Examining personality for the selection and classification of soldiers: Validity and differential validity across jobs

Christopher D Nye; Leonard A White; Fritz Drasgow; Joshua Prasad; Oleksandr S Chernyshenko; Stephen Stark

doi:10.1080/08995605.2019.1652482

Examining personality for the selection and classification of soldiers: Validity and differential validity across jobs

Mil Psychol. 2020 Feb 4;32(1):60-70. doi: 10.1080/08995605.2019.1652482. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Christopher D Nye¹, Leonard A White², Fritz Drasgow³, Joshua Prasad¹, Oleksandr S Chernyshenko⁴, Stephen Stark⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan.
² U.S. Army Research Institute, Ft. Belvoir, Virginia.
³ The School of Labor and Employment Relations and the Department of Psychology, University of Illinois, Champaign, Illinois.
⁴ Division of Strategy, Management, & Organization at the Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technical University, Singapore.
⁵ Department of Psychology, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida.

Abstract

A number of past studies have demonstrated that personality traits are modest predictors of workplace attitudes and behaviors and can provide incremental validity over cognitive ability. However, less is known about the utility of personality for job classification. In addition, concerns about the effects of faking on personality measures still remain. In this study, we examined the validity of a forced choice personality measure administered under operational conditions to explore the use of personality traits in high-stakes settings. In addition, we also examined the potential use of personality for classification into military occupational specialties (MOS). We explored these issues in a large sample of Soldiers from five different MOS to examine the prediction of performance during initial military training (IMT). Results indicated that composites of personality traits were valid predictors of performance and attrition and that these composites may be useful for classifying individuals into different military occupations. The implications of these results for Soldier selection and classification are discussed.

Keywords: Personality; differential validity; personnel classification; personnel selection; validity.

Grants and funding

The research described herein was sponsored by the U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, Department of the Army (Contract No. W5J9CQ-12-0016).