An Article on Personality Assessments in Organizations Essay

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Integrative Typology of Personality Assessment for Aggression: Implications for Predicting Counterproductive Workplace Behavior," Bing et al. discuss the relevance of personality measures on organizational behavior and psychology. The authors present a typology of personality that may be particularly relevant from a human resources perspective. Self-reports are central to the personality assessments, as are conditions requiring situational and conditional reasoning. The emphasis in this study is on aggression and aggressive tendencies. The authors note the methodological weaknesses in prior research using self-reports, as "individuals possessing negative attributes, such as aggression, may be reluctant to reveal these attributes to others," (Bing et al. 722). In fact, research has shown that persons who tend toward aggression can also cultivate false sense of self with "inflated, positive, and inaccurate self-perceptions," (Bing et al. 722). To correct for the biases inherent in self-reports, the authors propose a new method of personality assessment based on "implicit or unconscious cognitions" that underlie the structure of aggression (Bing et al. 722).

1a. What Were the Authors Writing About?

To measure indirect precursors to aggression, the authors rely on the Conditional Reasoning Test of Aggression (CRTA). The CRTA helps to prevent methodological biases by shifting focus from self-reports toward measures that can pinpoint indirect and underlying tendencies. Basically, the CRTA measures biases in the person's reasoning and judgments, as well as revealing cognitive biases when asked to explain their actions and motivations. It is presumed that understanding the implicit reasoning behind aggressive behaviors will lead to better predictability of aggression in the workplace, which can in turn be counterproductive. The CRTA points out the mechanisms whereby persons justify their behaviors, including hostile attribution bias, potency bias, retribution bias, victimization by powerful others bias, derogation of target bias, and social discounting bias. The authors simplify the study by focusing exclusively on hostile attribution bias, while referring to prior literature on other biases that may be of interest to the reader.

Hostile attribution bias is defined as "the tendency to see harmful intent as the motivation behind others' actions," (Bing et al. 723). Persons who demonstrate hostile attribution bias or any other cognitive bias may be more ready, willing, and able to perform aggressive acts and also to justify those acts. The focus of the study is on reasoning, and how individuals justify their aggressive thoughts and behaviors.

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It is believed that the reasoning process can predict behavior.

However, the authors go beyond simply presenting the results of the CRTA for the sample population and also integrate those findings with self-reports. The result is an integrative method that may prove more accurate and reliable, and therefore of greater use to management professionals. Self-perception as measured by direct self-reports, and self-analysis via indirect assessments on the CRTA provide a potentially powerful aggregate data set.

The research includes several core hypotheses. First, the authors hypothesize that when implicit aggression is high, an increase in "active counterproductive behaviors" will also be high when explicit aggression is present (Bing et al. 725). In other words, there is a direct relationship between implicit aggression, explicit aggression, and counterproductive behaviors. The second hypothesis in this research is that when implicit aggression is which, an increase in passive and indirect counterproductive behaviors will increase when explicit aggression decreases. The third hypothesis is that when implicit aggression is low and when explicit aggression decreases, there will be an increase in prosocial behavior. This would be similar to a converse of the first hypothesis. To test the results of these three hypotheses, the authors surveyed 62 college students at a large southeastern university in the United States. Three separate studies were designed and implemented in order to measure all the variables and hypotheses.

1b. What Were Their Findings?

The results generally substantiated the hypotheses in all three conditions. Conditional reasoning and self-report can be valuable tools when used together in the workplace setting to evaluate potential or existing employees and to prevent dysfunctional behaviors. Issues like lying, complaining, and general deviance were shown to have cognitive precursors that can be empirically measured. The authors note that problems related to aggression and low morale can be harmful to companies, which is why the findings are important. To more accurately predict the viability of prospective employees, a more comprehensive evaluation and assessment may be warranted by human resources personnel.

The findings also help distinguish between latent and expressive aggression. Many human resources personnel may find it relatively easy to address and recognize the….....

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