Personality Testing and Employee Selection - Assignment Example

? Personality Testing and Employee Selection “Power is the disciplining of knowledge itself controlled through such facets of society as socialization and division of labor” - Foucault (1972, p. 216) Introduction One may astonish that why the researcher has started the discussion on “personality tests as an employee selection technique” by using almost 40 years old reference? Well, the history of research on personality theories is no less than 100 years old and above lines are very much pertinent to present course of discussion. Foucault (1972) interchangeable used the term personality and power in order to state their dependency on external instigators such as political ideology, demographic orientation, family heritage, cultural orientation etc. In this paper, the researcher will shed light on various facets of personality and also discuss viability of personality testing as selection tool in the organization. But, the paper will be incomplete without the discussion of different personality theories hence in the next section, the researcher will shed light on different personality theories. Personality Theories- Backbone of Personality Testing Ellis, Abrams and Abrams (2008) defined personality as the set variety of schemas such as belief, attitude, personal trait, mindscape, social cognition etc. Important thing to remember is that, organizations conduct personality testing on the basis of standard parameters set for all the natural human being hence there are chances that the personality testing might fail to identify all the skill areas of the future employee. However, Lee (2004) pointed out that although employers expect to test the trustworthiness of the employee during personality testing but in very few cases, these employers become successful to judge social cognition of the recruit through personality testing. Careful consideration of the research works of Zimmerman (2008) also reveals that measuring all the personal traits of the employee seems improbable through personality testing. The study will discuss following personality theories in order to find justification of personality test. Knowledge Theory Yolles (2007 and 2008) developed knowledge theory in order to explain particular personality aspect of people and the model can be successfully used to understand personality trait of employees. According to Yolles (2007 and 2008), people show the tendency to orient their personality trait in any one of the two knowledge types such as identification and elaboration. Perceived reality of people is formulated by sensing the external environment through 5 organs but sensate reality is developed when people are forced to go through certain process. Maruyama (2002) also found that personality of people is developed through perceived reality and not by sensate reality. In such context, employees can have following personality traits. Knowledge Type Characteristics Enantypes Identifiers Those employees who are able to accommodate the knowledge and translate the knowledge into actions. These employees tend to show knowledge competency during personality testing. Sensatist These employees show the tendency to develop existing idea but fail to show creativity during personality test. Ideationalist These employees are good at visualizing new solution but lacks in knowledge competency to formulate the knowhow. Elaborators These employees show the personality trait of acquiring knowledge and also planning the course of action. Dramatist These employees have narrative thinking structure and show high level of interpersonal skills during work. Patterner These employees show the persistent curiosity towards external world and they are also good at problem solving. [Note: Actual theory was created by Yolles (2008) in context to human personality and in this paper; the researcher has used the model for personality of employees which are subjected to personality testing] Mindscape Theory Mindscape theory is probably the most recent development in the field of personality literature. Hentschel and Sumbadze (2002) stated that personality of people is created on the basis of meaningful coincidence or synchronicity. According to the model, people gather information from external sources and then analyze the meaning of the information and then they try to align their personality on the basis of the understanding of the meaning. Figure 1: Mindscape Model (Source: Yolles and Fink, 2009, p. 1476) According to the above diagram, a person judge an event on the basis of information collected from external environment and then adopts a particular trait approach. According to mindscape theory four types of characteristics such as judging, perceiving, feeling and thinking is the four main constituent of personality. But, Judge, Heller and Mount (2002) pointed out that in many cases; action of people is directed by intuition which has very weak relation with personality. For example, according to the above model, temperament of people is subjected to external information such as political orientation of the country while people go for transformation purely on the basis of intuitions. Five Factor Model Judge, Heller and Mount (2002) conducted meta-analysis of personality traits and found that personality of human beings can be directed by five types of personality factors such as Neuroticism, Extroversion, and Openness to Experience, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. According to theory of Neuroticism, an employee might show jealousy or unnecessary worry for performing a task (mental instability) while according to the concept of Agreeableness; an employee might have the personality trait of cooperation or consideration (stable mental condition). An employee blessed with Conscientiousness personality trait show high level of interpersonal skills for solving a particular problem. Judge, Heller and Mount (2002) stated that openness to new idea and extroversion are directly linked with positive mentality of the person to view the world. An extrovert personality always shows the tendency to take risks and often, their actions are based on gut fillings and intuition (Judge, Heller and Mount, 2002). Figure 2: Personality Meta-Analysis (Source: Judge, Heller and Mount, 2002) According to the regression analysis, personality of the human beings is mostly affected by extroversion and Conscientiousness while there is very little chance exists for openness to new experience to direct the personality. Such findings of the meta-analysis coincide with mindscape theory proposed by Hentschel and Sumbadze (2002) that personality of people is directed by their disposition to external information. Organizations also test the above mentioned personality factors of the employee through personality testing. Up to this point of the essay, the researcher has discussed different personality theory which is being used to develop the basis of personality testing and now, the researcher will shed light on different aspects of personality testing. Personality Testing & Employment Selection It is evident from the research work of Huczynski and Buchanan (2006) that employees develop the organizational dynamics hence selection of employees play pivotal role in ensuring the continuation of performance delivery. Huczynski and Buchanan (2006) also pointed out that organizational behavior of workers decide the equilibrium of the organizational environment and in such context, it can be assumed that Huczynski and Buchanan (2006) were talking about personality of employees. Judge, Heller and Mount (2002) stressed on the fact the personality of the employee can help them to become successful in particular job designation. For example, there is stark difference exist in terms of job settings, job responsibility, knowledge disposition, skill set etc between a sales person and scientist working in R&D section of the same organization. Taking help of the Knowledge Theory, it can be said that there must be personality contrast exist between a sales person and scientist working in R&D section of the same organization. In such context, if an organization designs the same personality test for selection of employees in different departments then can the psychological theories support such practice? A definitive answer to the question is no because aim of the personality testing is not to select employees with standardized personalities. After reading much in the essay, readers might ask for definition of personality testing. But, to be precise, Murphy and Dzieweczynski (2005) rightly argued that there cannot be a standardized definition of personality testing. Hogan (2005) conjecturally defined of personality testing as the measure technique design with some socio cognitive questions in order to judge personality of the applicant for the job or existing employee. By using personality testing, employers try to judge whether the employee is competent enough to perform the job responsibilities and work pressure or not. However, Murphy and Dzieweczynski (2005) criticized personality testing as incompetent tool to measure future productivity of workers and these scholars also pointed out job applicants can pretend fake personalities during personality test in order to grab the job. But, Hogan (2005) found opposite result while surveying job applicants and on the basis of the findings, Hogan (2005) stated that a well constructed personality test can judge the personality of employees with significant confidence. In such context, Murphy and Dzieweczynski (2005) used term impression management in order to predict the tendency of job applicants to pretend a fake personality during personality tests. Murphy and Dzieweczynski (2005) gave example of an applicant looking for job in marketing division of an organization, during personality test, the very person faked that he is very gregarious and extrovert in nature in order to convince the employer to judge him as the suitable candidate for sales & marketing but in actual practices, the person had introvert personality which was suitable for creative work. Now, that is the example of impression management where employees cheat the personality test in order to create positive impression of themselves among employers. Hogan, Barrett and Hogan (2007) gave examples of organizations use separate personality tests for recruiting candidates for different departments. Hogan, Barrett and Hogan (2007) found four loop holes in personality tests and these loopholes can be summarized in the following manner; 1- Hogan, Barrett and Hogan (2007) pointed out that some job applicants have the ability to alter their personality traits as per the requirement of the job in temporal fashion and personality test wouldn’t be able to find that these job applicants are faking their personality for getting selected. 2- Neuropsychological devices are required to test base faking rate during personality testing or repeatedly conduct the personality testing in order to identify the fake personality of job applicants (Hogan, Barrett and Hogan, 2007). But, both of the mentioned processes are cost intensive and organizations might not be ready to spend this much money on individual applicant. 3- Hogan, Barrett and Hogan (2007) pointed out that it is very hard to formulate a statistical significance model which can accurately correlate personality of job applicants and their future job performance. Generally, personality testing use social desirability variables to measure predictability of performance but there are cases, such social desirability variables might work poorly in real world business setting. 4- Smith, Hanges and Dickson (2001) pointed out that faking of personality inventory during personality testing is common phenomenon and after a candidate gets passed by faking personality and get the job, line managers understand find that they have picked up the wrong person who’s competency doesn’t match with result of personality testing. Smith, Hanges and Dickson (2001) found that there are employers who warn job applicants against faking but in most of the cases, desperate candidates ignore such warnings. Real Life Examples Hogan, Barrett and Hogan (2007) conducted survey on more than 5,000 job applicants who had applied for customer service job in transportation industry. Almost 90% of respondents stated that they were asked by the employer to sit for two personality tests named as Sales Achievement Predictor (SalesAP) and Customer Service Aptitude Profile (CSAP). In the SalesAP, job applicants were asked personality questions related to extroversion, competitiveness, motivation, goal orientation and assertiveness while in case of CSAP, applicants were asked personality questions related to communication, gregariousness, modesty, politeness and soft skills etc. Important thing to notice is that in case of the each personality test, employers tried to measure five factors mentioned in psychology theory literature such as Neuroticism, Extroversion, and Openness to Experience, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. Conclusion It is evident from the above discussion that personality tests are being designed on the basis of psychological models and personality theories. The researcher has found there are some loopholes exist in personality testing practice and employers should think about alternative course of actions in order to prevent employees from pretending fake personality during the test. Employers should think beyond of incorporating of social desirability variables in personality testing in order to increase predictability of the test. Reference List Ellis, A., Abrams, M. and Abrams, L. D., 2008. Personality theories: Critical perspectives. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Foucault, M., 1972. The archaeology of knowledge and the discourse on language. New York, NY: Pantheon Books. Hentschel, U. and Sumbadze, N., 2002. Individual differences in mindscapes and attitudes. Social Behavior and Personality, 30(3), pp. 213-22. Hogan, J., Barrett, P. and Hogan, R., 2007. Personality Measurement, Faking, and Employment Selection. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(5), pp. 1270–1285. Hogan, R., 2005. In defense of personality measurement. Human Performance, 18, pp. 331–341. Huczynski, A. and Buchanan, D., 2006. Organizational behavior: An introductory text. 7th ed. Harlow: Financial Times Prentice Hall. Judge, T. A., Heller, D. and Mount, M. K., 2002. 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