Individuals’ ability to predict their own personality test scores
| Author | Bruce Kirkcaldy |
| Published date | 01 December 2001 |
| Date | 01 December 2001 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1035719X0100100218 |
| Subject Matter | Research Summary |
63
RESEARCH SUMMARY
Kirkcaldy – Research summaries
Individuals’ ability to predict their
own personality test scores
Introduction
In Europe, over the last 30 years, there has been much use of psychological in
particular personality assessment inventories used in the area of occupational and
organisational psychology. This has been particularly pronounced in managerial
selection, with several international human resource companies still implementing
personality questionnaires in an attempt to identify those specific traits which seem
be associated with occupational success. There has been a reluctance to give up the
use of such standardised questionnaires and rely solely on interview procedures for
selection, mainly because of the unreliability involved in reliance on subjective
evaluation. Other reasons include the high number of job applicants especially in
periods of high unemployment (as witnessed currently in Europe), and the high costs
in terms of working hours and finance of interviewing procedures (getting candidates
to travel large distance with expensive accommodation and selection through
professional interviewers) and the need for objective comparative databases
(Furnham 1992). More frequently, over the last couple of decades there has been a
policy of employing a dual-pronged strategy, that is, utilising semi-structured
interviews combined with psychometric tools by ‘on-site’ honorary personnel
consultants.
Moreover, in an era of new information technology and easy access to software
programs there would seem to have been a strengthening in the popularity of more
comprehensive psychological screening in selection and appraisal procedures. Several
reasons have been suggested for this including
■uniform coverage in questioning (few if any areas ever overlooked);
■using software to do initial screening and evaluation is very efficient and
economic;
■software can be tailored to pursue specific issues beyond the normal inquiry based
upon the individual’s responses;
■the client does the data entry, which also saves time for the practitioner/personnel
manager and ultimately ensures that it is done;
■all data can be written to the drive for comparison within and between groups,
hence facilitating research; and
■software tools can be adapted to the web for efficient use anywhere there is a web
connection.
One of the most favoured personality inventories implemented in organisational
and industrial settings has been Cattell’s 16PF. The popularity of the Sixteen
Personality Questionnaire has been its use of a wide range of personality dimensions;
‘it is based on the functional measurement previously located in natural personality
structures; the measurements are relatable to an organised and integrated body of
practice and theoretical knowledge in clinical education and industrial psychology ...
The psychometric properties of the scale are well documented as well as the problem
of deception. The very fact that the test had been around so long (over 40 years); very
shrewdly and aggressively marketed in a variety of countries; and that Cattell himself
has been such an active researcher and zealous advocate of the test for so long, all
Bruce Kirkcaldy1
Bruce Kirkcaldy runs a
psychotherapy practice in
Düsseldorf specialising in anxiety
and depressive disorders, and is
founder of and directs the
International Centre for the Study of
Occupational and Mental Health.
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