Business and Management INK

Does Mental Ability Affect Question Interpretation on Personality Tests?

June 10, 2014 883

[We’re pleased to welcome Amy DuVernet who was the corresponding author on the article “General Mental Ability as a Source of Differential Functioning in Personality Scales” from Organizational Research Methods.]

Individuals vary on a number of characteristics. Our ability to accurately measure their standings on those characteristics is pivotal to our understanding of individual differences and the drivers of individual behavior. Our study focused specifically on the interaction between personality measurement and intelligence (i.e., general mental ability). We utilized Item Response Theory techniques to examine differences in item characteristics across groups of varying levels of general 07ORM13_Covers.inddmental ability. In other words, we investigated whether intelligence plays a role in the way an individual interprets and responds to questions designed to gauge personality traits, such as extraversion and conscientiousness.

A person high in intelligence may be better able to interpret and thus respond to a personality item if that item uses complex language or requires a great deal of cognitive processing. For example, the International Personality Item Pool (Goldberg, Johnson, Eber, Hogan, Ashton, Cloninger, & Gough, 2006) item “I shirk my duties” requires respondents to understand the meaning of the relatively uncommon term “shirk”, to recall instances of shirked work duties, and to gauge how those recollections map onto the response options (e.g., strongly agree to strongly disagree).

Our results confirmed that, while most personality items did not demonstrate significantly different characteristics across groups, certain items are indeed interpreted differently by individuals with highly different intelligence levels. For example, all negatively keyed items (i.e., items in which strong endorsement indicates less of the underlying trait being measured) exhibited differential item functioning, suggesting that respondents with low cognitive ability interpreted and responded to these items differently than those with high cognitive ability. These findings have implications for the construction of personality and other noncognitive measures. Ideally, the measurement of these constructs should not be influenced by individuals’ intelligence; however, the results of this study indicate that intelligence can influence the response process for non-cognitive measures.

Click here to read General Mental Ability as a Source of Differential Functioning in Personality Scales” from Organizational Research Methods. Make sure to sign up for e-alerts by clicking here and stay up to date on all the latest from Organizational Research Methods!

 amy-duvernet-ph-dAmy M. DuVernet is the Director of Corporate Research at Training Industry, Inc, where her work focuses on learning and development research to inform best practices. She earned her PhD in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from North Carolina State University.

natalie-wrightNatalie Wright is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology and Counseling at Valdosta State University. She earned her PhD in industrial and organizational psychology from North Carolina State University in 2013. Her current research focuses on the psychometric evaluation of psychological measurements.

adam2Adam W. Meade is Professor of Psychology at North Carolina State University. His interests relate to the application of quantitative methods in organizational research in novel approaches to psychological measurement. He serves on various editor boards and as Associate Editor for Organizational Research Methods.

chrisChris Coughlin is a Senior Research Scientist on the Product Development and Innovation team at CEB. In this role, he leads the development, validation, and implementation of call center, software, and computer skill simulations. Prior to joining CEB, he worked on organizational development initiatives at Spherion, a Randstad company. He earned his BS in Psychology from the University of Georgia and his MS in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from Valdosta State University. He is a member of the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Society for Human Resource Management, and the American Psychological Association.

tracyTracy M. Kantrowitz is Vice President of Research and Development at CEB’s SHL Talent Measurement Solutions. In this role, she is responsible for the development of assessment content and research related to employee selection. Dr. Kantrowitz has published in leading journals and presented at national conferences on topics such as predictors of job performance, computer adaptive testing (CAT), and unproctored internet testing (UIT). Dr. Kantrowitz holds a PhD in industrial/organizational psychology from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Business and Management INK puts the spotlight on research published in our more than 100 management and business journals. We feature an inside view of the research that’s being published in top-tier SAGE journals by the authors themselves.

View all posts by Business & Management INK

Related Articles

Challenging, But Worth It: Overcoming Paradoxical Tensions of Identity to Embrace Transformative Technologies in Teaching and Learning
Business and Management INK
March 27, 2024

Challenging, But Worth It: Overcoming Paradoxical Tensions of Identity to Embrace Transformative Technologies in Teaching and Learning

Read Now
Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence in the Complex Environment of Megaprojects: Implications for Practitioners and Project Organizing Theory
Business and Management INK
March 21, 2024

Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence in the Complex Environment of Megaprojects: Implications for Practitioners and Project Organizing Theory

Read Now
Putting People at the Heart of the Research Process
Business and Management INK
March 20, 2024

Putting People at the Heart of the Research Process

Read Now
Coping with Institutional Complexity and Voids: An Organization Design Perspective for Transnational Interorganizational Projects
Research
March 19, 2024

Coping with Institutional Complexity and Voids: An Organization Design Perspective for Transnational Interorganizational Projects

Read Now
Empowering David: How Smaller Firms Reconfigure National Dependency on Foreign Multinationals in the Era of Disruptive Technological Change

Empowering David: How Smaller Firms Reconfigure National Dependency on Foreign Multinationals in the Era of Disruptive Technological Change

In this article, Sonja Avlijaš, Pavle Medić, and Kori Udovički reflect on foreign direct investment (FDI) and the way it impacts the development of political economies.

Read Now
The Complexities of Making Key Career Decisions

The Complexities of Making Key Career Decisions

practice. Career decision-making is a process that is difficult to analyze because it is much more complex than selecting the best option in a one-off choice.

Read Now
Revolutionizing Management Research with Immersive Research Methods

Revolutionizing Management Research with Immersive Research Methods

In this article, Anand van Zelderen, Nicky Dries, and Elise Marescaux reflect on their decision to explore nontraditional research.

Read Now
0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments