Lecture 5 - Personality and Intelligence in the Workplace

Question 1

Define task performance.

Answer 1

The specific job description - what is required in the role that you are working?

Question 2

What does OCB stand for?

Answer 2

Organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB)

Question 3

What is OCB?

Answer 3

The contribution of a worker to their organisation’s goals by improving it’s social and psychological environment.

Question 4

Define counterproductive work behaviours.

Answer 4

Behaviours such as stealing, anti social behaviour which are detrimental to the performance of the organisation.

Question 5

What are 3 criteria that job performance may be assessed on?

Answer 5

• Task performance
• Organisational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB)
• Counter-productive work behaviours

Question 6

What was found to be the biggest predictor of job performance out of all the individual differences, and what is the variance in job performance that this accounts for, according to Maltby et al., (2013) and Furnham (2008)?

Answer 6

Intelligence. Explains 29% of the variance in job performance.

Question 7

What are the two best selection methods in terms of prediction of job performance according to Maltby et al., (2013) and Furnham (2008)?

Answer 7

• Samples of people’s work (second best)

- Structured Interviews (best)

Question 8

Why does intelligence predict so much variance in job performance?

Answer 8

General intelligence, g, predicts training performance, job knowledge, job performance and lifetime productivity.

Question 9

What are the mechanisms through which intelligence is linked to job performance?

Answer 9

• Ability to deal with complexity and mentally manipulate information
• Learning through training - maximises speed, efficiency and generalisability.

Question 10

In terms of maximum performance, what level of conscientiousness is required for high and low complexity jobs? Which study confirmed this?

Answer 10

High complexity - high conscientiousness
Low complexity - average conscientiousness

(Le, 2011)

Question 11

What advice would you give to an employer as to which emotional intelligence test to use and why?

Answer 11

Use either subjective measures, or a mix of subjective and objective at the very least.

When using these measures, EI predicts job performance, but doesn’t when using objective measures as they do not tap into the subjective aspects of EI.

Question 12

Which of the Big 5 is the best predictor of customer service job performance?

Answer 12

Agreeableness.

Question 13

What are the disadvantages of psychological testing?

Answer 13

• Faking responses