Premium
The impact of development centre participation and the role of individual differences in changing self‐assessments
Author(s) -
Halman Freyja,
Fletcher Clive
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
journal of occupational and organizational psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.257
H-Index - 114
eISSN - 2044-8325
pISSN - 0963-1798
DOI - 10.1348/096317900167146
Subject(s) - psychology , attendance , self assessment , congruence (geometry) , social psychology , clinical psychology , applied psychology , economics , economic growth
Although much research has focused on assessment centres, rather less has been done on development centres (DCs), and in particular on the effects they have on participants. A study is reported of the impact of DC attendance on selfassessment made by 111 customer service staff. Participants rated themselves on the DC dimensions before and after attending, and these ratings were correlated with observers’ assessments made at the DC. Results indicated congruence on only two out of 10 dimensions between observer‐ and self‐assessments pre‐DC, rising to six out of the 10 dimensions post‐DC. Self‐esteem also increased following attendance at the DC. Females showed more self‐assessment accuracy than did males. Classifying the participants (pre‐DC) into underraters, accurate raters and overraters showed that underraters became more accurate in their self‐assessments post‐DC whereas overraters did not; the latter group continued to have self‐ratings significantly higher than observer ratings, and were unchanged in level of self‐esteem. It is concluded that the DC studied has demonstrated its value as a process for increasing self‐awareness for some but not all participants. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for both research and the application of DCs in practice.