Personality Tests
Personality Tests
Personality tests are designed to systematically elicit information about a
person's motivations, preferences, interests, emotional make-up, and style of
interacting with people and situations. Personality measures can be in the
form of interviews, in-basket exercises, observer ratings, or self-report
inventories (i.e., questionnaires).
Personality self-report inventories typically ask applicants
to rate their level of agreement with a series of statements designed to measure
their standing on relatively stable personality traits. This information is
used to generate a profile used to predict job performance or satisfaction with
certain aspects of the work.
Personality is described using a combination of traits or
dimensions. Therefore, it is ill-advised to use a measure that taps only one
specific dimension (e.g., conscientiousness). Rather, job performance outcomes
are usually best predicted by a combination of personality scales. For
example, people high in integrity may follow the rules and be easy to supervise
but they may not be good at providing customer service because they are not
outgoing, patient, and friendly. The personality traits most frequently
assessed in work situations include: (1) Extroversion, (2) Emotional Stability,
(3) Agreeableness, (4) Conscientiousness, and (5) Openness to Experience.
These five personality traits are often referred to collectively as the Big
Five or the Five-Factor Model. While these are the most commonly measured
traits, the specific factors most predictive of job performance will depend on
the job in question. When selecting or developing a personality scale, it is
useful to begin with inventories that tap the Big Five, but the results from a validity study may indicate some of these traits are
more relevant than others in predicting job performance.
It is important to recognize some personality tests are
designed to diagnose psychiatric conditions (e.g., paranoia, schizophrenia,
compulsive disorders) rather than work-related personality traits. The
Americans with Disabilities Act considers any test designed to reveal such
psychiatric disorders as a "medical examination." Examples of such medical
tests include the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and the
Millon Clinical Multi-Axial Inventory (MCMI). Generally speaking,
personality tests used to make employment decisions should be specifically
designed for use with normal adult populations. Under the Americans with
Disabilities Act, personality tests meeting the definition of a medical
examination may only be administered after an offer of employment has been
made.
Considerations:
- Validity — Personality
tests have been shown to be valid predictors of job performance (i.e.,
they have an acceptable level of criterion-related
validity) in numerous settings and for a wide range of criterion
types (e.g., overall performance, customer service, team work), but tend
to be less valid than other types of predictors such as cognitive ability tests, assessment centers, and work samples and simulations
- Face
Validity/Applicant Reactions — May contain items that do not
appear to be job related (i.e., low face validity) or seem to reveal
applicants' private thoughts and feelings; Applicants may react to
personality tests as being unnecessarily invasive; Items may also be
highly transparent, making it easy for applicants to fake or distort test
scores in their favor
- Administration Method — Can be
administered via paper and pencil or electronically
- Subgroup Differences —
Generally, few, if any, average score differences are found between men
and women or applicants of different races or ethnicities, therefore it is
beneficial to use a personality measure when another measure with greater
potential for adverse impact (e.g., cognitive ability test) is included in the
selection process
- Development Costs — Cost of
purchasing a personality test is typically less expensive than developing
a customized test
- Administration Costs —
Generally inexpensive, requires few resources for administration, and does
not require skilled administrators
- Utility/ROI — High return on
investment if you need applicants who possess strong interpersonal skills
or other job-related specific personality traits
- Common Uses — Typically used to measure whether applicants
have the potential to be successful in jobs where performance requires a
great deal of interpersonal interaction or work in team settings; Less
useful for highly scripted jobs where personality has little room to take
effect; Frequently administered to large groups of applicants as a screen
References:
(See Section VI for a summary of each article)
Barrick, M. R.,
& Mount, M. K. (1991). The Big Five personality dimensions and job
performance: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 44, 1-26.
Hogan, R., Hogan,
J., & Roberts, B. W. (1996). Personality measurement and employment decisions:
Questions and answers. American Psychologist, 51, 469-477.
Hough, L. M.,
Eaton, N. K., 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.
Hough, L. M.,
& Oswald, F. L. (2000). Personnel selection: Looking toward the future — Remembering
the past. Annual Review of Psychology, 51, 631-664.
Tett, R. P.,
Jackson, D. N, & Rothstein, M. (1991). Personality measures as predictors
of job performance: A meta-analytic review. Personnel Psychology, 44,
703-742.
NOTE: The following Society for Industrial and
Organizational Psychology (SIOP) website contains information on Personality
Tests:
http://www.siop.org/workplace/employment%20testing/employment_testing_toc.aspx