SELECTED LITERATURE REVIEW

The literature review for this chapter addresses two key factors under the mental ability portion of the WPF—general mental ability and personality, which are prominent areas of concern to HR managers when staffing their organizations. General mental abilities were a cornerstone of standardized testing for much of the 20th century, and a strong interest in personality traits has resurfaced over the last decade due to a renewed emphasis on work habits, personality conflicts, and difficulties in working well with other people in a team environment. General mental abilities and personality attributes are transformed into competencies, or job-related KSAs, through training and development.

General Mental Ability

General mental ability or g is presented as a key component in the first part of the WPF. This section includes some history on tests for general mental ability and discusses other concepts related to mental abilities such as intelligence.

How valid is general mental ability? Validity figures explain the correlation between test scores and work performance, which can then be used to evaluate the usefulness of the test in screening for the best candidates.

However, because of imperfect testing methods and population samples, various studies report statistical and measurement errors related to validity figures. Using meta-analyses of validity studies, researchers have been able to correct for these effects (Schmidt and Hunter 1998; Hunter and Schmidt 1990; Hunter et al. 1982). In their extensive research on various selection methods over the past 85 years, including employment tests, interviews, reference checks, and education, Schmidt and Hunter (1998) report that the maximum corrected validity in their study tops out at .65 using test scores for general mental ability in combination with integrity tests, which assess certain personality traits. They conclude that general mental ability (g) is the best predictor of job performance, particularly when used in conjunction with integrity tests.

Sternberg and Kaufman (1998) discuss intelligence as an attribute of human abilities from the perspectives of culture, psychometrics, and theories on intelligence. They note that general Western psychological views of intelligence include three components—the ability to learn, the ability to adapt to the environment, and the ability to understand and control oneself (metacognition). Depending on the culture of the people being studied, other civilizations’ views on intelligence include topics in mental processing, benevolence, integrity, humility, interpersonal intelligence or social competence, memory, problem solving, technological skills, creative thinking, and even silence.

Sternberg and Kaufman assert that the history of psychometrics began with tests of general mental ability, or g, but are now evolving toward more dynamic or interactive testing. But they note that these newer tests have not been thoroughly validated and are more promissory than proven. Among the theories they discuss, three are of particular interest—emotional intelligence, Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences, and the theory of successful intelligence advanced by Sternberg.

Emotional intelligence includes the abilities to perceive, appraise, and express emotions, generate relevant feelings, understand emotions, and promote growth (Sternberg and Kaufman 1998; Mayer and Salovey 1997). Dulewicz and Higgs (2004) identify self-awareness, emotional resilience, motivation, interpersonal sensibility, intuitiveness, and conscientiousness as elements of emotional intelligence.

Sternberg and Kaufman note that Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences includes linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal intelligences as separate human intelligences that are based in part on separate brain operations. Gardner has more recently proposed the possibility of an additional intelligence—naturalist intelligence, which is an ability to understand nature and living things.

Practical intelligence includes analytical, creative, and practical abilities. Analytical abilities are used to develop strategies for personal success based on an analysis of one’s strengths and weaknesses. Creative abilities are attributed to identifying undervalued ideas and exploiting them. The practical abilities, or practical intelligence, advanced by Sternberg involves “the acquisition and use of tacit knowledge, which is knowledge of what one needs to know to succeed in a given environment that is not explicitly taught and that usually is not verbalized” (494).

Two weaknesses of these evolving theories of intelligence are the inability to develop reliable standardized tests that are affordable and, when tests are developed, the inability to guard against a candidates’ ability to “study for the test” or learn how to do well on the test as an end in itself.

Thus, we return to general mental ability (g) as the mental ability best evaluated and most useful for predicting work performance. However, this does not mean general mental ability explains all work performance. Despite these findings, Murphy et al. (2003) reported that the respondents in a survey of 703 members of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychologists had some misgivings about tests for general mental ability. Their respondents believed that although these tests are fair and valid, they provide incomplete measures of intelligence and the different abilities or attributes that affect performance. The respondents also wanted to avoid any adverse impacts these tests have on employment opportunities for minorities.

Thus, while a solid review of test validity over the last 85 years concludes that tests for general mental ability are the most valid form of testing when used in conjunction with integrity tests, researchers continue to look for other methods of evaluating and selecting candidates for employment. This leads us to the second component of mental ability in the WPF—personality.

Personality

Funder (2001) notes that in personality psychology—the branch of psychology that links personality with behavior—personality traits, behaviorism, and social-cognition are three of the most prominent contemporary personality paradigms. According to Funder, personality traits have been well defined by empirical research, and he cites the “big five” personality traits of extraversion, neuroticism (sometimes evaluated as emotional stability), conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness to experience as dominant in the literature.

Mount and Barrick (1995) provide an extensive analysis of the big five and show how these personality traits have been evaluated in numerous studies. Although none of the studies they reference match these five attributes exactly, the comparisons are obvious when presented as a group.

For example, terms describing forms of extraversion include power, surgency, social extraversion, social, talkativeness, and expressiveness. Terms describing forms of agreeableness include warm, friendly, cooperative, and courteous. Terms describing forms of conscientiousness include responsible, orderly, hard-working, thorough, and dependable. Terms describing forms of neuroticism include anxiety, emotional instability, depression, guilt, emotional, self-protective, and excitable. And finally, terms describing forms of openness to experience include intelligent, curious, cultured, and broad-minded.

Behaviorism, as Funder explains, began with the ambition of its founders, John Watson and B.F. Skinner, “to excise from psychology all that is subjective and unobservable” (201). Their research led to studying how the environment and imposed reinforcements affected observable behavior. Funder further notes that, more recently, social-learning theorists point out that often the beliefs about potential reinforcements direct behaviors rather than the actual reinforcements, which has led to further research on how we develop our beliefs about the world we live in and how people with different beliefs may behave differently.

Social cognition theory primarily focuses on how the individual understands himself and behaves in ways that are consistent with that self-perception and goals. Thus the underlying concept of social cognition is for a person to understand himself and act knowledgeably. Funder (2001) discusses the work of Albert Bandura, who explains that a self-system can be developed “as the result of the interaction of the person and his or her environment, which allows self-control through self-reward and self-punishment—a basis for moral behavior” (204). The implication here is that when a person knows himself and understands his environment, he is able to maximize the use of certain behaviors to serve his self-interests.

In addition to cognitive understanding of the self, Mischel and Shoda (1998) integrate knowing and understanding one’s feelings or affective state into an expanded theory of a “cognitive-affective personality system” or CAPS. Thus, self-control and self-determination are not only a cognitive act, but also one that derives the most meaning emotionally.

In the WPF, personality traits, like general mental abilities, are presented as a human resource. Self-efficacy and expectancy theory, which are aspects of social cognition theory, are linked to effort, energy, and intentions as work inputs in Chapter 4. Behavioral aspects of personality are presented as work behaviors in the WPF and discussed in Chapter 5. Work behaviors are determined by our work inputs, by the constraints dictated to us by work rules, and by the consequent rewards or punishments we receive.

Intelligence, including emotional intelligence, is presented in the WPF as an impact that affects our beliefs and understanding of the world. Unlike Gardner (Sternberg and Kaufman 1998), the WPF proposes that intelligence is not just innate, but rather a combination of both innate abilities and learned beliefs. This difference is discussed in Chapter 8.

While individuals are constrained by their personality traits, just as they are by their mental abilities, people also have a considerable capacity to overcome areas of weakness through education, training, and experience. The WPF envisions a greater capacity to adjust behaviors irrespective of personality traits than is perhaps suggested by the psychological literature on personality. Moreover, in the modern workplace, high expectations are placed on a worker to be a part of a team environment, so information on appropriate work behaviors is more readily available than in the past. Adhering to organizationally prescribed work behaviors is very important to successful work performance.

Thus, we present general mental ability (g) and personality as the core mental abilities in the WPF. While we acknowledge the existence of other mental abilities, traits like emotional intelligence can be accounted for at the resource stage as a combination of general mental ability and personality. Moreover, we suggest that intelligence is not a resource, but an intellectual reaction to our life experiences. We will discuss intelligence further at the impact stage of the WPF in Chapter 8.

Mount and Barrick (1995), in discussing personality traits and related HR management issues, note that “[o]ne of the most pressing research needs in human resources management is the development of a comprehensive theory of work performance” (154). The WPF provides the structure for a comprehensive theory of work performance and incorporates personality traits, social cognition theory, and behaviors into its many components.