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Generalization of Cognitive and Noncognitive Validities across Personality‐based Job Families
Author(s) -
MacLane Charles N.,
Cucina Jeffrey M.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
international journal of selection and assessment
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.812
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1468-2389
pISSN - 0965-075X
DOI - 10.1111/ijsa.12117
Subject(s) - psychology , personality , competence (human resources) , construct validity , incremental validity , social psychology , personnel selection , big five personality traits , job performance , test validity , cognition , measure (data warehouse) , predictive validity , psychometrics , developmental psychology , job satisfaction , statistics , neuroscience , mathematics , database , computer science
The positive relationship between complexity of work and the validity of general mental ability (GMA) measures across a variety of occupations is well supported by research and provides important practical and theoretical support for cognitive ability measures. However, there is currently no research demonstrating a systematic relationship between the size of the validities of any personality measure and the personality requirements of jobs, thus leaving open to question the predictive and construct validity of personality measures for applicant selection. We compared the validities of two biodata measures – one scored to measure social competence and one to measure GMA – across six job families that varied in social requirements. The validity of the GMA measure generalized at approximately the same level across the job families while the validity of the social competence measure decreased as social requirements diminished.