted style predicted task performance. With the exception of the risky personality style, the rest of the styles mainly consisted of Neuroticism. Implications for the research and practice of personnel selection are discussed.     

Personality and absenteeism: a meta‐analysis of integrity tests

Until recently, research focus has been on a variety of demographic, attitudinal, and organizational variables in predicting and explaining absenteeism. If personality traits predict absenteeism, then it may be possible to use measures of these traits to identify and select job applicants and thereby reduce absenteeism rates. In this research, our goal was to examine whether integrity tests could be used to predict absenteeism. Meta‐analysis was applied to studies of the validity of pre‐employment integrity tests for predicting voluntary absenteeism. Twenty‐eight studies based on a total sample of 13 972 were meta‐analysed. The estimated mean predictive validity of personality‐based integrity tests was 0.33. This operational validity generalized across various predictor scales, organizations, settings, and jobs (SD_ρ = 0.00). Overt integrity tests, however, showed much lower predictive validity for absenteeism and greater variability than personality‐based tests (ρ = 0.09; SD_ρ = 0.16). The results indicate that a personnel selection approach to reducing absenteeism in organizations may be a useful strategy, particularly if personality‐based integrity tests are utilized. Potential explanations for differences between these results and those found for Big Five measures of personality are offered. Future research investigating models of absenteeism should incorporate the personality constructs assessed by integrity tests. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.