Assessment Task 1

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Task 1
The study of relationship between personality test and the behaviours,
attitudes, and job performances in crucial in today's world as is it a part and puzzle of
every successful organization. Personality has been considered as an important
factor in psychological studies specifically for predicting job performance. According
to Barrick & Mount (1991), personality can be defined as a long-term consistency in
an individual's particular ways of perceiving, thinking, acting and reacting as a
person. It is a behaviour in which helps differentiate one person from another and
provides acumen whether a person will do a specific job in comparison to others.
Furthermore, the traits relevant to personality are considered to be reliable
throughout the work life in a personality behaviour model(Graziano & Eisenberg,
2007).
Based on a study conducted by Hogan and Shelton (2006), the personality
theories examine the differences and similarities in a person and that those
similarities can be used to predict an individual's performance and behaviour. In
addition, individuals with a long term traits tend to affect behaviours at work and that
personality is a powerful tool to measure and predict job performance.
One of the main key theories relevant to personality is the Trait Theory in which
focuses

more

on

identifying

and

measuring

an

individual's

personality

characteristics(Rothman & Coutzer, 2003). Similarly, a combination and interaction of

various traits forms a personality that is unique to each individual. With regards to
that, the most widely accepted structure of personality is the Big Five Personality
Model. This structure if the Big Five Personality Model is based on five broad main
personality dimensions which can be characterized as Openness to Experience,
Conscientiousness,

Extroversion,

Agreeableness

and

Neuroticism(Seibert

&

Kraimer, 2001).
Openness to Experience is correlated to technical and innovativeness, deviating
approach, and political moderation and is often referred as a 'double-edged sword'
reason being it prompts personalities to have seek pleasure as well as bad feelings.
These type of individuals are optimistic when it comes to opportunities to seek and
learn new things(Seibert & Kraimer, 2001)..

Conscientiousness includes traits such as self-discipline and active planning

processes such as organising and carrying out daily tasks. These individuals tend to
be

very

determined

and

purposeful,

overall

driven

by

achievements.

Conscientiousness individuals have significant job performance because of their

work participation and their characteristic of being able to take the opportunity to get
rewarded(Seibert & Kraimer, 2001)..
Extraversion is a dimension of an individual that has sociability, assertiveness,
activity and talkativeness. They tend to have a more positive feeling and experience
thus seen as valid predictor of performance in jobs characterized by social
interaction, such as sales personnel and managers. When compared with other five
traits, extraverts are completely associated with emotional commitment(Seibert &
Kraimer, 2001).
An Agreeable person is fundamentally altruistic, sympathetic to others and eager to
help them, and in return believes that others will be equally helpful. The co-operative
nature of agreeable individuals may lead to success in occupations where teamwork
and customer service are relevant. Between agreeableness and job performance the
correlation is very weak(Seibert & Kraimer, 2001)..
Neuroticism signifies variances of individual tendency to experience suffering and is
defined as emotionally insecure and uneven. Neurotics possess traits including
annoyed, stressed, sulky, unsociable, nervous, embarrassed, uncertain, doubtful,
unconfident, fearful, and dejected. As compared to other individuals, neurotics
experience more adverse feelings in life. In general persistence commitment is
negatively correlated to professional performance(Seibert & Kraimer, 2001).
Properly created methods of ordinary personality are effective tools to judge
the wide variety of professional performance, they usually do not result in adverse
effect for smaller groups, and also they can be related to performance potrayed in
terms of efficiency. For different types of groups, this has also been confirmed by the
meta-analyses of personality measures that these are the strong predictors of work
performance(Mount & Johnson, 2006). To study the relationship of personality to job
performance, an arrangement is used which shows that this study differs from the
prior studies. It was not used to summarize the overall strength of the personality,

however was used to improve the understanding about the interrelationships of Big
Five personality dimensions to the selected professional groups and standard types.
According to a study based on Conscientiousness, it was found to be a
reliable and valid forecaster for all standard types and for all professional groups
studied. Secondly for two other professions, manager and sales, Extraversion was
observed to be an effective forecaster. Ranked by supervisors in another metaanalysis, the Conscientiousness was also shown as an strong forecaster in the
performance on the job(Rothman & Coutzer, 2003).
An individual's ratings on the five factors has been found to change with time,
with

Conscientiousness

and

Agreeableness

increasing,

while

Extroversion,

Openness, and Neuroticism generally decrease as the individual ages. Individuals

differ when viewed by the order of their births. In a recent study, it was stated that
birth order is correlated with personality traits in which firstborns are statistically more
conscientious, more socially dominant, less agreeable, and less open to new ideas
compared to individual that were born later. Gender also show differences in Big Five
scores across cultures, with women scoring higher in both the Agreeableness and
Neuroticism domains(Hurtz & Donocan, 2000). The fact that sex differences have
been found does not by itself demonstrate that the gender are innately different in
personality, although that is a possibility.
A vast assortment of personality assessments measure an equally vast
collection of personality characteristics. Each assessment, because it is developed
according to the authors unique perspective, offers a different approach to
personality measurement. Some common elements, however, exist across almost all
approaches. Personality is a combination of internal, intangible characteristics and
therefore cannot be measured directly. Instead, organisations rely on reports of a
persons thoughts, feelings, preferences, and behaviours to assess personality by
asking people questions about themselves, assign numerical values to their
responses, and use these values to generate a portrait of the person taking the
assessment(Mount & Johnson, 2006).
Each question included in a validated personality assessment will have been
carefully crafted to tap a specific personality characteristic when hiring in an
organisation. For example, I get along very well with my colleagues" may be one

indicator of sociability or the extent to which a person is gregarious and outgoing.

Single items, however, are not sufficient to assess broad personality characteristics;
instead, psychologists look at the pattern of responses across several items. The
goal of personality measurement is to describe individuals as they are seen by
others. Responses to personality assessments help classify and differentiate
individuals, providing a basis for understanding prior actions and predicting future
behaviour.
It is important to note that not all personality assessments are created equal.
Any personality assessment used in selection applications must, at a minimum,
demonstrate adequate reliability and validity. An assessment is considered reliable if
scores remain consistent over time, when an individual completes the assessment
on multiple occasions, his or her score should be approximately the same each time.
An assessment is considered valid if it is related to other important constructs such
as job performance (Sackett & Walmsley, 2014). If a test is used to select individuals
for employment, there must be validity evidence to support the accuracy and job
relatedness of inferences made on the basis of scores on that assessment.
Personality is an important determinant of work behaviour. Very often,
companies assesses a candidate's personality through an interview. however
interviews are only as good as the people conducting them. Interviewers have to be
good at detecting traits that predict performance. Through personality testing, this
will improve the effectiveness of their selection and reduce turnover. In employee
selection, where the employees with the best personalities will be the ones
receiving a job offer, a complicating factor is that people filling out the survey do not
have a strong incentive to be honest(Seibert & Kraimer, 2001). In fact, they have a
greater incentive to guess what the job requires and answer the questions in a way
they think the company is looking for. As a result, the rankings of the candidates who
take the test may be affected by their ability to fake(Mount & Johnson, 2006). Some
experts believe that this is a serious problem. Others point out that even with faking
the tests remain validthe scores are related to job performance(Kawasaki, 2013). It
is even possible that the ability to fake is related to a personality trait that increases
success at work, such as social monitoring. Scores on personality self-assessments
are distorted for other reasons beyond the fact that some candidates can fake better
than others. Using self-report measures of performance may not be the best way of

measuring someones personality(Rothman & Coutzer, 2003). Another problem with

using these tests is the uncertain relationship between performance and personality.
On the basis of research, personality is not a particularly strong indicator of how a
person will perform. According to one estimate, personality only explains about 10%
15% of variation in job performance(Sackett & Walmsley, 2014). Our performance at
work depends on many factors, and personality does not seem to be the key factor
for performance. In fact, cognitive ability is a more powerful predictor of job
performance. Instead of personality tests, cognitive ability tests may do a better job
of predicting who will be good performers. Personality is a better predictor of job
satisfaction and other attitudes, but screening people out on the assumption that
they may be unhappy at work is a challenging argument to make in an employee
selection context.

Task 2
After much doing much research about Trait Theory/The Big Five Personality
Model, I found this theory very applicable to myself at a work place. As an intern in
KPMG in Malaysia as an intern auditor, I found myself to have mix traits of a
conscientiousness and agreeableness person.
Conscientiousness most effectively predicts a variety of criteria in the workplace and
plays an important and central role in determining performance levels at work (Vardi
and Weitz, 2004). As an intern auditor for a period of 2 months, I showed up at work
every on time and was never absent making sure I was there to assist my seniors
when any help was needed. This can be reflected to a study done by Barrick and
Mount (1991) and Judge et al. (1997), it was showed that there is a negative
relationship

between

turnover

and

absenteeism

(a

type

of

WDB)

with

conscientiousness, respectively.
With multiple engagement ongoing at a time, I always made sure I was well
organized and well aware of all the deadlines by keeping a diary to jot down
important dates. Besides that, I was also assigned major task such as handling a
whole section of accounts together with a few more smaller ones. Being motivated
was easy for me, because being more of a "numeric" person, I found it easy to cope
with the work. Though at times tasks assigned were much harder, I always took it as
a challenge and have it done even if it was required for me to stay back. Based on
an article by Sackett & Walmsley (2014), conscientiousness is described by traits
such as trustworthiness, competence, achievement striving, responsibility, selfdiscipline, dutifulness and efficiency. In addition, conscientious individuals report
higher grade point average, greater job satisfaction, greater job security, and more
positive as well as committed in social relationship.
Being auditor, I was allocated to different teams for different engagements.
Working in a team is part and puzzle of this occupation, this gives the team the
flexibility for one to help another as they specialise in a specific sections. Besides
that, I was required to deal with clients on many occasions and that having a close
relationship with them is key. This can be related as well , as agreeable individuals
are described as pleasant, tolerant, helpful, trusting, forgiving, considerate, and they
tend to be cooperative (Bowling and Eschleman, 2010). Graziano and Eisenberg

(2007) found that employees ranked high on agreeableness are more likely to
display less hostility and aggression toward others during work time. Likewise, Mount
et al. (2006) found that agreeableness had a direct negative relationship with
interpersonal counterproductive behaviours and job satisfaction partially mediated
the relationship between agreeableness and workplace deviance.
Overall, having a good personality is crucial in every work place as it may
affect one's work attitude, behaviour and performance and

with a better

understanding of this theory, this has helped me understand my won and other
people's behaviour.

REFERENCE LIST
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(6), 869-882.
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https://new.edu/resources/understanding-people-at-

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