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Applications of Personality Assessment to the Workplace: A Review

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Abstract

Our review of the relevant research literature in the recent past strongly supports the view that personality assessment has high utility in the workplace. We review the evidence that personality assessment measures, especially those based upon the Big Five factors of personality, can effectively predict job performance and thus can be used for personnel selection. The validity of integrity testing in predicting counterproductivity on the job has been demonstrated both for overt measures of integrity and, to a lesser degree, for more general (subtle) measures of personality. We also found good evidence of validity for measures of (supervisory) management and (transformational) leadership, a complex field which includes a number of multidimensional instruments each built around its own theory. Finally, we review the empirical literature that supports the use of assessment centers and the use of personality assessment in training and development.

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  1. Washington, D.C.

    Leonard D. Goodstein

  2. Arizona State University, USA

    Richard I. Lanyon

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Goodstein, L.D., Lanyon, R.I. Applications of Personality Assessment to the Workplace: A Review. Journal of Business and Psychology 13, 291–322 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022941331649

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