Personality Assessment To-Go

A particular feature of unproctored Internet Testing (UIT) is the participants’ freedom to decide on the formal aspects of their participation, such as time of day, device, and whether, how often, and for how long they might intermit their participation. A main point of discussion has been how these aspects alter the quality and content of an assessment. The issue remains understudied while simultaneously maintaining great importance for many fields. We examined this question in a UIT assessment of the Big Five personality factors in the present study. A sample of 441 participants who completed the assessment and 527 participants who aborted their participation was used to analyze quality (internal consistency, response styles) and content (mean score) differences. Results revealed several dependencies among small effect sizes. The discussion focuses on the potential practical implications of the present findings.

The Competencies Used to Assess the Effectiveness of New Zealand Managers

<p>Research on the competencies required by effective New Zealand managers is lacking. This thesis addressed this deficiency by identifying the competencies managers use to assess the effectiveness of managers across organisations and industries in New Zealand. The research was carried out in two parts. First, repertory grid interviews were conducted with 225 chief executives and senior managers from 75 organisations. They described the constructs that differentiated their effective and less effective senior managers. Six independent people categorised the interview constructs, which were incorporated in a questionnaire. In the second part of the study, 185 managers from two organisations rated a manager they regarded as effective on the constructs, as well as their overall effectiveness. The questionnaire analysis revealed a six-factor managerial effectiveness model. One main factor (interpersonal Skills) contributed over 40% of the variance. The five other factors (Conscientious and Organised, Strategic Behaviour, Problem-Solving, Drive and Enthusiasm, and Honest Feedback) contributed between 1.6% and 6% of the variance. The factors were similar to non-New Zealand competency models and the frequently cited Big Five personality factors. The implications of these findings are discussed, as well as issues related to identifying and implementing competencies.</p>

The Competencies Used to Assess the Effectiveness of New Zealand Managers

<p>Research on the competencies required by effective New Zealand managers is lacking. This thesis addressed this deficiency by identifying the competencies managers use to assess the effectiveness of managers across organisations and industries in New Zealand. The research was carried out in two parts. First, repertory grid interviews were conducted with 225 chief executives and senior managers from 75 organisations. They described the constructs that differentiated their effective and less effective senior managers. Six independent people categorised the interview constructs, which were incorporated in a questionnaire. In the second part of the study, 185 managers from two organisations rated a manager they regarded as effective on the constructs, as well as their overall effectiveness. The questionnaire analysis revealed a six-factor managerial effectiveness model. One main factor (interpersonal Skills) contributed over 40% of the variance. The five other factors (Conscientious and Organised, Strategic Behaviour, Problem-Solving, Drive and Enthusiasm, and Honest Feedback) contributed between 1.6% and 6% of the variance. The factors were similar to non-New Zealand competency models and the frequently cited Big Five personality factors. The implications of these findings are discussed, as well as issues related to identifying and implementing competencies.</p>

Reduced Attention to Faces in Images is associated with Psychopathology

Humans show a robust tendency to attend to faces in images, but also differ consistently in the strength of this attentional preference. Previous research remained inconclusive as to how a stronger attentional preference for faces may be indicative of an individual's personality or clinical characteristics. Here we investigated attention towards faces in 120 participants who freely viewed photos showing a person in the context of a complex and visually rich environment. Participants differed consistently in the strength of their attention to faces across images with $\alpha$ = 0.88. A stronger preference for faces was correlated positively with openness to experience, extraversion, agreeableness and empathizing and was correlated negatively with social anxiety, depression levels and alexithymia. A common factor, which may be best understood as general psychopathology, explained 41% of the variance in these variables and was correlated with face preference at r = -0.36. Social anxiety stood out as only variable which explained face preference above and beyond the Big Five personality factors. Future research should investigate how correlates of face preference generalize across different types of images and real-life social situations.

How do people plan to negotiate?

Planning is critical for negotiation success as it facilitates obtaining superior outcomes. However, little empirically is known about what people do to plan. We offer an initial exploration of the topic, with the aim of inspiring greater research attention to the topic. We approach the question from an individual differences perspective, since planning phase places greater emphasis on individual action. We explored how the Big Five personality factors and gender predict preference and search for information that facilitates efforts to claim value, create value, and manage relationships. In Study 1, we used a survey method to elicit preferences. Extraversion and conscientiousness predicted preference for information that would help to claim value, and agreeableness predicted preference for information that would help to manage relationships. Women preferred value creating information. In Studies 2, 3, and 4, we examined search behavior using the Mouselab paradigm (Johnson, Payne, Bettman, &amp; Schkade, 1989). A different pattern of relationships emerged. When the search task was complex, agreeableness predicted how extensively people searched for information. When tasks were more constrained, we detected fewer relationships between individual differences and search behavior.

Examining Personality Differences between Scientifically Gifted and Nongifted Students: Indications for Gifted Education and Teacher Trainings

Gifted education needs to be constantly improved and differentiated for various types of domain-specific giftedness, especially in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) subjects. Therefore, teachers must be adequately trained in the field of giftedness. The aim of this study was to investigate (the Big Five) personality factors in scientifically gifted and nongifted students to find potential educational adjustments that should be considered during teacher trainings. The sample consisted of N = 372 students between 4th and 7th grade (mean age = 10.62 years, 38.7% female). Scientifically gifted students showed higher scores for Openness and lower scores for Agreeableness than nongifted students. This study provides initial findings about the personality of scientifically gifted students and supports that they should be promoted through problem and action-orientated teaching. More differentiated methods should be used in further research to substantiate the presented tendencies.

Motivation to Lead as Mediator of Relations Between the Dark Triad, Big Five, and Leadership Intention

This study seeks to enhance the distal-proximal modeling of personality trait–leader emergence relationships by (1) distinguishing between the motivation to lead (i.e., the reasons why a person seeks leadership roles) and leadership intention (i.e., one’s expressed desire to claim a leadership role) and by (2) examining how the Dark Triad traits add to the Big Five personality factors in predicting three motivation to lead factors and leadership intentions. Using personality and careers aspiration data collected from 750 university students, we found that affective-identity and social-normative motivation to lead mediate the effects of distal traits on intentions. In contrast, non-calculative motivation to lead does not contribute to leadership intentions, which has important implications for organizations seeking selfless leaders. Narcissism explains variance in leadership intentions over and above that explained by extraversion; this contrasts with the studies of leader emergence, where the effect of narcissism disappears once extraversion is controlled. Overall, our findings validate the three-factor conceptualization of motivation to lead and illuminate the roles of both bright and dark personality factors in understanding individual desire to attain leadership roles.

Haters Gonna Hate, Trolls Gonna Troll: The Personality Profile of a Facebook Troll

Personality factors, such as the Dark Tetrad personality factors (Machiavellianism, narcissism and sadism) relate to greater online trolling. Other personality factors, such as the Big Five Personality factors, honesty–humility and negative social potency, may also play a role in cyberbullying, which is an aggressive behavior similar to trolling. The purpose of this study was to predict Facebook trolling behavior based on personality factors. A total of 139 participants completed a survey on their online behavior and personality factors. Online trolling behavior positively correlated with sadism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism, and negatively correlated with agreeableness, conscientiousness and honesty–humility. A hierarchical linear regression showed that sadism, Machiavellianism and negative social potency were the only unique predictors of online trolling behavior. Trolling was unrelated to the frequency of Facebook use and the frequency of commenting. Enjoyment of trolling fully mediated the relationship between Machiavellianism and the trolling behavior. The results thus suggested that Facebook trolling behaviors may be motivated by enjoying the manipulation of others.