Creative interests and personality: Scientific versus artistic creativity

Wiernik, B. M., Dilchert, S., & Ones, D. S.
Zeitschrift für Arbeits- und Organisationspsychologie.
(in press)

The present study used intraindividual criterion profile analysis to investigate the relationship between creative artistic and investigative interests and the Big Five personality traits. In 19 samples, we found that artistic and investigative interests showed distinct intraindividual personality profile patterns. Investigative interests were associated with elevated openness to intellect, conscientiousness, and emotional stability and low extraversion and agreeableness, relative to individuals’ other traits. Artistic interests were associated with personal strengths for openness to experiences and personal weaknesses for conscientiousness, assertiveness, and emotional stability. Across creative interests, profile pattern, not absolute trait level, drove the relationship between personality traits and interests. These findings replicated across numerous personality inventories and levels of interest specificity (RIASEC, basic interests, occupation-specific interests). We discuss the implications of these results for the complementary use of personality and interest scales in vocational counseling and personnel selection.

Openness as a factor underlying successful expatriation: A brief report of project iGOES

Deller, J., Dilchert, S., Ones, D. S., Albrecht, A.-G., & Paulus, F. M.
In X. Dai & G.-M. Chen (eds.),
Intercultural communication competence (pp. 356-365).
Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
(2014)

Organizations that conduct business globally feel an increasing need to send employees on international assignments. Such international assignments are a challenge both for the organization and its employees. Reports from the applied and also the scholarly community reveal that reliable, valid, and easily applicable methods for selecting, preparing, and developing expatriate workers are crucial to the success of international assignments in general. This chapter provides an overview of project iGOES (international Generalizability of Expatriate Success Factors), which investigates the relevance of demographic variables, background characteristics, and individual differences traits in predicting expatriate adjustment and success. The most comprehensive project of its kind, iGOES systematically investigated whether relevant success factors differ across world regions expatriates are active in. The chapter illustrates the usefulness of the approach by focusing on and summarizing results for the personality trait of openness.

Maladaptive personality constructs, measures, and work behaviors: Scientific background and employment practice recommendations

Dilchert, S., Ones, D. S., & Krueger, R. F.
Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 7, 98-110.
(2014)

Important changes have been occurring in the clinical psychology literature that are relevant to how maladaptive personality characteristics are conceptualized, measured, and used in workplace applications. We aim to clarify distinctions among maladaptive personality traits, measures of maladaptive personality constructs, and their behavioral consequences at work. In pursuing a connection between the industrial–organizational (I–O) and clinical psychology literatures on maladaptive personality, we distinguish maladaptive constructs, maladaptive measures, and maladaptive work behaviors. Conceptual clarification and linguistic precision are essential, as their distinctions are not merely academic but have important consequences for workplace research and practice.

Openness in cross-cultural work settings: A multi-country study of expatriates

Albrecht, A.-G., Dilchert, S., Deller, J., & Paulus, F. M.
Journal of Personality Assessment, 96, 64-75.
(2014)

Openness plays an important role in determining what kind of experiences individuals seek out not only in their personal lives, but also in work environments. The objectives of this study were (a) to examine the influence of openness and its facets on the decision to work abroad and (b) to study whether employees’ openness relates to cross-cultural adjustment as well as job and life satisfaction. We investigated these questions among a sample of 2,096 expatriates. In addition to self-reports of openness and cross-cultural adjustment, ratings of subjects’ adjustment were also obtained from 928 knowledgeable others. The openness facets of actions, ideas, and values appear to be good predictors of acceptance of international assignments. In addition, global Openness and its facets Openness to actions and feelings relate to self- and other ratings of cross-cultural adjustment.

Construct- and criterion-related validity of the German Core Self-Evaluations Scale: A multi-study investigation

Albrecht, A.-G., Paulus, F. M., Dilchert, S., Deller, J., & Ones, D. S.
Journal of Personnel Psychology, 12, 85-91.
(2013)

This research presents an in-depth investigation of the core self-evaluations (CSE) construct in several German samples. The English language (U.S.-American) version of the Core Self-Evaluations Scale (CSES; see Judge, Erez, Bono, & Thoresen, 2003) was adapted and translated into German. The study expands knowledge of CSE relationships with work-relevant experience constructs by providing the first reports of relationships with professional experience and job tenure. Criterion-related validities were examined for grade point average, organizational citizenship behaviors, and turnover intentions, extending English language based findings to a new language and cultural context (German) for the first time. The explicit examinations of the German CSES and other demographic (age, gender) and experience variables (organizational tenure) also provide the first investigations of these relationships, advancing the knowledge about the nomological network of the CSE construct. A constructive discussion of CSE measurement issues (frame of reference and item-specific response styles) is provided in order to improve future CSE measurement.

Gewissenhaftigkeit

[Conscientiousness]
Dilchert, S., & Ones, D. S.
In W. Sarges (Ed.),
Management-Diagnostik (4th ed., pp. 323-332).
Göttingen, Germany: Hogrefe.
(2013)

Gewissenhaftigkeit umfasst – wie die meisten Konstrukte höherer Ordnung – eine Vielzahl zusammenhängender, aber dennoch konzeptionell unterschiedlicher Facetten. Ziel dieses Kapitels ist es, die Bedeutung des psychologischen Konstrukts, einschließlich seiner wichtigsten Facetten, zu skizzieren und eine Übersicht darüber zu geben, wie es mit dem Arbeitsleben von Managern zusammenhängt.

Cross-cultural generalization: Using meta-analysis to test hypotheses about cultural variability

Ones, D. S., Dilchert, S., Deller, J., Albrecht, A.-G., Duehr, E. E., & Paulus, F. M.
In A. M. Ryan, F. T. L. Leong, & F. L. Oswald (Eds.),
Conducting multinational research projects in organizational psychology: Challenges and opportunities (pp. 91-122).
Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
(2012)

When differences are observed across samples in cross-cultural research, true cultural differences (and sample representativeness) are not the only explanations that ought to be considered. A main thesis of this chapter is that when differences are observed, findings can be due to chance (sampling error) as well as other statistical artifacts (see Hunter & Schmidt, 2004). Testing whether cross-cultural variability in findings is due to real effects of culture or such statistical artifacts is an important step that is essential in cross-cultural research. Addressing the biasing influences of statistical artifacts may help reveal cross-cultural universals. The magnitude of cultural variation in results can be empirically examined using approaches of psychometric meta-analysis. A major contribution that meta-analytic techniques can make to cross-cultural research is to enable researchers to test the cross-cultural generalizability of relationships. In the remainder of this chapter, we review, illustrate, and discuss three unique applications of meta-analysis to examine cross-cultural effects. First, we review and discuss pooling findings across intracultural studies to examine questions of cross-cultural generalizability. Second, we illustrate the value of applying meta-analysis to carefully conducted intercultural studies to examine the same question. Third, we demonstrate the use of meta-analysis to examine transcultural variability using primary data collected from different cultural settings. For each type of application, we offer a brief background, review and present illustrative findings, and discuss contributions and potential limitations.

Leben und Arbeiten im Ausland – psychologische Faktoren und Erfolg bei internationalen beruflichen Entsendungen

[Living and working abroad – psychological factors and success in international occupational decisions]
Deller, J., Albrecht, A-G., Ones, D. S., Dilchert, S., & Paulus, F. M.

Berlin Medical, 10, 5-7.
(2012)

In den vergangenen Jahren haben wir Projekt iGOES (international Generalizability of Expatriate Success Factors) das mit bislang über 2.300 persönlich interviewten Auslandsmitarbeitern weltweit größte interkulturelle wirtschaftspsychologisch diagnostische Forschungsprojekt durchgeführt. Dieser Beitrag schildert in Anlehnung an Deller und Albrecht [l] das Projekt in seinen Grundzügen und berichtet zusätzlich ausgewählte Ergebnisse zur Bedeutung der Persönlichkeitsdimension „Offenheit” für Anpassung als eine Perspektive des Erfolges von Auslandseinsätzen.

Application of preventive strategies

Dilchert, S., & Ones, D. S.
In M. Ziegler, C. MacCann, & R. D. Roberts, (Eds.)
New perspectives on faking in personality assessments (pp. 177-200).
New York: Oxford University Press.
(2011)

This chapter addresses issues surrounding strategies to identify and reduce socially desirable responding, impression management, and faking in applied assessment settings. Strategies are discussed in terms of a framework with four categories based on purpose (identification or prevention) and level (scale/test or person). Three major questions are considered: Which forms do the strategies take (what are recommendations for use in applied assessment practice)? To what degree do test users rely on such strategies in identifying or preventing response distortion (what are the prevalence rates)? What is the effectiveness of each strategy in applied settings (does it lead to the successful identification or prevention of faking under realistic assessment conditions)? The chapter concludes that even those strategies that have received the most research attention so far do not present effective solutions in applied assessment settings.

Personality: Its measurement and validity for employee selection

Hough, L. M., & Dilchert, S.
In J. L. Farr & N. T. Tippins (Eds.),
Handbook of employee selection (pp. 299-319).
New York: Routledge.
(2010)

One of the most important advances in our field can be attributed to the recognition of the importance of personality variables in determining and explaining performance. With the addition of personality variables to our models of job performance, we are now able to explain significantly more variation in behavior and performance than ever before. In this chapter, we review the issues, document the evidence, and describe the consensus emerging about the usefulness of personality variables in employee selection. We describe factors that hinder our understanding and those that help increase our knowledge of personality variables and their role in more accurately predicting work-related criteria. We address issues related to taxonomic structure, measurement methods, level of measurement, validity, and factors that threaten and enhance the validity of personality measures.