PSYC20009 Lecture 10: Personality & Consequential Outcomes
PSYC20009 Personality & Social Psychology
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LECTURE 10 – Personality and Consequential Outcomes
Prediction & explanation
• Predictive validity/utility: can we use measures of personality to make valid inferences or
predictions about theoretically relevant or practically useful outcomes?
• Kinds of explanations
o Direct effects: from general to specific
o Indirect effects, e.g. via trait expressions or situation selection
o Interactive/conditional effects - person x environment
▪ e.g. differential reactivity to events/situations
• History of prediction
o Lexical hypothesis: important characteristics will, over history, be coded in language
o Formal assessment of personality & abilities
▪ Educational contexts
▪ Binet & Simon (1905, 1908, 1911): identification of children requiring
alternate education
▪ Development of SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) during 1920s
▪ Occupational contexts
▪ Military selection & placement under Robert Yerkes (1915)
▪ 1950s-1970s: diversification and mobility of work
▪ Growth of Human Resources Management
ACHIEVEMENT
Job performance
• Typically measured in terms of supervisory ratings (also others, e.g. sales records)
• Schmidt & Hunter (1998) conducted meta-analysis of 85 years of research
o B5 conscientiousness: r = .31
o Integrity tests (narrower blends, blends conscientiousness & agreeableness): r = .4
o Cognitive tests
▪ Personality a weaker predictor of cognitive ability (or ‘intelligence’), but adds
to prediction of cognitive tests
▪ Cognitive ability alone: r = .48
▪ Cognitive ability + conscientiousness: r = .60
▪ Combining cognitive ability with integrity test: r = .65
▪ Growth of interest in assessment of non-cognitive skills (i.e. personality)
• Barrick & Mount (1991, 1998) meta-analyses focussing just on Big 5
o Conscientiousness predicts across all occupations: r = .20-.23
▪ For ‘will do’ criteria (relating to effort): r = .42
o Extraversion predicted performance well in 2 specific job areas
▪ Management: r = .18; sales: r = .15
• Hurts & Donovan (2000) meta-analyses to check reliability of first studies
o Conscientiousness predicts broadly: r = .20
o Agreeableness, Openness & low Neuroticism predicts performance in customer
service roles
o Extraversion & low Neuroticism predicts in management & sales roles
Occupational success
• Various indices (e.g. Duncan Socioeconomic Index)
• Typically reflect: wages, education required, popular views of desirability, worthiness /
‘prestige'
• Typical top scorers: doctor, dentist, lawyer etc.
• Predictive validity for
o Openness/intellect: r = .18 (Sutin et al., 2009)
o Extraversion: r =.16 (Roberts et al., 2003)
o Conscientiousness: r = .15 (Roberts et al., 2003)
• Roberts et al., 2007: after accounting for childhood SES,
parental income & IQ, personality predicts various
indicators of occupational success up to 47 years later
PSYC20009 Personality & Social Psychology
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Creative achievement
• Distinct aspects (sub-traits) of openness/intellect
o Intellect reflects engagement with semantic information
o Openness engagement with perceptual information
• Kaufman et al., 2015
o Openness —> achievement in the arts
o Intellect —> achievement in the sciences
Educational achievement
• Educational performance (GPA)
o Combination of cognitive ability & conscientiousness predicts achievement across
programs (Kuncel et al., 2001)
o Poropat (2009) predicting school GPA from:
▪ Cognitive ability: r = .25
▪ Conscientiousness: r = .22
▪ Openness/intellect: r = .12
▪ Agreeableness: r = .07
o Only conscientiousness adds to prediction of cognitive ability
• Educational attainment
o Highest level completed/years spent in full time education
o Openness consistently strongest B5 predictor: r = ~.35
• Educational engagement
o Openness predicts:
▪ Intrinsic motivation in university students: r = ~.35
▪ Depth/breadth of reading: r = ~.25
• Choice of college major:
o Extraversion: economics, law, political science, medicine
o Neuroticism: arts, humanities, psychology
o Agreeableness: medicine, psychology, sciences, arts, humanities
o Conscientiousness: science, law, economics, engineering, medicine, psychology
o Openness/intellect: humanities, arts, psychology, political science
Why does personality predict achievement?
• E.g. Direct effects of conscientiousness
o Being orderly, industrious, organised, hard-working & responsible
▪ → performing well in many jobs
o Predicts most strongly for effort-related criteria
• E.g. Indirect effects in choosing educational & career pathways that ‘fit’ one’s personality
o Conscientiousness & selection into fields of study requiring structure/order
o Openness & selection into fields of study requiring flexibility/creativity
o Corker et al., 2012: conscientiousness in 347 US college students at start of semester
▪ Study strategies assessed week before exams began
▪ Course performance based on exams & coursework
▪ Use of effortful study strategies explained relationship between
conscientiousness & course performance
• e.g. Interactive effects in responding to demands of work
o Extraverts may respond well to interpersonal challenges of management roles
o Highly neurotic people may respond poorly to same situations
o Depu & Collins (1999): extraversion theoretically linked with greater motivation by
rewards
▪ Salesforce control systems make heavy use of rewards; management roles
bring a range of rewards
o Stewart (1996): Extraversion should only predict performance in salespeople when
performance is linked with rewards
▪ If new sales rewarded, Extraversion will predict new sales
▪ If customer retention rewarded, Extraversion will predict that
▪ Findings match the expected ‘double dissociation'
• Explanations may exist simultaneously
Document Summary
Prediction & explanation: predictive validity/utility: can we use measures of personality to make valid inferences or predictions about theoretically relevant or practically useful outcomes, kinds of explanations, direct effects: from general to specific. Indirect effects, e. g. via trait expressions or situation selection. Job performance: typically measured in terms of supervisory ratings (also others, e. g. sales records, schmidt & hunter (1998) conducted meta-analysis of 85 years of research, b5 conscientiousness: r = . 31, cognitive tests. Occupational success: various indices (e. g. duncan socioeconomic index, typically reflect: wages, education required, popular views of desirability, worthiness / Creative achievement: distinct aspects (sub-traits) of openness/intellect. Intellect reflects engagement with semantic information: openness engagement with perceptual information, kaufman et al. , 2015, openness > achievement in the arts. Direct effects of conscientiousness: being orderly, industrious, organised, hard-working & responsible, performing well in many jobs, predicts most strongly for effort-related criteria, e. g. If new sales rewarded, extraversion will predict new sales.
