The following is a summary of the research and practice implications from:

Creative thinking is valued across occupations and industries. Even in the most simple of jobs, creative ideas are necessary to solve novel problems that arise. For some occupations, creativity is a bona fide requirement. Creativity is also crucial for organizational growth and long-term success as companies must develop new ideas to stay competitive within their respective industries. When ideas and products can be easily mimicked by competitors, an organization’s best bet is to distinguish itself by consistently presenting fresh and original work. So how can organizations increase the level of creativity in their workforces? Evidence shows that creativity can be increased by influencing moods and emotions of employees. Before going into how emotions affect creativity, though, creativity should first be defined.

How is Creativity Defined?

Creativity involves:

• The number of ideas someone can generate (called fluency)
• The uniqueness of the ideas (i.e., originality)

Having a strong command of one of these dimensions does not mean someone will be particularly effective at the other. For example, a person can be fluent and produce many ideas, none of which are particularly original, while another person may only come up with a few ideas which are all highly unique. On the other hand, there are those people who are able to come up with many ideas, several of which are very original.

The Influence of Emotions

Moods and emotions are known to influence creativity, although in a more complicated way than people may realize. Conventional thought holds that to boost creativity, positive moods and emotions should be increased while negative moods and emotions should be decreased.

However, beyond being positive or negative, affective states can also be characterized as activating or deactivating. Activating states increase arousal while deactivating states decrease arousal. This distinction appears to affect creativity levels.

Specifically, activating emotions increase creative behavior while deactivating emotions do not. The table below categorizes different emotions depending on whether they are positive or negative and activating or deactivating:

Emotions under the “activating” column are more likely to increase creativity while emotions under the “deactivating” column are more likely to decrease creativity.

Paths to Creativity

Both positive and negative activating emotions lead to increased creativity, but they do so in different ways. Happiness and excitement increase a person’s cognitive flexibility, which can increase both fluency and originality. Cognitive flexibility involves creating ideas that span several different categories or perspectives. Negative activating emotions such as fear may increase persistence and focus, which can lead to more creative ideas but at a cost of longer time spent on trying to be creative.

Implications for Practice

These results suggest that a workplace climate that promotes activating emotions may lead to increased creativity. Some steps that can be taken to promote these types of emotions include:

• Increase employee engagement and satisfaction at work by such actions as giving employees more voice in procedures and making jobs feel meaningful to them.
• Promote trusting and cooperative work relationships through teamwork, mentoring, and developing a positive workplace culture.
• Utilize negative activating emotions when necessary by promoting persistent effort to meet difficult organizational and work goals.
• Encourage a sense of urgency to promote excitement by emphasizing the immediate nature of and energy required for completing a project.
• Reduce organizational constraints that can discourage employees, such as inadequate communication, unnecessary paperwork, or overly restrictive procedures that interfere with work and motivation.
• Aim for increasing positive rather than negative activating emotional states when creative ideas are needed quickly.

In work situations when fear, anxiety, or even anger are normal emotional reactions (e.g., during a recession or when facing an impending deadline), experiencing some level of negative activating emotions is not necessarily detrimental. Feelings of fear can help focus thoughts on coming up with creative solutions when needed.

There are different ways that emotions affect how one comes up with creative ideas. Which emotions to encourage at a particular time will depend on the nature of the work and the context in which creativity is needed.

Interpretation by:

Don Johnson

DeGarmo Group

The following is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Christiansen, N.D., & Tett, R.P. (2008). Toward a better understanding of the role of situations in linking personality, work behavior, and job performance. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 1, 312-316.

Using personality assessments to help predict job performance is nothing new, but by understanding the factors that influence personality traits related to job performance, organizations can increase the effectiveness of their assessments.

Many personality assessments utilize “contextualized items”, meaning items are written to be answered within a particular context. For example:

• I keep my desk and workspace very organized.
• My coworkers would describe me as outgoing.

The example items above include a “workplace” context. For use in organizations, personality assessments using a context (like that illustrated here) are far more effective than assessments that do not provide a context for providing responses.

What both general, and contextualized, personality assessments fail to do is give real consideration to the situations people are in – the environment that draws out their personalities. Understanding the situations surrounding how individuals’ personalities affect their performance has the potential to allow for better predictions of performance.

Situational Aspects:

Whether or not a person will express a particular part of their personality depends on different aspects of the work situation:

• Task aspects are the day-to-day demands of performing the job.
• Social aspects are the interactions a person has with coworkers, subordinates, or superiors.
• Organizational aspects are the most broad, and relate to the culture and climate of the organization.

Value of Personality-related Behaviors:

Along with the three different aspects of the situation, personality-related behaviors are evaluated as either beneficial or detrimental in value to job performance.

For example, if the behaviors of being social (an expression of the personality trait extraversion) is seen as contributing to job performance, then those behaviors will be positively valued and encouraged – whereas if being social is seen as being detrimental to performance, it will NOT be valued and therefore discouraged.

Situational Aspects and Behaviors Coincide:

It is important to note that different personality traits (e.g., extraversion, agreeableness, or conscientiousness) may be brought out by different aspects of the work situation. Additionally, a particular trait may be brought out by multiple aspects of the situation, but valued differently for each.

For example, being friendly and outgoing (extraverted) while serving customers (a task-related aspect) may be valued and beneficial; while those same friendly and outgoing behaviors may be distracting to coworkers (a social-related aspect) and viewed as detrimental.

How Can Organizations Use This Information?

There are three critical ways that organizations can get the most out of the information they collect through personality assessments. Each is focused on a detailed understanding of how a person’s personality drives his or her behavior.

• Conduct a thorough job analysis, focusing specifically on how personality traits relate to job-focused behavior.

This is the best way for organizations to determine which personality characteristics are the most desirable in their workforce. The O*NET (Occupational Information Network) Resource Center contains tools that can be useful as a starting place for gathering this type of vital information.

• Document the activities associated with the three aspects of the work situation.

Organizations should take the time to consider the task, social, and organizational aspects of their work situations to identify which personality characteristics are likely to emerge in each.

• Evaluate people’s personalities and behaviors appropriately.

Personalities are expressed through behaviors in response to different aspects of the work situation (task, social, and organizational aspects). These behaviors are often evaluated by others, usually through annual performance appraisals. Problems may occur when the person conducting the evaluation relies too heavily on his or her own personal theories of what the best personality traits are for the position they are evaluating.

For example, a person in a sales position may behave in a confident and assertive manner, which contributes to her high level of sales. Yet this person’s performance ratings could be low if her supervisor thinks that being confident and assertive is a negative characteristic (because it makes that person difficult to manage), and allows this opinion to overshadow the evidence of the person’s performance.

Organizations currently, or considering, using personality assessments will be best served by spending some time to truly consider how the information they gather can be best utilized for predicting performance. This may take some time and effort, but it has the potential for creating a strong return on their investment.

Interpretation by:

Kathleen Melcher

DeGarmo Group

The following is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Roth, P., Bobko, P., McFarland, L., & Buster, M. (2008). Work sample tests in personnel selection: A meta-analysis of Black-White differences in overall and exercise scores. Personnel Psychology, 61, 637-662.

Adverse impact in employee selection is a crucial concern for human resource management. Adverse impact occurs when a protected class of applicants is hired or selected at a substantially lower rate compared to other groups of applicants, which can potentially lead to costly court charges and lawsuits. Thus, reducing actual and potential adverse impact against protected groups is a key priority for most HR departments. This goal has led companies to search for the most effective selection tools possible that maximize differentiating among applicants of different qualifications and abilities while minimizing adverse impact.

Some selection tools, such as general cognitive ability tests, have reputations for producing adverse impact. Other tools, such as work sample tests, have generally been considered to be effective while producing little adverse impact. Work sample tests require applicants to perform brief exercises that are similar to functions they would be performing in their jobs.  Examples of work sample tests include:

• Role playing exercises (e.g., supervisor or customer service roles)
• In-basket exercises (e.g., writing memos or scheduling employee work hours)
• Technical skills exercises (e.g., troubleshoot a computer problem or solve a work-related math problem)

Thus, work sample tests are often recommended for use by many sources in place of other tools and instruments that are seen as more likely to result in adverse impact. However, research has discovered that the risk of adverse impact using work sample tests may actually be much greater than once thought.

Problems with Past Research

Several studies have claimed that work sample tests exhibit less adverse impact than other HR tools. However, this research contained some important limitations, including:

• Using only job incumbent ratings and not job applicants, which can affect statistical results by attenuating the range of scores.
• Some research grouped minorities together for analysis (for instance, combining African American and Hispanic data rather than analyzing it separately).
• Some of the research combined work sample tests with other types of selection assessments, which prevented adverse impact information from being calculated just for work sample tests.

Current Research Findings

Recent evidence indicates that incumbent work sample tests show higher adverse impact than was expected. Applicant work sample scores have nearly double the commonly expected difference between whites and blacks. Work sample tests demonstrating the largest differences are in-basket exercises and technical and scheduling sample tests. Oral briefings and role-playing exercises, however, both exhibit low difference scores.

The recent research also analyzed work sample exercises based on what constructs they were measuring. A construct here refers to underlying psychological attributes like personality, communication ability, cognitive ability, etc. Work sample tests that exhibit large group differences appear to tap into constructs involving cognitive ability and writing skills/knowledge, while work sample tests that exhibit lower group differences tap into constructs like leadership and interpersonal oral communication.

Implications for Practice

As research has indicated that adverse impact can be a bigger problem with work sample tests than previously thought, some recommendations for reducing the risk of adverse impact with work sample tests include:

• Selection decision makers need to consider what constructs will be evaluated with a particular work sample test. Any given work sample test will likely involve several different constructs (e.g., in-basket exercise involving cognitive ability, personality, communication, and/or psychomotor skills).
• Measured constructs must be closely aligned to key job functions and duties. For example, is general cognitive ability or certain social skills really necessary for satisfactorily completing the tasks of a particular job?
• Record detailed information about applicants, incumbents, ratings, and specific types of work sample tests for adverse impact analyses.

The recent research does not indicate that work sample tests (or any other HR selection tool) will necessarily produce adverse impact. However, the results do indicate that HR professionals need to be more aware of the potential for adverse impact and to not take for granted the idea that work sample tests will be more acceptable.

Interpretation by:

Donnie Johnson

DeGarmo Group

Workplaces are generally thought to be stress-inducing environments on many levels.  Various studies have examined task-related stressors (e.g., high work load), but it is also important to consider the influence of social stressors – psychological/physical strains that are social in nature (e.g., co-worker conflict, poor group climate, unjust treatment, and verbal aggression from customers).

Buffering Social Stressors

It is valuable to understand characteristics of those who can successfully buffer (cope) against social stressors.  Therefore, research has looked toward understanding core self-evaluations.

Core Self Evaluations are individual characteristics that represent fundamental evaluations people form concerning themselves, other people, and the world in general. Core Self Evaluations consist of four distinct individual traits that vary from person to person and include:

• Self-esteem – general confidence and assurance in oneself.
• Locus of control – beliefs about what causes good or bad events (i.e., environmental [external], or individual causes [internal]).
• Generalized self-efficacy – views of individual ability to ascertain goals.
• Neuroticism – tendency to experience more negative emotional states (e.g., anger, anxiety, guilt).

These traits take part in mediating how one copes with stress and can ultimately buffer against unwanted stressors. For example, an individual who has an internal locus of control, has high self-esteem and generalized self-efficacy, while low in neuroticism may, generally, cope with stress/stressors better than an individual who has an external locus of control, is low in self-esteem and generalized self-efficacy, yet high in neuroticism.

Conservation of Resources

Core self evaluations are important to buffering against stressors, therefore one must examine the idea that individuals can gain or lose resources from four principle categories, which include valued resources:

• Object Resources – such as place of dwelling and vehicles.
• Condition Resources – such as status in the organization and place in the community.
• Personal Resources – such as feelings of achievement.
• Energy Resources – interpersonal or time investments.

Social stressors in the workplace (e.g., conflicts with coworkers, unpleasant workplaces, or organizational politics) may threaten and/or cause a depletion of valued resources. However, these stressors can be buffered by higher core self evaluations.

For example, being viewed negatively at work (losing condition resources), experiencing feelings of failure (losing personal resources), or expending energy coping with negative social situations (using up energy resources) can all deplete resources.  These resources can be better maintained with higher levels of core self evaluations and can ultimately lead to higher coping of job strains.

Job Related Outcomes

Social Stressors relate to negative job outcomes such as low levels of job satisfaction, turnover intentions, and a lack of helping behaviors.

Individuals reporting more social stressors at work perceive that their personal resources are being threatened or are expending additional resources (e.g., time and energy).

For example, when social stressors are present in the workplace, an individual spends time thinking about how to manage and possibly avoid these situations. Individuals, therefore, expend time and energy, thus resulting in greater strains and less energy for obtaining goals and helping others.

Again, greater core self evaluations are relevant and necessary as those possessing such characteristics are better equipped and more able to minimize/buffer the aforementioned negative situations (i.e., how to manage and possibly avoid social stressors) that lead to depleted resources and ultimately to negative job related outcomes.

Implications for Practice

When dealing with social stressors in the workplace:

• Promote positive social climates and establish norms against social injustice and/or aggression – this should lead to fewer social stressors and therefore fewer resources needed to maintain/buffer against social stressors.
• Consider employee selection and placement – individual traits such as core self evaluations are stable (i.e., enduring individual characteristics); therefore altering these characteristics may be impractical.  It is important to assess workplace social stressors and hire and/or place appropriate individuals for the job and/or situation (i.e., if there are high social stressors, seek individuals with high core self evaluations).

Ultimately, by understanding the work situation and level of stress, while evaluating (or at least understanding) an employee’s ability to cope through core self evaluations and conservation of resources there exists the possibility of mediating social stressors at work. In addition, by doing so negative job related outcomes and job strains can be avoided – increasing an employee’s resources and focus to achieve organizational goals and uphold organizational values.

Interpretation by:

Adam Bradshaw

The DeGarmo Group

The following is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Kaplan, S., Bradley, J. C., Luchman, J. N., & Haynes, D. (2009). On the role of positive and negative affectivity in job performance: A meta-analytic investigation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94, 162-176.

People are predisposed to experiencing certain levels of approach-related arousal emotions and avoidance-related arousal emotions which influence different aspects of their job performance. Approach-related arousal is generally associated with feelings such as happiness, elation, or feeling energetic. Avoidance-related arousal is generally associated with feelings involving negative emotions. These predispositions, which are called positive affect and negative affect, are different from the emotions a person will experience in reaction to specific events in that affect shows stability across time and even situations. It is important to realize that positive affect and negative affect are not opposite ends of a continuum – one can have high levels of one but not the other, or can have high or low levels of both types at the same time.

Examples of different affect profiles include:

• A person who experiences anxiety or fear (high on both levels). This profile is high in positive affect because anxiety arouses a person to be alert, but it is also high in negative affect because it makes a person want to escape from something.
• A person who feels very relaxed, laid-back (low on both levels). Such a person isn’t experiencing particularly high positive or negative arousal.
• A person who is bored (high in negative affect, low in positive affect). This profile indicates someone who is unenergetic and experiencing negative arousal.
• A person who is cheerful and energetic (high in positive affect, low in negative affect). Such a person isn’t experiencing negative feelings but is experiencing a high level of positive arousal.

Emotions and Performance

Recent evidence provides a clearer understanding of the role of dispositional emotions in work performance. Specifically:

• Positive emotions are related to increased task performance ratings by supervisors
• Negative emotions are related to decreased task performance ratings by supervisors
• Positive affect is associated with increases in organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) – i.e., work behaviors that are helpful but not required of one’s position, like volunteering for overtime or assisting a coworker
• Negative affect is associated with decreases in OCBs
• Negative affect is associated with increases in withdrawal and counterproductive workplace behaviors (CWBs) – e.g., theft, absenteeism, abuse, sabotage, etc.
• Negative affect is associated with increased occupational injury

Explaining these Associations

Evidence indicates that the relationships between positive and negative affect and the dimensions of job performance may be mediated by the factors fairness, job satisfaction, and stress. Mediation refers to a factor being a reason why one variable (e.g., emotion) influences another variable (e.g., performance). That is, emotions are thought to influence one or more of these three factors, which then affect performance, in the following ways:

• Perceived fairness is a significant mediator between positive affect and task performance and OCBs
• Perceived fairness is a significant mediator between negative affect and task performance, OCBs, CWBs, and withdrawal
• Job satisfaction is a significant mediator between both positive affect and negative affect and OCBs
• Job satisfaction is a significant mediator between negative affect and withdrawal
• Job stress mediates the association between positive affect and task performance/OCBs
• Job stress mediates the associations between negative affect and CWBs/withdrawal

Affect and Personality

Evidence also indicates that positive and negative affect, which exhibit high associations with the personality traits extraversion and neuroticism respectively, are not redundant with those traits in predicting task performance. Positive and negative affect predict task performance even after extraversion and neuroticism have been accounted for.

Implications for Practice

These results clearly indicate that emotional predispositions are important factors in predicting success in different performance categories ranging from productive behavior to destructive behavior. Suggestions for capitalizing on this knowledge to maximize organizational performance include:

• Screen and hire applicants in part based on their dispositional affect, especially for occupations that are inherently stressful.
• Introduce stress management resources for employees. Examples include employee assistance programs (EAPs) and gym membership information.
• Take steps to increase employee perceptions of fair treatment at work. This can be done by following standard procedures for everyone, letting employees have some input or “voice” when appropriate, or providing sufficient information about why certain workplace decisions have been made.
• Strive to reduce a negative work climate while also striving to create a positive work environment. This can involve reducing personal conflicts in the organization and promoting cooperation among employees.

Recent evidence is much clearer about the roles that positive and negative affect play in employee performance. Employers should consider these emotional dispositions when making decisions about how to increase or maintain worker performance in their organizations.

Interpretation by:

Donnie Johnson

DeGarmo Group

The following is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Edwards, J.R. & Cable, D.M. (2009). The value of value congruence. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94 (3), 654-677.

The term value congruence, or value “fit,” has received much attention lately from both scientists and business leaders. The concept of value congruence is generally intuitive – when there is a match between employee and organization value systems, positive outcomes will result. This article will explain the benefits of value congruence, and show you how you can put value congruence to work in your organization.

Value Congruence and Positive Outcomes

Both individuals and organizations have value systems that dictate their attitudes, behaviors, and the ways in which they allocate resources. Value congruence occurs when the value system of an employee coincides with the value system of an organization. Value congruence can lead to several valuable outcomes for both the organization and the individual:

• Job satisfaction. Job satisfaction is a positive emotional experience associated with one’s job. Satisfied employees are more productive and experience less stress than dissatisfied employees.
• Organizational identification. Organizational identification derives from an employee’s sense of belonging to the organization. Employees who feel like they belong are likely to be more committed to the organization, more productive, and more likely to engage in extra-role behaviors – helping behaviors that go above and beyond the duties of an employee’s position.
• Intent to stay. Intent to stay is an employee’s intent to remain with the organization over some period of time. Intent to stay is contingent upon both job satisfaction and organizational identification.

Although the link between value congruence and positive organizational outcomes has been firmly established, until recently it was not clear why this process takes place. Rather than directly causing positive outcomes, value congruence primarily leads to positive outcomes through the enhancement of communication and trust between the organization and the employee.

Value Congruence -> Trust + Communication -> Positive Outcomes

That is, when value congruence between an employee and the organization is high, there tends to be high levels of trust and communication between the two parties.

Practical Implications

Value congruence can be utilized to increase positive outcomes such as job satisfaction, identification with the organization, and intent to stay with the organization. There are several strategies that managers can use to maximize positive outcomes that result from value congruence.

1. Value congruence can be addressed during the hiring process. Match applicant value profiles with those of the organization in order to select employees with good value fit to the organization.

2. Socialize new employees toward the cultural values of the organization.  Incorporate organizational values into new employee training and reinforce them throughout the onboarding period – the extended process of assimilating new members into the organization.

3. For current employees, focus on strategies that directly impact trust and communication:

• Increase trust by being honest with employees about organizational and supervisor decision-making processes, ensuring that processes such as performance appraisal and distribution of resources are perceived as fair.

• Increase the benefits that result from good communication by ensuring frequent and open communication between management and employees, and among employees themselves.

Throughout various stages of employment, value congruence is a useful concept that managers can leverage to improve positive outcomes for both the organization and employees alike.

Interpretation by:

Michelle Toelle

DeGarmo Group

The following article is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Bond, F., Flaxman, P., Bunce, D. (2008). The Influence of Psychological Flexibility on Work Redesign: Mediated Moderation of a Work Reorganization Intervention. Journal of Applied Psychology. 93(3), 645-654

Organizations are constantly changing. Whether it is a change in systems, positions or employees, these changes can affect the success of the organization if they are not executed properly. When a change, like work redesign, is taking place the amount job control and psychological flexibility an employee possesses can affect the overall success of the project.

What is Job Control?

“Job Control is one’s perceived ability to exert some influence over their work environment, in order to make it more rewarding and less threatening”.

There are various negative outcomes associated with a decrease in job control, such as:

• Mental and physical health problems
• Job dissatisfaction
• Sickness
• Absence
• Poor job performance

Work redesign is the process of determining what is currently happening within the position, determining what should happen in the future, and implementing any necessary changes to bridge the gap. Work redesign is assumed to improve these variables (mental and physical health problems, job dissatisfaction, etc.)  if there is an increase the amount of control that employees have over their work environments.

What is Psychological Flexibility?

“Psychological Flexibility is the ability to focus on the present moment and depending upon what the situation affords, persist with or change one’s behavior in pursuit of goals and values”

People who are psychologically flexible attend to what is occurring right now. How psychologically flexible an employee is can aid in determining their mental health and how effective the employee will be when faced with change because people who are psychologically flexible are:

• Less emotionally disturbed
• Have more attentional resources for observing and reacting to opportunities that relate to company goals

For example, when two positions or jobs are being combined into one; a type of work redesign is taking place. If the employee is not psychologically flexible, they may be hesitant to accept the change because they may be fearful that they will lose their job in the future. If the employee is psychologically flexible, they will be better able to see the goal at hand and not be as focused and apprehensive of what may happen in the future.

How Does Job Control Relate to Psychological Flexibility?

Employees who are psychologically flexible are thought to be more cognizant of the present situation and the goal at hand. If employees with greater flexibility are given more job control they could possess the ability to recognize where, when and the degree to which they are flexible. Consequently, they will be able to recognize more opportunities to pursue behaviors that are goal-oriented. This will, in turn, make their work more rewarding or at the least, less aversive because they are directing both their attention and behavior towards the goal at hand. The more psychological flexibility an employee possesses, the more they will benefit from increased job control.

Implications for Practice

Below are some steps an individual can take to improve employees’ mental health and decrease absence rates within their organization:

1. Increase job control. This can be particularly beneficial when employees are psychologically flexible. This can be done through an intervention that allows employees to participate directly in the work redesign.

2. Improve psychological flexibility. This can be done (preferably before the work redesign) through an intervention, such as ACT – Assessment, Crisis Intervention, and Trauma Treatment. This intervention involves allowing employees to asses their internal processes and experiences at the present moment, in a non-judgmental, non-controlling manner, and focus on the present goal or situation, therefore, increasing their psychological flexibility.

Interpretation by:

Elizabeth Allen

The DeGarmo Group

The following article is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Hershcovis, M. S., Turner, N., Barling, J., Arnold, K. A, Dupre, K. E., Inness, M., LeBlanc, M. M., & Sivanathan, N. (2007). Predicting Workplace Aggression: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 228-238.

Aggression in the workplace is a serious concern for organizations.  Whether it is called harassment, deviance, or bullying, workplace aggression can lead to a number of disturbing outcomes for an organization ranging in severity from low morale to even injury or death of organizational members in the most extreme cases.

Factors Involved with Aggression

A recent meta-analysis of nearly 60 studies was undertaken to better understand the personal and situational factors that influence aggression at work.  Studies involving actual aggressive behavior (versus only aggressive intentions) were included in the meta-analysis. Two types of aggression were considered: interpersonal and organizational. Interpersonal involves aggression against individuals, while organizational involves some sort of aggression against the organization itself.  Three personal factors thought to influence aggression are:

• Trait anger – A predisposition to interpret events in a manner that makes one feel or become hostile.
• Negative affectivity – A predisposition to experience negative emotions.
• Sex – Possible differences in aggression between males and females.

Situational factors thought to influence aggression include:

• Perceived injustice – Employee perceptions of outcome fairness (distributive justice), procedure fairness (procedural justice), and personal treatment fairness (interpersonal justice).
• Interpersonal conflict – Employees acting aggressive in response to aggression from others.
• Situational constraints – Factors such as organizational policies or limited resources that can lead to frustration by hampering performance or goals.
• Job dissatisfaction – Acting aggressive or in a deviant manner towards the organization because one does not like one’s job.
• Poor leadership – Organizational leaders being over-controlling, uncharismatic, and hostile.

Findings

Results indicated that personal and situational factors differentially relate to aggression.

• Trait anger and interpersonal conflict related the most to interpersonal aggression.
• Situational constraints, job dissatisfaction, and interpersonal conflict related the most to organizational aggression.
• Sex (with males being more aggressive), trait anger and interpersonal conflict each better predicted interpersonal aggression than organizational aggression.
• Poor leadership and interpersonal injustice were shown to be the strongest predictors of aggression against supervisors (and much stronger predictors than against coworkers).
• Job dissatisfaction and situational constraints better predicted organizational aggression than interpersonal.

The above results are based on correlations that do not examine how each factor predicts aggression relative to the other factors.

Regarding how much each factor contributed to predicting organizational and interpersonal aggression relative to the other factors (not including poor leadership and interpersonal injustice), it was found that sex and trait anger predicted both forms of aggression. However, due to the lack of a main effect between sex and organizational aggression (i.e., before testing the contribution of sex in predicting aggression relative to the other factors), interpretations about the relationship between sex and organizational aggression must be made with care.

Negative affectivity and distributive/procedural injustice predicted neither form of aggression, relative to the other factors, in this study.

Relative to the other factors, job dissatisfaction and situational constraints related to organizational but not interpersonal aggression, and interpersonal conflict related to interpersonal but not organizational aggression.

Implications for Practice

This study provides evidence that when considering workplace aggression, it is important to consider it as targeted instead of just one unified concept (i.e., lumping all types of aggression – i.e., interpersonal and organizational – together). Also, it is imperative to keep in mind that both the aspects of a person and a situation can influence aggression and do so in different ways.

Specific recommendations that can be drawn from this research include:

1. Make sure supervisors’ leadership skills are developed and productive.
2. Strive to increase employee perceptions of outcome, procedural, and interpersonal justice.
3. Consider offering anger management counseling or training to reduce negative effects of anger in the organization.
4. Have clear guidelines and policies in place and promoted regarding such issues as interpersonal conflict and incivility at work.

Interpretation by:

Donnie Johnson

The DeGarmo Group

The following article is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Griffith, R.L., & Peterson, M.H. (2008). The Failure of Social Desirability Measures to Capture Applicant Faking Behavior. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 1, 308-311.

Many organizations utilizing a personality assessment as part of their selection system also include a measure of social desirability, to identify applicants who may be trying to “fake” the assessment.

The term social desirability is used to describe applicant faking as responding to items in ways that make the applicant appear more favorable in the eyes of the hiring manager.

Operationalizing applicant faking in this way has long been the norm for test developers, researchers, and users; however, there has been a recent push to take a step back and redefine what these social desirability scales actually measure.

How Social Desirability Scales Work

Social desirability scales typically contain items which resemble the following:

• I try to follow the rules.
• I would never cheat on my taxes.
• I would never take things that aren’t mine.

The logic being that it is very unlikely for there to be a person who “always” follows the rules, “never” cheats, or “never” steals — thus the greater the number of these items an applicant affirmatively responds to, the more likely it is that they are engaging in socially desirable responding.

Why They Can Be Problematic

The difficulty present when using social desirability scales to identify applicants who may be trying to fake an assessment, is that there has been little research demonstrating a strong statistical relationship between scores on social desirability scales and observed applicant faking.

Additionally, social desirability scales are themselves susceptible to being faked!

For these reasons, it is unlikely that these types of scales will be useful for correctly identifying applicants who are purposefully attempting to fake, and particularly problematic for attempting to statistically “correct” assessment scores.

Implications for Practice

Organizations worried about applicants attempting to fake their assessments would be best served to follow these suggestions:

1. Where possible, utilize multiple assessments in selection systems.
2. Include assessments which are less susceptible to “faking”.
3. Consider adding assessments which do not rely on applicant self-reports.
4. Cease attempts to statistically “correct” applicant scores based on results from social desirability scales.
5. Most importantly, follow up with applicants suspected of faking.

Interpretation by:

Kathleen Melcher

The DeGarmo Group

The following article is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Mount, M.K., Oh, I.S., & Burns, M. (2008). Incremental Validity of Perceptual Speed and Accuracy Over General Mental Ability.  Personnel Psychology, 61, 113 – 139.

Tests of perceptual speed and accuracy have stronger practical implications than many people realize. These tests are commonly used as part of selection systems for jobs requiring workers to quickly identify errors or mistakes, such as those in clerical, assembly, or warehouse positions.  Such positions generally require less intellectual complexity, but high ability to process information quickly and accurately – particularly under periods of time pressure.

Why perceptual speed & accuracy is important

With approximately 20% of the U.S. working in “low complexity” jobs, adding assessments measuring these constructs to the selection system has the potential to provide a massive ROI in terms of predicting job performance.

Many organizations utilize selection systems comprised of multiple predictive elements. They may include assessments such as:

1. Biodata/applications,
2. Ability tests, and
3. Interviews.

The most effective way to use multiple predictors is to add predictors offering incremental validity (i.e., additional predictive power) above what is already included.

Perceptual speed & accuracy – two ways

Perceptual speed and accuracy tests measure the ability to focus attention and quickly process information.

The operationalization of perceptual speed and accuracy has typically focused strictly on the number of items correct (NC), for assessing the ability to quickly process information. Typically the items on these tests are very simple, allowing all respondents the opportunity to answer all items correctly, given enough time.

However, the scores can also be used to focus on the number of items answered wrong/incorrectly (NW) – since errors are likely due to the inability to focus attention. High levels of NW may indicate carelessness, distractibility, or recklessness on the job.

Implications for Practice

In organizations where the ability to focus attention is extremely important – in terms of accidents and safety violations – including a measure of perceptual speed and accuracy focusing on NW can offer great dividends.

By looking at the same information in different ways, separate predictions may be made.

• Using the NC, predictions regarding facets of task performance are possible.
• Using the NW, predictions regarding who is likely to be non-compliant to rules, tardy, or involved in accidents are possible

Thus the use of both sets of test information is able to provide more detail about a person’s total job performance than either one alone.

Interpretation by:

Kathleen Melcher

The DeGarmo Group