IDENTIFYING POTENTIALLY USEFUL PERSONALITY CONSTRUCTS FOR EMPLOYEE SELECTION

PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY 1991.50

IDENTIFYING POTENTIALLY USEFUL PERSONALITY CONSTRUCTS FOR EMPLOYEE SELECTION

PATRICK H. RAYMARK The Ohio State University-Newark

MARK J. SCHMIT Department of Management

University of Florida

Bowling Green State University ROBERT rd. GUION

The Personality-Related Position Requirements Form (PPRF), a job analysis form to be used in making hypotheses about personality predictors of job performance, is described. The Big Five personality factors provided an organizing framework for the PPRF. Subsequent development resulted in identifying 12 specific sets of items for facets of each of the Big Five. A study was conducted by gathering job descriptions on 260 different jobs to determine if the PPRF could reliably differentiate jobs; such evidence was found. The PPRF is offered to both researchers and practitioners for use, refinement, and further testing of its technical merits and intended purposes.

Description of the Practice

Douglas Jackson, in his presidential address to the Division of Eval- uation and Measurement of the American Psychological Association (Jackson, 1990), said that the dormancy in the use of personality variables for personnel selection can be laid to job analytic procedures that do not encourage their consideration. Although some job analysis forms appear to identify some aspects of personality-related position requirements (e.g., Position Analysis Questionnaire, PAQ; McCormick,

The authors, in addition to Pilar Delaney, Michelle Brodke, Bob Hayes, Sandra Martens, Karen Mattimore, Laura Mattimore, and Murray Weaver were the members of the team that developed the instrument we describe in this article; though their tenures in the groupvaried widely, all of them made significant contributions. Gracious thanks are extended to all the individuals who contributed their time, effort, opinions, or comments on the project.

Mark J. Schmit is now with Personnel Decisions International, Minneapolis, MN. Correspondence and requests for reprints should be addressed to Patrick H. Raymark,

Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University-Newark Campus, 1179 University Drive, Newark, OH 43055.

Ken Perlman with Lucent technologies was the guest Editor on this article.

COPYRIGHT 0 1997 PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY, INC.

723

724 PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

Mecham, & Jeanneret, 1977), these attempts have been rather unsys- tematic and incomplete in their coverage of potentially relevant personality variables.

Ideas for selection procedures may come from a hunch, other psychologists, or test catalogs, but modern literature urges the development of testable hypotheses about predictor and criterion construct variables and the choice of valid instruments for measuring them (Binning & Bar- rett, 1989; Landy, 1986). Selection hypotheses generally emerge from an understanding of jobs based on job analysis. Most job analysis in- ventories are quite clear in providing help for hypothesizing ability or aptitude variables tliat might make good predictors but are less clear for those traits more closely associated with personality variables. If a job analysis method emphasizes only cognitive or psychomotor aspects of jobs, it is likely that only cognitive or psychomotor predictors will be hypothesized. Therefore, an approach to job analysis explicitly directed to generating hypotheses about relevant personality variables would be helpful. This paper discusses the development of such an instrument, the Personality-Related Position Requirements Form (PPRF).

This instrument was designed to identify aspects of work potentially related to individual differences in personality. If personality traits are relevant to some aspects of job performance, and if they are not identified and measured, they will be overlooked for selection. Although the PPRF was designed to aid in the identification and development of selection hypotheses that certainly does not guarantee that the identified personality variables will successfully predict performance. The value of the PPRF is as a supplement to other job analysis techniques which will allow a more thorough examination of the job performance domain, specifically that part of the domain that is related to personality variables.

Development of the PPRF

On the basis of several job analysis forms, personality measures, and job analysis reviews (Gael, 1988, Harvey, 1991), it was decided to use the following stem for all items: “Effective performance in this position requires the person to.. . ” A second decision was to use the following 3-point response scale format: 0 = not require4 1 = helpful and 2 = es- sentiaL The initial stage of item generation (conducted without the aid of a theoretical framework) resulted in a list of 185 statements that might

A technical report, containing the entire PPRF, scoring instructions, and additional details concerning the development and scaling of the PPRF is available upon request from the first author.

PATRICK H. RAYMARK ET AL. 725

be used in the analysis of jobs and lead to the formation of hypotheses about personality variables as predictors of job performance. An attempt to identify a work-related structure by sorting the position requirement items was unsuccessful; therefore, existing taxonomies were considered (Browne & Howarth, 1977; Goldberg, 1981; Norman, 1963; Wiggins, 1980). The taxonomy that seemed to fit the position requirement items best was that tagged as the “Big Five” (see Barrick & Mount, 1991; Digman, 1990; Goldberg, 1993; McCrae & John, 1992).

Research group members sorted the 185 items into five separate stacks to represent the five factors. Items not readily placed in any of these categories were placed in a sixth labeled “Other.” Only those items placed in the same major dimension in 80% or more of the sorts were retained, reducing the number of items to 92. Although these remaining items were consistently allocated to their respective Big Five factor, items within the five groups seemed to suggest a variety of personality characteristics. At this point it became clear that the Big Five factors were too broad to describe work-related employee characteristics, a problem noted by others (e.g., Costa & McCrae, 1992; Goldberg, 1981, 1990; Hogan, 1987; Hough, 1992; McCrae & Costa, 1985; Nor- man, 1963). Accordingly, the items were subdivided within the major factor groupings into smaller but more homogenous clusters. An initial attempt resulted in 54 clusters of items; subsequent analyses winnowed this down to 12 clusters. Each cluster of items was then named on the basis of the items contributing to it and on the Big Five factor to which it had been assigned. Some subdimensions (i.e., item clusters) had very few items, so 44 new items were written to ensure that the content domain of each subdimension had been adequately captured; therefore, the item count was increased to 136. The taxonomy was hierarchical; each subdimension was conceptuaily linked to one of the Big Five factors. The 12 subdimensions, their definitions, and the Big Five dimension to which they were assigned are presented in Bble 1.

Forty-four psychologists with extensive knowledge of psychological aspects of work, personality theory, or both were asked to judge whether each item was relevant to any of three subdimensions (the task was limited to three subdimensions because a request to make judgments for all 136 items on 12 subdimensions would have imposed unreasonable time demands on judges). Responses were received from 41 of the 44 judges. Xventy-four items were not reliably allocated to the appropriate subdimension and were therefore dropped, leaving 112 items. A new questionnaire was developed to scale (i.e., weight) the importance of the items within the subdimensions. Each set of position requirements was formed into a paired-comparison questionnaire (i.e., one set of paired items was developed for each of the 12 dimensions, using each


TABLE 1

Brief Definitions and Sample Items for the Subdimenswns of the PPRF ~

I. Surgency 1. General Leadership: a tendency to take charge of situations or groups, to

influence or motivate behavior or thinking of other persons. Sample items: Lead group activities through exercise of power or authority; Xike control in group situations.

2. Interest in Negotiation: an interest in bringing together contesting parties through mediation or arbitration or as a contesting party, an ability and willingness to see and understand differing points of view. Sample items: Negotiate on behalf of the work unit for a fair share of organizational resources; Mediate and resolve disputes at individual, group, or organizational levels.

3. Achievement StrivinK an ambition and desire to achieve, to win, or to do better than others, a desire to exert effort to advance, to do better than one’s own prior achievement. Sample items: Work beyond established or ordinary work period to perfect services or products; Work to excel rather than work to perform assigned tasks.

11. Agreeableness 4. Friendlv Diswsition: a tendency to be outgoing in association with other

people, to seek and enjoy the company of others, to be gregarious, to interact easily and well with others. Sample items: Represent and promote the organization in social contacts away from work; Attract new clients or customers through friendly interactions.

5. Sensitivitv to Interest of Others: a tendency to be a caring person in relation to other people, to be considerate, understanding, and to have genuine concern for others. Sample items: Listen attentively to the work-related problems of others; Give constructive criticism tactfully.

6. Cooperative or Collaborative Work bndenw: a desire or willingness towork with others to achieve a common purpose and to be part of a group, a willingness and interest in assisting clients, customers, or coworkers. Sample items: Work as part of an interacting work group; Work with one or more co-workers to complete assigned tasks.

Ill. Conscientiousness 7. General ’Ifustworthiness: a pattern of behavior that leadsone to be trusted by

other people with property, money, or confidential information, a demonstration of honesty, truthfulness, and fairness. Sample items: Refuse to share or release confidential information; Make commitments and follow through on them.

8. Adherence to a Work Ethic: a tendency to work hard and to be loyal, to give a full day’s work each day and to do one’s best to perform well, a tendency to follow instructions and accept company goals, policies, and rules. Sample items: See things that need to be done and do them without waiting for instructions; Work until task is done rather than stopping at quitting time.

9. Thorounhness and Attentiveness to Details: a tendency to carry out tasks with attention to every aspect, a meticulous approach to one’s own task performance. Sample items: Examine all aspectsof written reports to be sure that nothing has been omitted; Remain attentive to details over extended periods of time.


lhble 1 (continued)

I\! Emotional Stability 10. Emotional Stabilitv: a calm, relaxed approach to situations, events, or peo-

ple, emotionally controlled responses to changes in the work environment situations. Sample items: Adapt easily to changes in work procedures; Keep cool when confronted with conflicts.

V Intellectance 11. Desire to Generate Ideas: a preference for situations in which one can de-

velop new things, ideas, or solutions to problems through creativity or insight, or try new or innovative approaches to tasks or situations. Sample items: Help find solutions for the work problems of other employees or clients; Develop innovative approaches to old or everyday problems.

12. Rndencv to Think Thinas Throuah: a habit of mentally going through procedures or a sequence of probable events before taking action, a tendency to seek and evaluate information, and toconsider consequences. Sample items: Solve corn- plex problems one step at a time; Analyze past mistakes when faced with similar problems

pair once). For each pair of position requirements, the respondents were instructed to “Check the statement in each pair that, in your judgment, more strongly suggests a need for the trait.” Questionnaires were sent to 145 psychologists, including the original 44. Completed questionnaires were returned by 100 of the 145 psychologists. Responses were analyzed using Thurstone’s Case V (Ghiselli, Campbell, & Zedeck, 1981), the results of which were used to eliminate 5 items and to scale the remaining 107 items for the final form of the job analysis questionnaire.

This paper describes an initial test of the usefulness of the form for differentiating various jobs on personality-related dimensions. Reliable differentiation of jobs is a requirement for an effective approach to job analysis. Accordingly, it was important to determine the extent to which (a) the 12 subdimensions could be discriminated, and (b) jobs could be described reliably.

Sample Charactetistics

A sample of positions was obtained through various recruitment efforts. Each member of the research team sent forms to friends, relatives, and acquaintances; a call for participants was made at an annual confer- ence of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology; and several conscientious senior-level undergraduate and graduate students were recruited to distribute forms to friends and relatives. Data collec- tors were instructed to recruit participants who had held their current position in an organization for more than 6 months and worked at least


20 hours per week. In a few cases, consultants, whose contracts with clients had included extensive job analysis, completed forms from the results of their analyses, using information they had obtained in consensus meetings with job incumbents.

This unusual approach to job sampling was intentional. Alternative approaches might have included administering the PPRF for jobs within one or a few organizations, or perhaps a mailing asking for a sample of jobs within a national survey of organizations. The first of these options seemed poor because it could exacerbate organizational idiosyncracies in job definitions; organizational characteristics would be seriously con- founded with job-characteristics. Although some such confounding is realistic, too much of it could spuriously reduce the extent to which the dimensions discriminate among jobs. A sample by mail for a prelimi- nary pilot study seemed questionable partly because of expense and even more because of the absence of any real control over the care exerted in completing the descriptions. The procedure chosen was expected to provide a substantial variety of jobs described by people who, either because of personal involvement or professional standards, could be expected to complete the forms carefully.

Job descriptions were obtained for 260 different jobs from a total of 283 completed forms. For eight of these jobs, more than one incumbent in a single organization completed the inventory for the same job; their responses were consolidated into a single consensus form. That is, an item by item comparison was made across forms and a final rating was based on majority agreement on the item; where there was no clear majority, the higher rating was favored (i.e., the rating leaning toward “essential”). The 260 jobs were demonstrably different, but not as diverse as desired. They were assigned six-digit occupational codes from the Dictionav of Occupational Titles (US. Department of Labor, 1991). Two members of the research group assigned a code number, based, if possible, on the job title given by the incumbent and/or on personal knowledge of the incumbents job. Where the job title was vague or could not be matched in the DOT, a code deemed appropriate by both researchers was assigned, and consensus was sought from a second pair of coders for a final decision. Consensus was not reached for six of the job titles.

The first digit of the code identifies 1 of 10 primary occupational categories; tallying these categories shows the danger of the sampling method used. About 4 jobs in 10 were managerial, more than a quar- ter of them were in the clerical or sales classifications, and nearly that many were professional or technical jobs. Very few of what are typically called blue-collar jobs were in this sample. Specifically, the tally was: 0- Professional and technical occupations (21.5%); 1-Managerial occupa-


TABLE 2 Correlations and Internal Consistency Reliabilities

of the 12 Subsets of the PPRF ( N = 260)

1 ( 3 5 ) 2 .65 (.84) 3 .29 .37 (.83) 4 .24 .42 .25 (.72) 5 .48 .52 .18 .38 (.76) 6 .2E .33 .41 .13 .36 (.78) 7 .22 .32 .25 .46 -35 .19 (.72) 8 .24 .29 .44 .I9 .21 .38 .33 (.a) 9 .23 .37 .58 .14 .20 .36 .24 .49 (.92)

10 .34 .38 .19 .38 .56 .26 .41 .32 .17 (.78) 11 .45 5 4 .56 .29 .33 .39 .21 .40 S O .24 (.%I) 12 .39 .53 .59 .26 .32 .39 .22 .43 .70 .29 .68 (.88)

Note: Numbers on the diagonal are alpha coefficients; all correlations are significant at p < .05.

tions (38.8%); 2-Clerical and sales occupations (27.7%); 3Service occupations (7.3%); &Agriculture, fishery, forestry, and related (0%); 5- Processing occupations (0.8%); &Machine trade occupations (0%); 7- Benchwork occupations (0.8%); &Structural work occupations (0.8%); %Miscellaneous occupations (2.3%).

It is not surprising that the data-people-things part of the classifica- tion code indicated that many of these jobs were fairly highly concerned with data or with people, but most were quite low in responsibility for things. Insofar as personality variables are concerned with interpersonal relationships, and many of them are, this skewing of the distribution may not pose a serious problem. The paucity of jobs emphasizing things, however, means that some of the 12 subdimensions may be under represented in the current data.

Evidence Supporting the fiactice

Diflerentiation of Occupational Categories

The 12 set scores were determined for each of the 260 job descriptions using the scaled items. The correlations among the set scores were then calculated to determine if there was a useful level of scale independence. Tdble 2 presents the correlations among the 12 sets and the


internal consistency reliability (i.e., alpha) of each set. All but one subdimension (i.e., Set 8, Adherence to a Work Ethic) had alpha coefficients higher than .70, indicating a satisfactory degree of internal consistency within subdimensions. Further, the low variability of the means for Set 8 across jobs (as will be seen in Bble 3 below) suggests that this low co- efficient alpha may be artifactual. Overall, the pattern of correlations suggested that an acceptable degree of scale independence had been achieved; the mix of correlations was substantial, all positive but many were low.

'Ib demonstrate that the 12 subdimensions were useful in differentiating among jobs, the 260job descriptions were clustered into occupational groups to form several sample job description profiles for different types of jobs. The first three digits of the DOT code assigned to each of the 260 jobs represented the occupational group to which the jobs belonged, the first digit indicating the broadest category. The 3-digit occupational groups with more than one job in them were selected for each of the nine 1-digit (i.e., broadest) DOT categories, providing 12 profiles; these are presented in %ble 3. All of the mean set scores are in a range of 0 to 2, consistent with the 0 = not required 1 = helpful, and 2 = essential scale format.

An examination of Xble 3 suggests that the 12 sets differentiate among the occupational groups in logical ways. For example, general leadership scores were highest in management (DOT #s 187 and #189), education (DOT #092), and firefighter (DOT #373) occupation categories, and lowest for janitorial (DOT #382), customer service (DOT #239), and cashier categories (DOT #211). Friendly disposition scores were highest in the sales clerk (DOT #290) and cashier occupatjon groups, and lowest in the janitorial categories. The personnel administration (DOT #166), management, and accounting (DOT #160) occupation groups had high scores for the thoroughness and attentiveness to details dimension and the tendency to think things through dimension. General trustworthiness scores were highest for cashiers and tellers. These are just a few examples of logical relationships between the PPRF set scores and the job duties of the represented occupational groups; more can be gleaned by close examination of lhble 3.

Also noteworthy is the lack of differentiation for some dimensions across occupation groups. Consistent with the finding that conscientiousness is important across many jobs (Bamck & Mount, 1991), at least two of the three conscientiousness dimensions (i.e., subdimensions 7,8 and 9) had mean scores greater than 1 for each of the occupation groups.

Each of the 12 profiles in Bble 3 represented a group of jobs, rather than one particular job. Thus, it is important to estimate the degree of consistency of mean ratings across groups within each occupational

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PATRICK H. RAYh4ARK ET AL. 733

category. Thus, an intraclass correlation of an average (Guilford & Fruchter, 1973; Mean Square between set rating minus Mean Square for residuals divided by Mean Square for residuals) was calculated using each set score as a rating. For example, in the DOT #032 group, a 12 x 8 matrix of subdimensions by raters was analyzed. The average ratings had adequate levels of rater agreement ranging from .66 to .92 (see 'Ihble 3). These coefficients represent the expected correlations of the averaged set scores with averaged set scores from a similar sized group of raters drawn from the same population.

Reiiubility of the PPRF in Describing Jobs

The responses across raters of the same job in the same organization can be used to determine how reliable the PPRF is in describing jobs. Data were available for four positions for which PPRFs were completed independently by incumbents in the same organization: Brewery Super- visor (7 incumbents); Production-line Manager (5); Sales Associate (5); and Computer Programmer (4). An intraclass correlation of the average ratings was computed for each of the 12 sets for each job. An overall intraclass correlation was then derived for each job by calculating the mean of these 12 coefficients. For example, for Set 1 (i.e., 9 items) ratings by the Brewery Supervisors, a 9 x 7 matrix of items by raters was analyzed. The same was done for Sets 2-12; these 12 coefficients were then summed and divided by 12. The average intraclass correlations were .97 for the Brewery Supervisor job, .89 for the Production-line Manager, .90 for the Sales Associate job, and .85 for the Computer Programmer job. These findings suggest that incumbents can consistently agree on the importance of the PPRF's behavior clusters for a job, and that a sta- tistical combination of rating forms might yield reliable job information relevant to the personality domain.

Implicatiom for Practice

The PPRF has now gone through several rounds of revision and field testing. A large number of people have been able to use it to describe a variety of jobs. The PPRF has dimensions of important work behaviors that were found to be internally consistent and not redundant. The 12 sets appeared to be effective in the differentiation of occupational categories. Finally, the intrarater reliability of the 12 sets was demonstrated. Indeed, the use of four or five raters to describe a job with the PPRF was found to result in very good reliability estimates. In summary, the evidence suggests that this instrument can prove useful in the development


of hypotheses about the relationships between personality predictors and performance criteria.

The major question left to be answered is whether the PPRF actually does assist in identifying valid personality predictors of job performance. This is likely to be a difficult question to answer, given the current tech- nology for the measurement of personality traits. For now, users must infer, on the basis of limited information about personality measures, which instrument might fit the scales and then conduct the necessary empirical validation work to test these hypotheses.

It is worth noting that the search for potentially useful personality variables on the basis of the PPRF need not be limited to those subdimensions that are considered “helpful” or “essential” to effective performance.2 It is possible that a subdimension evaluated as “not required for effective performance may be indicative of a predictor that is negatively correlated with performance (e.g., although Surgency may be rated as “not required” for structured team settings, low Surgency scores may identify higher performing workers). Therefore, although the PPRF is intended to help in hypothesis development, it should not be viewed as a substitute for a user’sprofessional judgment. If one or two of the 12 item sets dominate the description of a job, the user may infer both personality traits and criterion constructs appropriate to those sets (or to the most descriptive items in them), but neither trait nor criterion constructs are discrete categories. As Hofstee, de Raad, and Goldberg (1992) pointed out, different uses of a personality trait may emphasize different aspects of the trait (or item set). Different instruments may differ in how well they match different aspects of a trait, that is, have different construct validities for the different specifics of trait definition.

Nevertheless, evidence should be accumulated to show whether hypotheses developed with the help of the PPRF tend to be supported in practical use. So far, one study has been conducted that used the PPRF to form hypotheses about the relationship between personality test scores and both training and job performance. Valid predictions were made by matching scale content definitions of scales from the Mil- lon Index of Personality Styles (Millon, 1994) with definitions of PPRF dimensions judged by subject matter experts to be essential for successful performance (pp. 103-106). Clearly, much more evidence is needed before the scores on the PPRF scales can be assumed to provide solid evidence that related predictors will be valid. For example, further in- vestigations may examine the extent to which the predictors identified

We thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting this point.


using the PPRF result in higher validities than other predictors not hypothesized to be related to job performance for a particular job. This process will have to be conducted for many different types of jobs.

The criterion space also must be considered invalidation efforts. The PPRF should assist in the development of criterion measures related to the assumed underlying personality predictor traits. The behavioral statements on the PPRF are very general in nature, so that they can be used with any job. These general statements can be linked to specific tasks that are thought to lead to successful performance. Performance ratings for these specific tasks, or outcomes associated with the tasks, may be useful for building either specific or global job performance criterion measures.

Certainly, use of the PPRF is likely to be an improvement over the uninformed use of personality predictors in personnel selection. Some deficiencies in the current study, however, make the results tentative. First, there is limited information about its use in describing blue collar jobs. Second, the Big Five was relied upon as an organizing taxonomy. However, this taxonomy may be incomplete in its coverage of work- related traits (cf. Hough, 1992). For example, there are several low intercorrelations within the clusters of PPRF dimensions falling under each of the Big Five factors. Because the PPRF dimensions have been linked to their most appropriate Big Five factor and have been shown to be internally consistent, the low within-category scale intercorrelations would appear to be due to a limitation in the organizing taxonomy. Therefore, future refinements of the PPRF should consider additional higher order constructs and subdimensions. Referring to work styles rather than to personality, Borman, McKee, and Schneider (1995) provided a similar taxonomy of 7 (not 5) higher-order constructs divided further into a total of 17 lower-order constructs; their taxonomy may offer additions to the 12 dimensions now in the PPRF. Despite the above limitations, the current paper presents a start toward the development of an instrument specifically aimed at personality-related position requirements. At this point, the PPRF is offered to researchers and practitioners so that improvements, refinements, and additional tests of the efficacy of the instrument in generating hypotheses can be conducted on a broad front.

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IDENTIFYING POTENTIALLY USEFUL PERSONALITY CONSTRUCTS FOR EMPLOYEE SELECTION

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