Deck 12: Personality Assessment for Selection

Question 1

Raters tend to interpret even the simplest behaviors as signs of underlying traits and motives.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

Self-reports of personality (from self-report inventories)likely produce overestimates of the true predictive validity of the traits.

Answer 2

False

Question 3

Responses to projective techniques may be biased by specific skills (such as verbal or test-taking)of those people being assessed.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

Socially appropriate answers are more likely to result from projective techniques than self-report questionnaires.

Question 5

In powerful situations,individual behavior is more attributable to the known situational roles than to individual traits.

Question 6

Projective techniques could be classified as "powerful testing situations."

Question 7

Personality is highly correlated to other useful selection tools.

Question 8

It is possible to infer personality traits from job analysis data in much the same way as KSAs are inferred.

Question 9

Managers intuitively believe that personality traits matter at work

Question 10

When selecting effective leaders from ineffective ones,research shows that those candidates high in extroversion,openness to experience,and emotional stability experience the greatest success on the job.

Question 11

Research evidence uniformly rejects the use of projective techniques in selection.

Question 12

The scores derived from projective techniques generally have high reliabilities.

Question 13

It would seemingly be more effective in selection to use traits that affected a narrow set of behaviors rather than a wide set.

Question 14

When the application of knowledge and predetermined actions are critical to successful job performance,cognitive based KSAs are more important for selection than personality traits.

Question 15

Emotional intelligence reflects a dispositional approach toward taking initiative at work and effecting environmental changes.

Question 16

A recent study found that managers of small business were concerned more with personality characteristics such as honesty,integrity,and interest in the job than with an applicant's ability.

Question 17

Personality instruments for which appropriate responses are not apparent are preferable to those for which answers are apparent.

Question 18

Observer ratings of personality reflect the way we are perceived by others.

Question 19

In a weak situation it is assumed that individuals interpret the situation and act in accordance with personality traits.

Question 20

Two large-sample studies have concluded that distortion of self-report personality inventories is a large problem.

Question 21

Which of the following personality variables is appropriately measured in the selection interview?

A)ambition
B)aggressiveness
C)work habits
D)sociability

Question 22

When co-workers rate their colleagues,these ratings add incremental validity to predictions solely based on self-reports of personality.

Question 23

In interviews the most frequently measured personality trait is:

A)agreeableness.
B)conscientiousness.
C)integrity.
D)punctuality.

Question 24

All of the following are components of the Five Factor Model EXCEPT?

A)extraversion.
B)agreeableness.
C)conscientiousness.
D)happiness.

Question 25

Which of the following is TRUE about self-report questionnaires in personality measurement?

A)These instruments usually consist of long scenarios followed by multiple-choice response formats.
B)These questionnaires don't assume that there is a correspondence between what a person says about himself/herself and what is actually true.
C)The assumption is made that the individual is unaware of his/her thoughts, emotions, etc., but that the questionnaire responses will reveal such thoughts, emotions, etc.
D)The assumption is made that the individual is aware of his/her thoughts, emotions, etc., and is willing to openly share them.

Question 26

Personality seems clearly related to job performance for those jobs that rely more on specific knowledge and procedures and have few acceptable ways to produce desired performance.

Question 27

Personality tests could be viewed as medical examinations and therefore must be constructed very carefully.

Question 28

Forced-choice measures of personality require test-takers to choose the most liked item of two to four equally desirable items.

Question 29

What type of situation (in a personality context)is the selection interview considered to be?

A)powerful
B)weak
C)moderate
D)inconsistent

Question 30

Which of the following traits is NOT an element of Core Self Evaluation?

A)self-esteem
B)self-efficacy
C)need for power
D)emotional stability

Question 31

Which of the following is true about the concept of a trait?

A)It begins with the common observation that individuals are quite similar in their reactions to the same situation.
B)There is general consensus on which traits are common across individuals.
C)It is used to explain the consistency of one individual's behavior over a variety of situations.
D)It is used to explain the consistency of group behavior over a variety of situations.

Question 32

Traits are a more likely explanation of behavioral differences in which type of situation?

A)powerful
B)weak
C)job interview
D)moderate

Question 33

The most frequently used technique to assess personality is to ask for self-reports.

Question 34

Which of the following is a reasonable conclusion to be drawn concerning the use of personality measurements for predicting job performance?

A)Personality data can make an independent contribution to selection decisions.
B)Personality data is not useful for making selection decisions.
C)Personality data is the single most important information for making selection decisions.
D)Research evidence is too inconsistent to make any reasonable judgments about the use of personality data in selection.

Question 35

Which of the following is TRUE about the validity of self-report inventories that measure the Big Five?

A)The conscientiousness dimension was a valid predictor for some, but not all, of the occupations.
B)Conscientiousness was a valid predictor of overall work performance over all studies examined.
C)Agreeableness and openness to experience demonstrated the highest validity.
D)Conscientiousness was a valid predictor for only one of three criteria.

Question 36

Performance in jobs that are very structured in terms of work behaviors would seem to be less related to personality than those that are unstructured.

Question 37

Should personality assessment be used in selection? Summarize both the arguments for and the arguments against its use in selection.

Question 38

What do projective techniques and self-report questionnaires have in common?

A)They both require verbal responses which are scored to obtain measures of personality characteristics.
B)The structure of the questions is intentionally ambiguous in both devices.
C)The structure of the responses is intentionally ambiguous in both devices.
D)Both devices might be classified as "weak testing situations" in which individual differences in personality strongly account for the differences in response among people.

Question 39

An employee's personality can predict all of the following EXCEPT:

A)performance.
B)likelihood of stealing.
C)likelihood of being a leader.
D)long-term health.

Question 40

Which of the following is a major conclusion from the field of personality psychology and the use of personality in organizations?

A)There are five general factors of personality that can now serve as a meaningful taxonomy for describing traits.
B)There are ten general factors of personality that can now serve as a meaningful taxonomy for describing traits.
C)There are literally thousands of core traits that influence behavior.
D)The circumstances of different situations apparently have no influence on behavior, resulting in traits being the best explanation of behavior.

Question 41

Why is the interview,in general,such a poor measurement device for inferring personality traits?

Question 42

Compare and contrast the different personality assessment methods.Which methods are more likely to create "powerful situations," and which methods are more likely to create "weak situations?" Which methods are most likely to be useful for selection purposes?

Question 43

If you insist upon using the interview to assess personality traits,what should you assess,and what precautions should you observe?