Personality measurement, faking, and employment selection.

Real job applicants completed a 5-factor model personality measure as part of the job application process. They were rejected; 6 months later they (n = 5,266) reapplied for the same job and completed the same personality measure. Results indicated that 5.2% or fewer improved their scores on any scale on the 2nd occasion; moreover, scale scores were as likely to change in the negative direction as the positive. Only 3 applicants changed scores on all 5 scales beyond a 95% confidence threshold. Construct validity of the personality scales remained intact across the 2 administrations, and the same structural model provided an acceptable fit to the scale score matrix on both occasions. For the small number of applicants whose scores changed beyond the standard error of measurement, the authors found the changes were systematic and predictable using measures of social skill, social desirability, and integrity. Results suggest that faking on personality measures is not a significant problem in real-world selection settings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of organizational citizenship behaviors on selection decisions in employment interviews.

This article reports on an experiment examining the effects of job candidates' propensity to exhibit organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) on selection decisions made in the context of a job interview. We developed videos that manipulated candidate responses to interview questions tapping task performance and citizenship behavior content in 2 administrative positions. Results obtained from 480 undergraduates provided support for our hypotheses that job candidates who exhibited higher levels of helping, voice, and loyalty behaviors were generally rated as more competent, received higher overall evaluations, and received higher salary recommendations than job candidates who exhibited lower levels of these behaviors. These effects held even after taking into account candidate responses regarding task performance. We also found that candidate responses to OCB-related questions tended to have a greater effect on selection decisions for the higher level position (supervisor of administrative personnel) than for the lower level one (administrative assistant). Finally, content analyses of open-ended responses indicated that participants' selection decisions were particularly sensitive to candidates who exhibited low levels of voice and helping behaviors. Implications and future research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The impact of Canadian employment selection issues on validation research.

Canadian industrial/organizational psychologists are being challenged to justify the use of employment selection tests to ensure adherence to fair employment practice legislation. The author examines 4 issues related to validation research: the definition of terms, such as validity, test bias, and test fairness; sample size; the adverse impact of employment tests; and the legal responsibilities of test users. Strategies of concurrent validation, validity generalization, synthetic validation, and latent trait theory are discussed. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Long-range impact of "fair selection" standards on minority employment.

Reviews alternate statistical standards of "fair selection," including the standard that seems to be implicit in the federal employee selection guidelines. A human resource planning model is developed to simulate the impact of each standard on minority employment. In the model, the racial composition of the flows of employees into and through the organization is determined by the "fair selection" standard chosen for simulation. The model is applied to staffing data from an existing organization. Data show that the fairness standard implicit in the federal selection guidelines would have a worse effect on Black employment than would the implicit fairness standard typically used by employers. (60 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Negro-white differences in validity of employment and training selection procedures: Summary of research evidence.

Examined 13 research studies dealing with differences between negroes and caucasians in the validity of employment and training selection procedures. It was found that 100 of the 160 validity coefficients computed were not significant for either group, indicating the need for validation prior to operational use. Significant differences in the coefficients between groups were found only in 7 instances. Statistical significance of single group validity occurred in 33 instances. The combination of ethnic groups yielded lower validity than for either group separately on only 3 out of 120 instances. It is concluded that there is very little evidence of differential validity. Single-group validity appears linked to the use of ratings (rather than more objective criterion measures), and small samples. (25 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Early childhood education: A meta-analytic affirmation of the short- and long-term benefits of educational opportunity.

Reviewed the scientific evidence on the effectiveness of early childhood educational programs. Drawing upon the theory that intelligence and related complex human behaviors are probably always determined by myriad complex interactions of genes and environments, this meta-analytic study is based on the assumption that such behaviors can be both highly heritable and highly malleable. Integrating results across 35 preschool experiments and quasi-experiments, the primary findings were: (a) preschool effects on standardized measures of intelligence and academic achievement were statistically significant, positive, and large; (b) cognitive effects of relatively intense educational interventions were significant and very large, even after 5–10 years, and 7–8 of every 10 preschool children did better than the average child in a control or comparison group; and (c) cumulative incidences of an array of personal and social problems were statistically, significantly, and substantially lower over a 10- to 25- year period for those who had attended preschool (e.g., school drop out, welfare dependence, unemployment, poverty, criminal behavior). The need for a very large, well-controlled, national experiment to either confirm or refute these provocative, review-generated findings is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Biographical data in employment selection: Can validities be made generalizable?

The hypothesis was examined that organizational specificity of biodata validity results from the methods typically used to select and key items. In this study, items were initially screened for job relevance, keying was based on large samples from multiple organizations, and items were retained only if they showed validity across organizations. Cross-validation was performed on approximately 11,000 first-line supervisors in 79 organizations. The resulting validities were meta-analyzed across organizations, age levels, sex, and levels of education, supervisory experience, and company tenure. In all cases, validities were generalizable. Validities were also stable across time and did not appear to stem from measurement of knowledge, skills, or abilities acquired through job experience. Finally, these results provide additional evidence against the hypothesis of situational specificity of validities, the first large-sample evidence in a noncognitive domain. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Counseling and public employment.

This is the statement of the author before a house Select Subcommittee on Labor. "With respect to counseling, the public employment service requires well-trained staff. This means, 1st that its salary scales for counselors must be competitive… . 2nd, the shortages of trained counselors are such that adequate training stipends must be made available to qualified individuals who will undertake full-time programs of professional preparation. 3rd, research grants should be made available to qualified investigators who will undertake the kinds of occupational research that will help to answer the many questions about vocational effectiveness and career development which are still unresolved. The wise use of its human resources is a basic test of the effective functioning of a democratic nation. Vocational counseling under the auspices of a public employment service can contribute materially to the achievement of this goal." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The elusive relationship between perceived employment opportunity and turnover behavior: A methodological or conceptual artifact?

Recent conceptual work focused attention on the gap between psychological turnover theory and the empirical literature regarding the prominence of perceived employment alternatives in shaping turnover decisions (e.g., C. L. Hulin et al; see record 1985-21605-001). Meta-analysis confirmed that measures of perceived alternatives and turnover are weakly related (Mr?=?.13). The current review supplements earlier work by focusing on 3 methodological problems that may contribute to the lack of support for the predictive utility of perceived alternatives in the contemporary literature: (1) interoccupational vs intraoccupational variance or the dependence of turnover researchers on occupationally homogeneous samples, (2) attenuating effects of the turnover base rate, and (3) inadequate instrumentation. Potential solutions to these problems are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Maternal employment and child care.

Highlights selected demographic, social, and economic forces related to the increase in employment of women and notes the benefits and stresses experienced by employed mothers. These include difficulties associated with finding and affording good day care, concerns about the effects of maternal employment and day care on children, and the difficulties frequently inherent in managing the 2 full-time jobs of employment and motherhood. Suggestions for mental health professionals who work with employed mothers are presented: (1) focus on the woman's family and community systems that may be the source of problems, (2) assist the woman in identifying and priority-rating her multiple demands, and (3) inform individuals about potential stresses and practical problem-solving techniques. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Neighborhood poverty and public policy: A 5-year follow-up of children's educational outcomes in the New York City moving to opportunity demonstration.

Data from the Moving to Opportunity Program, a randomized mobility experiment in which a subset of low-income minority families living in public housing in high-poverty neighborhoods were given vouchers to move to low-poverty neighborhoods, were used to evaluate 1 policy approach for improving children's educational outcomes. Four hundred twenty-five New York City children were seen 2 1/2 and 5 years following relocation (mean age=14.64 years, SD=3.21 years). Analyses examining program effects on 5-year educational outcomes, accounting for 2 1/2-year outcomes, revealed that program effects on adolescent boys' achievement found at 2 1/2 years were not sustained at 5 years. Rather, male and female youths 14-20 years of age in low-poverty neighborhoods reported lower school grades and engagement relative to youths in high-poverty neighborhoods. From a policy standpoint, the complexity of enhancing low-income minority children's educational outcomes is underscored by the multiple dynamics involved--family, neighborhood, housing, and school. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Equal homophonic priming with words and pseudohomophones.

The hypothesis that the earliest representations in visual processing of print are activated word-specific units leads to the expectation that homophonic priming (HP) should be greater for word pairs than pseudohomophone pairs. Ten experiments with naming disconfirmed this hypothesis. At interstimulus intervals of 0, 129, 516, and 930 ms, HP for pseudohomophones (e.g., HOEZ-hoze vs. HOGZ-hoze) equaled HP for words (e.g., KNOWS-nose vs. KNEES-nose). The complementary finding of negative HP with pseudohomophones relative to positive HP with words was found in an additional investigation of lexical decision. The results confirm a critical early stage in visual word recognition, in which words are represented in purely phonological form, and implicate equal speeds in dual-route models for nonlexical and lexical processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Equal rights for older PHDS.

The author expresses his concern about the implications of the use of the term "recent PhD" in advertisements for positions and suspects that age discrimination is proscribed in a manner comparable to restrictions on discrimination based on physical disability, race, and sex. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Master's-level training and employment in community mental health.

The training and employment of master's-level psychologists have long been controversial issues. We describe a master's-level program for training community mental health practitioners, and we present information on the placement of program graduates. The information suggests that there continues to be a demand for well-trained, master's-level practitioners. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Professional involvement in the employment process.

The American Medical Association has recently decided to give a nod to collective bargaining to increase physicians' clout in dealing with managed care. The specter of pro-union organized medicine presents important questions and challenges for all health professionals. It is important to ask whether unionization holds promise for psychologists to assert professionalism and to protect patients in today's health care environment. The authors review the labor experience with unionization and collective bargaining in the nursing profession, to highlight possible lessons of their experience for psychology. Psychologists' experiences with unionizing at the state level are also discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Tension and opportunity in post-World War II American psychology.

The rapid growth of post-World War II psychology in the United States led to intradisciplinary tensions and opportunities. In this article, I examine these tensions and opportunities in the context of social change from the 1950s through the present, attending specifically to the broad impact of federal funding on psychology. I argue that as psychology became a resource-rich field, it was forced to move from a narrow, parochial stance to a position as a national-level professional player that had to deal with the challenges of mixing science and practice, as well as meeting the demands of non-White psychologists at the national level. The impetus to create a more inclusive psychology has grown in the last three decades of the 20th century and has helped create possibilities for greater richness in American psychology and movement toward a truly international role vis-à-vis emergent psychologies around the world (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Applicant decisions in the employment interview.

237 college students who had been interviewed for jobs at a university placement service completed a questionnaire concerning their reactions to an interviewer and their subsequent decisions. Factor analysis of their impressions of the interviewer yielded 6 factors. Factor scores were computed, and multiple regression analyses were used to relate these factor scores to applicant decisions. Perceived interviewer personality, manner of delivery, and adequacy of job information affected interviewee evaluations of the interviewer and his company and the interviewee's likelihood of job acceptance. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Exploring the handshake in employment interviews.

The authors examined how an applicant's handshake influences hiring recommendations formed during the employment interview. A sample of 98 undergraduate students provided personality measures and participated in mock interviews during which the students received ratings of employment suitability. Five trained raters independently evaluated the quality of the handshake for each participant. Quality of handshake was related to interviewer hiring recommendations. Path analysis supported the handshake as mediating the effect of applicant extraversion on interviewer hiring recommendations, even after controlling for differences in candidate physical appearance and dress. Although women received lower ratings for the handshake, they did not on average receive lower assessments of employment suitability. Exploratory analysis suggested that the relationship between a firm handshake and interview ratings may be stronger for women than for men. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)