Personality Assessment for Aggression and Workplace Behavior

Introduction to the Study

In "An Integrative Typology of Personality Assessment for Aggression: Implications for Predicting Counterproductive Workplace Behavior," Bing et al. discuss the relevance of personality measures to 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 a 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).

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. Essentially, the CRTA measures biases in a person's reasoning and judgments, as well as revealing cognitive biases when individuals are 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 identifies the mechanisms by which 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 readers to prior literature on the other biases.

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 on how individuals justify their aggressive thoughts and behaviors, with the underlying belief that the reasoning process can predict behavior.

However, the authors go beyond simply presenting CRTA results 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, combined with self-analysis via indirect assessments on the CRTA, provides a potentially powerful aggregate data set.

Research Questions and Hypotheses

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 is that when implicit aggression is high, an increase in passive and indirect counterproductive behaviors will occur as explicit aggression decreases. The third hypothesis is that when both implicit aggression and explicit aggression are low, there will be an increase in prosocial behavior — essentially the converse of the first hypothesis.

To test 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 relevant variables.

Key Findings

The results generally substantiated the hypotheses across all three conditions. Counterproductive work behaviors such as lying, complaining, and general deviance were shown to have cognitive precursors that can be empirically measured. Conditional reasoning and self-report can therefore be valuable tools when used together in the workplace to evaluate potential or existing employees and to prevent dysfunctional behaviors.

The authors note that problems related to aggression and low morale can be harmful to organizations, which is why the findings are significant. 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 assessments of implicit aggression with self-reports, can be helpful in ascertaining hidden tendencies that could be destructive to company culture. The issue related to workplace complaints is also relevant: complaints can function as a form of passive or active aggressive behavior, and human resources departments need to account for multiple types of aggression.

Work Cited

Bing, Mark N. et al. "An Integrative Typology of Personality Assessment for Aggression: Implications for Predicting Counterproductive Workplace Behavior." Journal of Applied Psychology, 2007, Vol. 92, No. 3, pp. 722–744.