The validity of ipsative and quasi‐ipsative forced‐choice personality inventories for different occupational groups: A comprehensive meta‐analysis

Abstract

A comprehensive meta-analysis of two types of forced-choice (FC) personality inventories (ipsative and quasi-ipsative) across nine occupational groups (Clerical, Customer Service, Health Care, Managerial, Military, Police, Sales, Skilled Manual, and Supervisory) is reported. Quasi-ipsative measures showed substantially higher operational validity coefficients and validity generalization across all occupations than ipsative measures. Results also showed that, compared with the findings of previous meta-analyses, quasi-ipsative personality inventories are better predictors of job performance than previously thought and that operational validities for ipsative measures are notably congruent with past findings. We conclude that quasi-ipsative scale formats are superior for predicting job performance for all occupational groups. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings for personnel selection are discussed in Conclusion. Practitioner pointsPersonality inventories have been widely used in personnel selection, but it was thought that their predictive validity was small. We found that they are substantially more valid than was previously thought. The traditional opinion among researchers in I/O psychology is that single-stimulus personality inventories (e.g., normative Likert-type scales) have superior predictive validity to FC personality questionnaires (e.g., ipsative inventories), but our research findings suggest that this is not true for quasi-ipsative inventories. In comparison with ipsative and normative personality inventories, quasi-ipsative personality inventories showed higher predictive validity regardless of occupational group. Based on our results, we recommend the use of quasi-ipsative FC personality measures in personnel selection decisions regardless of the occupation group being recruited for.Several meta-analyses conducted over the last 20 years have shown that the Five-Factor Model (FFM) of personality predicts a wide range of performance outcomes, including job performance, training proficiency, counterproductive behaviours, accidents, job satisfaction, leadership, and innovative behaviours in the workplace (Barrick & Mount, 1991;Bartram, 2005;Clarke & Robertson, 2005;Feist, 1998;Hough, 1992 Anderson, & Salgado, 2009;Hurtz & Donovan, 2000;Judge & Bono, 2001;Judge, Rodell, Klinger, Simon, & Crawford, 2013;Salgado, 1997Salgado, , 2002Salgado, , 2003Tett, Rothstein, & Jackson, 1991). Research has also demonstrated that the FFM is a robust framework for grouping the large variety of personality measures developed within the various theoretical approaches (Barrick & Mount, 1991;Hough, 1992;Hurtz & Donovan, 2000;Salgado, 1997;Tett et al., 1991). Across these meta-analytic efforts, conscientiousness and emotional stability were consistently found to be predictors of job performance for all occupations and that the other three personality dimensions were valid predictors for specific criteria and specific occupations (Barrick, Mount, & Judge, 2001).All the meta-analyses mentioned above were c...

A Theoretical Model of Psychometric Effects of Faking on Assessment Procedures: Empirical findings and implications for personality at work

“…This last finding was not anticipated but is important from an applied point of view as it suggests that scales with a large number of items should be used, as they are more robust against the effects of faking on measurement error. This last finding may be one of the reasons why facets show smaller criterion‐oriented validity than the Big Five dimensions for predicting job performance (Salgado, Anderson, & Tauriz, ) due to the attenuation of validity since the reliability of facets is smaller than the reliability of the Big Five.…”

“…Another limitation of this study is that the RR estimates found here are applicable only to single‐stimulus (SS) personality inventories. At present, they are not applicable to forced‐choice (FC) inventories (Salgado & Tauriz, ; Salgado, Moscoso et al, ). Although FC inventories may be affected by faking, the effect may be different both for the mean and the SD .…”

Predicting expatriate effectiveness: The role of personality, cross‐cultural adjustment, and organizational support

“…However, this situation has changed with the current consensus around the Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality as a framework for organizing personality variables and orienting research. In the last 25 years, several meta‐analyses have examined the validity of the FFM for predicting organizational criteria (e.g., Judge, Rodell, Klinger, Simon, & Crawford, ; Salgado, Anderson, & Tauriz, ; Salgado & Tauriz, ).…”

Toward a periodic table of personality: Mapping personality scales between the five-factor model and the circumplex model.

“…For meta-analyses of the criterion validities of personality constructs, this means that researchers will be able to organize the scales of different PIs into facet categories in a much more precise and accurate way than previously possible. For example, the data from classical meta-analyses such as the Barrick and Mount (1991) and Salgado (1997) studies of personality and performance could now be re-analyzed, organizing the scales of the included PIs around our facet framework (see also, Salgado, Anderson & Tauriz, 2014). Among the PIs included by Salgado (1997) in his meta-analyses were the 16PF5, HPI and NEO inventories.…”