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Personality Validity: The Role of Schemas and Motivated Reasoning
Author(s) -
Aronson Zvi H.,
Reilly Richard R.
Publication year - 2006
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/j.1468-2389.2006.00358.x
Subject(s) - psychology , schema (genetic algorithms) , personality , social psychology , big five personality traits , personnel selection , applied psychology , computer science , information retrieval , statistics , mathematics
We explored the role of schemas and motivated reasoning in personality assessment. Utilizing a sample of 299 participants, we investigated whether applying for a specific job leads applicants to adopt a schema. Once adopting the schema, the respondents use that schema in a way that inaccurately reflects what their behavior is. Consequently, as hypothesized, there is a lowering of validities, in comparison with assessing personality in a neutral setting. An intriguing implication of our research is that personality measurement for selection might be shifted from the employment setting to more neutral settings, such as a counselor setting, in order to be optimized.