An Article on Personality Assessments in Organizations

¶ … Integrative Typology of Personality Assessment for Aggression: Implications for Predicting Counterproductive Workplace Behavior," Bing et al. discuss the relevance of personality measures on organizational behavior and psychology. The authors present a typology of personality that may be particularly relevant from a human resources perspective. Self-reports are central to the personality assessments, as are conditions requiring situational and conditional reasoning. The emphasis in this study is on aggression and aggressive tendencies.

The authors note the methodological weaknesses in prior research using self-reports, as "individuals possessing negative attributes, such as aggression, may be reluctant to reveal these attributes to others," (Bing et al. 722). In fact, research has shown that persons who tend toward aggression can also cultivate false sense of self with "inflated, positive, and inaccurate self-perceptions," (Bing et al. 722). To correct for the biases inherent in self-reports, the authors propose a new method of personality assessment based on "implicit or unconscious cognitions" that underlie the structure of aggression (Bing et al. 722).

1a. What Were the Authors Writing About? To measure indirect precursors to aggression, the authors rely on the Conditional Reasoning Test of Aggression (CRTA). The CRTA helps to prevent methodological biases by shifting focus from self-reports toward measures that can pinpoint indirect and underlying tendencies. Basically, the CRTA measures biases in the person's reasoning and judgments, as well as revealing cognitive biases when asked to explain their actions and motivations.

It is presumed that understanding the implicit reasoning behind aggressive behaviors will lead to better predictability of aggression in the workplace, which can in turn be counterproductive. The CRTA points out the mechanisms whereby persons justify their behaviors, including hostile attribution bias, potency bias, retribution bias, victimization by powerful others bias, derogation of target bias, and social discounting bias. The authors simplify the study by focusing exclusively on hostile attribution bias, while referring to prior literature on other biases that may be of interest to the reader.

Hostile attribution bias is defined as "the tendency to see harmful intent as the motivation behind others' actions," (Bing et al. 723). Persons who demonstrate hostile attribution bias or any other cognitive bias may be more ready, willing, and able to perform aggressive acts and also to justify those acts. The focus of the study is on reasoning, and how individuals justify their aggressive thoughts and behaviors. It is believed that the reasoning process can predict behavior.

However, the authors go beyond simply presenting the results of the CRTA for the sample population and also integrate those findings with self-reports. The result is an integrative method that may prove more accurate and reliable, and therefore of greater use to management professionals. Self-perception as measured by direct self-reports, and self-analysis via indirect assessments on the CRTA provide a potentially powerful aggregate data set. The research includes several core hypotheses.

First, the authors hypothesize that when implicit aggression is high, an increase in "active counterproductive behaviors" will also be high when explicit aggression is present (Bing et al. 725). In other words, there is a direct relationship between implicit aggression, explicit aggression, and counterproductive behaviors. The second hypothesis in this research is that when implicit aggression is which, an increase in passive and indirect counterproductive behaviors will increase when explicit aggression decreases.

The third hypothesis is that when implicit aggression is low and when explicit aggression decreases, there will be an increase in prosocial behavior. This would be similar to a converse of the first hypothesis. To test the results of these three hypotheses, the authors surveyed 62 college students at a large southeastern university in the United States. Three separate studies were designed and implemented in order to measure all the variables and hypotheses. 1b. What Were Their Findings? The results generally substantiated the hypotheses in all three conditions.

Conditional reasoning and self-report can be valuable tools when used together in the workplace setting to evaluate potential or existing employees and to prevent dysfunctional behaviors. Issues like lying, complaining, and general deviance were shown to have cognitive precursors that can be empirically measured. The authors note that problems related to aggression and low morale can be harmful to companies, which is why the findings are important. To more accurately predict the viability of prospective employees, a more comprehensive evaluation and assessment may be warranted by human resources personnel.

The findings also help distinguish between latent and expressive aggression. Many human resources personnel may find it relatively easy to address and recognize the latter but not the former. Measures like those proposed in this study, which combine measures of implicit aggression, can be helpful in ascertaining hidden tendencies that could be destructive to company culture. The issue related to workplace complaints has to do with the use of complaints as a form of passive or active aggressive behavior.

Human resources departments need to take into account multiple types of aggression. 2. How do the Outcomes of this Study Relate to the Workplace? The study was specifically designed with workplace management and human resources issues in mind. The outcomes relate to every aspect of human resources management, from recruitment and hiring to training and retention.

Multiple industries and job types can also be included in the rubric of personality assessments of this type, although the results of the personality assessments would be differentially relevant depending on the needs and nature of the company. The authors note that the integrative method of using self-reports for direct aggression and the CRTA method of assessing indirect aggression can help to predict a wide range of pertinent employee behaviors including lying and deviance.

Many of these behaviors have aggressive cognitions at their root and could be extremely harmful to workplace health and productivity. If human resources personnel are entrusted with the responsibility of selecting, hiring, and maintaining a workforce that supports organizational values and culture, then it is critical to use personality assessment methods like these. These methods help to reduce biases by relying not only on self-reports but also on measures of indirect aggressive tendencies.

The evaluator can help to cull those who would not make a good fit for the company or for the position that the prospective employee desires to fill. Such integrative test methods can also be used for temporary team selection and for matching employees with mentors in a training or reeducation process. 2a.

How Would One Integrate These Findings Into an Employee Selection Process? The findings of this research will prove tremendously helpful for employee selection, which is deemed the "most obvious application of the integrative typology of aggression," (Bing et al. 740). True positives are persons identified as those who live up to high expectations, whereas the true negatives are those who were never hired and who would have performed below standards if they had been. The human resources manager can be empowered by predictive results from tests such as these.

Conditional reasoning is not something that is automatically used or used on a widespread basis, but if it were, human resources managers may make more skillful decisions. Fewer mistakes may be made, and hiring decisions might become more cost-effective at the same time. Likewise, human resources.