MGMT1003 Chap.5 The Big Five, HEXACO and Job Performance
The Big Five, HEXACO and Job Performance
Measuring personality
The Big Five emerged from the lexical hypothesis rather than a theory, and every person sits on all five continuous factors. HEXACO replaces it with six factors, adding honesty-humility.
The chapter shows how to score the ten-item inventory used in the lecture and tutorial.
What personality predicts
Hurtz and Donovan's meta-analysis found conscientiousness and emotional stability significantly related to performance, while other factors predict specific outcomes.
Type instruments, faking and legal risk limit how personality tests should be used at work.
How this chapter is examined
Numbers and directions are favourite quiz material: the two significant correlations, which items are reversed, and which trait predicts which outcome. Applied items tend to ask whether a firm should hire on a personality test.
A strong answer cites the modest validity, the faking problem and the legal risk of clinical instruments, then recommends combining a stated trait with better predictors.
What this chapter covers
- 01
The lexical hypothesis and the origins of the Big Five
- 02
Five factors as degrees, not types
- 03
HEXACO and honesty-humility
- 04
Scoring the ten-item personality inventory
- 05
Hurtz and Donovan's correlations with performance
- 06
Traits that predict specific outcomes
- 07
Critiques of type instruments, faking and legal risk
Worked example · free
Read which Big Five traits predict job performance
- 1In Hurtz and Donovan's meta-analysis, extraversion was not significantly correlated with overall job performance; conscientiousness (r = .22) and emotional stability (r = .14) were.
- 1So ranking all graduates on extraversion rests on a trait with no overall link to performance.
- 1Extraversion does predict specific criteria, such as sales performance and leadership, so it is defensible only for roles where that criterion is stated in advance.
Key terms
- Lexical Hypothesis
- The idea that important differences between people are encoded as words in a language, the origin of the Big Five.
- Conscientiousness
- The degree to which a person is responsible, dependable, persistent and achievement-oriented; the strongest personality predictor of performance.
- Honesty-Humility
- The HEXACO factor contrasting fairness and modesty with pretentiousness and dishonesty.
- Meta-Analysis
- A study that pools effect sizes already reported by many studies rather than running a new experiment.
- Reverse Scoring
- Converting a rating on a negatively worded item so that high always means more of the trait, on a 1 to 7 scale as 8 minus the rating.
- Five-Factor Model
- Another name for the Big Five: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability and openness, each measured as a continuous score.
The Big Five, HEXACO and Job Performance FAQ
How do you score the ten-item personality inventory?
Rate the ten items from 1 to 7, reverse-score five items (numbers 2, 6, 8, 9 and 10) by taking each rating away from 8, then average each trait's pair: extraversion from items 1 and 6, agreeableness from 2 and 7, conscientiousness from 3 and 8, neuroticism from 4 and 9, and openness from 5 and 10.
Is the Myers-Briggs indicator useful for hiring?
The lecture says no. Many people get a different type on retest, the scales are continuous so splitting at the midpoint creates false opposites, and there is little evidence that type predicts job performance. Even the company that publishes it warns against using it for hiring.
Why should a personality score never be a single hiring hurdle?
Because applicants fake, most on conscientiousness and emotional stability, and because correlations around .22 describe tendencies across many people rather than predictions about one candidate. The lecture recommends pairing any score with stronger predictors: samples of real work, structured interviews and cognitive tests.
Which Big Five trait predicts which outcome at work?
Beyond overall performance, extraversion goes with sales success and leadership, openness with training and adjusting to an overseas posting, agreeableness with customer service and teamwork, and emotional stability with management and safety-critical roles. Conscientiousness supports performance across most jobs and predicts persistence.
Exam move
Practise scoring the inventory on two made-up response sets until the reversal is automatic. Memorise the five factors with one descriptor each, HEXACO's extra factor, and the two significant correlations with their values. For critiques, learn three problems with type instruments and three defences against faking.
Finish by explaining, in two sentences, why a correlation of .22 justifies using conscientiousness as one input but not as the only hiring hurdle.
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