W11.a Flashcards
What important outcomes in our lives our personality influence?
Achievement
- Job performance, educational attainment
Longevity/mortality
- Life expectancy, health
Other outcomes
- Relationships, crime, political orientation
Predictive validity/utility of personality
Use measures of personality to make valid inferences or predictions about theoretically relevant or practically useful outcomes.
Why might personality predict outcomes? (Three types of effect)
Direct effects - from the general to the specific
Indirect effects - “mediation”
Interactive/conditional effects - person x environment interactions
History of prediction
Formal assessment of personality and abilities:
Educational contexts
- Early 20th Identification of children requiring alternate education
- Development of SAT during the 1920
Occupational contexts
- Military selection and placement (1915)
- 1950s-1970s: Diversification and mobility of work
- Growth of Human Resources Management
The prediction of achievement on job performance
Meta-analysis
Typically measured in terms of supervisory ratings
‘Integrity tests’ (narrower measure, blends C/A)
Personality is a weaker predictor than measures of cognitive ability (or ‘intelligence’), but adds to the prediction of cognitive tests
Conscientiousness predicts across all occupations (criteria relating to effort)
A, O/Intellect, and (low) N predicts performance in customer service roles
E and (low) N predict management and sales
The prediction of achievement on occupational success
Various indices (e.g., Socioeconomic Index)
After accounting for childhood SES, parental income, and cognitive ability (IQ), personality predicts various indicators of occupational success (income, promotion etc.) up to 47 years later
The prediction of creative achievement
Intellect reflects engagement with semantic information (Science)
Openness engagement with perceptual information (Arts)
The prediction of educational achievement
GPA: A combination of cognitive ability and conscientiousness (only C can) predicts achievement across programs
Educational attainment
e.g., highest level completed education
Openness consistently the strongest B5 predictor;
Educational engagement
Openness predicts intrinsic motivation (interest and enjoyment of study topics) in university students
Reflect choice of college major
Direct effects of personality on achievement
E.g., conscientiousness (most strongly for effort-related criteria)
Being orderly, industrious, organized, hard working, and responsible = performing well in many jobs
Indirect effects of personality on achievement
E.g., Choosing educational and career pathways that ‘fit’ ones personality
- C and selected fields that require structure/order (law, engineering)
- O/intellect and selected fields that require flexibility/creativity (arts, humanities)
Interactive effects of personality on achievement
E.g., Responding to the demands of work
E & N respond to interpersonal challenges
NB: Many pathways may operate simultaneously
Example of Conscientiousness in indirect effects
Study strategies assessed the week before exams
- Deep processing
- Persistence
Use of effortful study strategies explained the relation between conscientiousness and course performance
Example of Extraversion in interactive effects
Extraversion predict specific performance in salespeople when that performance is linked with rewards
Personality traits predict longevity
Health
Psychological well being
Disease risk
Meta analysis: After accounting for childhood SES, parental income, and cognitive ability (IQ), personality predicts various longevity up to 76 years later.
Only openness/intellect does not seem to have a clear link with longevity or health
Protective effect of conscientiousness
Indirect effects via state expressions ( (i.e., health promoting behaviours))
C predicts better health and living longer, explained by engagement in health-promoting behaviours
Changes in C were associated with changes in preventative health behaviours and overall health.
