Mark N. Bing

Incremental validity of the frame-of-reference effect in personality scale scores: a replication and extension.

Context-specific personality items provide respondents with a common frame of reference unlike more traditional, noncontextual personality items. The common frame of reference standardizes item interpretation and has been shown to reduce measurement error while increasing validity in comparison to noncontextual items (M. J. Schmit, A. M. Ryan. S. L. Stierwalt. & S. L. Powell, 1995). Although the frame-of-reference effect on personality scales scores has been well investigated (e.g., M. J. Schmit et al., 1995), the ability of this innovation to obtain incremental validity above and beyond the well-established, noncontextual personality scale scores has yet to be examined. The current study replicates and extends work by M. J. Schmit et al. (1995) to determine the incremental validity of the frame-of-reference effect. The results indicate that context-specific personality items do indeed obtain incremental validity above and beyond both noncontextual items and cognitive ability, and in spite of socially desirable responding induced by applicant instructions. The implications of these findings for personnel selection are discussed.

Dimensions of the Mysticism Scale: Confirming the Three‐Factor Structure in the United States and Iran

In a mostly Christian American sample (N = 1,379), confirmatory factor analysis of Hoods (1975) Mysticism Scale verified the existence of Staces (1960) introvertive and extrovertive dimensions of mystical phenomenology along with a separate interpretation factor: A second study confirmed the presence of these three factors in not only another group of Americans (N = 188), but also in a sample of Iranian Muslims (N = 185). Relationships of the introvertive and extrovertive factors with the interpretation factor were essentially identical across these two cultures, but the Americans displayed a stronger association between the two phenomenology factors. In both h samples, the interpretation factor correlated positively with an intrinsic and negatively with an extrinsic religious orientation, and the introvertive factor predicted psychological dysfunction. Associations of the interpretation factor with relative mental health appeared only in the Iranians. These data offered general support for Staces phenomenology of mysticism, although the ineffability he linked with interpretation proved to be as much or even more a feature of the introvertive experience, as hypothesized by Hood.

SELF-REPORTED EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE: CONSTRUCT SIMILARITY AND FUNCTIONAL DISSIMILARITY OF HIGHER-ORDER PROCESSING IN IRAN AND THE UNITED STATES

This study employed the Trait Meta-Mood Scale (TMMS) to assess self-reported emotional intelligence cross-culturally as an input (attention to emotions), process (clarity of emotions), and output (repair of emotions) information-processing system. Iranian (N = 231) and American (N = 220) university students responded to the TMMS along with measures of alexithymia, public and private self-consciousness, depression, anxiety, self-esteem, and perceived stress. Negative correlations with alexithymia and expected linkages with all other variables documented the validity of the TMMS in both cultures. Most of the other measures correlated similarly in the two samples. However, private and public self-consciousness displayed a stronger positive association in Iran. These two scales were also more predictive of adjustment in Iran and of maladjustment in the United States. This difference perhaps reflected a poorer integration of the two dimensions of self-consciousness within a presumably more individualistic Amer...

Integrating Implicit and Explicit Social Cognitions for Enhanced Personality Assessment A General Framework for Choosing Measurement and Statistical Methods

The current article advocates integrating implicit and explicit social cognitions for enhanced personality assessment in organizational contexts (e.g., personnel selection settings). Several methods for measuring implicit cognitions are reviewed, and their strengths and limitations are discussed. The most widely used method for measuring explicit cognitions, the self-report questionnaire, also is described along with its strengths and limitations. Implicit and explicit cognitions then are integrated to form a general model of personality prototypes. The authors describe several mechanisms by which implicit and explicit cognitions may operate (e.g., coact, interact) to predict criteria, depending on the nature of the personality construct assessed and the outcome of interest. These different operations implicate different statistical methodologies. The authors then present specific examples of this integrative procedure for enhancing personality assessment using the construct of achievement motivation. They conclude by discussing how future research could extend and apply this general framework for use with other personality constructs.

In the Eyes of the Beholder: A Non-Self-Report Measure of Workplace Deviance

Because employees may be reluctant to admit to performing deviant acts, the authors of this study reexamined the commonly used self-report measure of workplace deviance developed by R. J. Bennett and S. L. Robinson (2000). Specifically, the self-report measure was modified into a non-self-report measure based on multiple other-reported assessments to address methodological concerns with self-reported information regarding deviant workplace behaviors. The authors assessed the psychometric properties of this new measure by first conducting an exploratory factor analysis, which indicated a 3-factor structure (production deviance, property deviance, and personal aggression). Subsequent confirmatory factor analysis on a different sample verified these findings. Taken together, the results suggest that the content and psychometric qualities of this non-self-report measure of workplace deviance closely represent S. L. Robinson and R. J. Bennetts (1995) original typology of workplace deviance. The potential usefulness of this measure in organizational studies is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved).

An integrative typology of personality assessment for aggression: Implications for predicting counterproductive workplace behavior.

This study presents an integrative typology of personality assessment for aggression. In this typology, self-report and conditional reasoning (L. R. James, 1998) methodologies are used to assess 2 separate, yet often congruent, components of aggressive personalities. Specifically, self-report is used to assess explicit components of aggressive tendencies, such as self-perceived aggression, whereas conditional reasoning is used to assess implicit components, in particular, the unconscious biases in reasoning that are used to justify aggressive acts. These 2 separate components are then integrated to form a new theoretical typology of personality assessment for aggression. Empirical tests of the typology were subsequently conducted using data gathered across 3 samples in laboratory and field settings and reveal that explicit and implicit components of aggression can interact in the prediction of counterproductive, deviant, and prosocial behaviors. These empirical tests also reveal that when either the self-report or conditional reasoning methodology is used in isolation, the resulting assessment of aggression may be incomplete. Implications for personnel selection, team composition, and executive coaching are discussed.

Individualist and collectivist values: evidence of compatibility in Iran and the United States

This study examined claims that a collectivistic allocentrism is incommensurate with an individualistic idiocentrism and that the Western psychological promotion of individualism necessarily occurs at the expense of communal commitments. Individualist and Collectivist Values Scales were administered to Iranian and American university students along with a Commitment Scale. Commitment recorded one aspect of a healthy personality as described within the largely individualistic perspectives of Maddis (1998) existential personality theory. Empathy, attributional complexity, identity, perceived stress, anxiety, and depression scales were presented as well. In both samples, Collectivist and Individualist Values correlated positively. Both values also predicted a form of adjustment that included greater Commitment in Iran. In the United States, Collectivistic but not Individualistic Values correlated positively with Commitment. Partial correlations demonstrated that Collectivist Values explained many associations of Individualist Values with adjusted personality functioning, but not vice versa. Collectivist Values fully mediated the relationships of Individualist Values with Commitment and depression in both samples. Idiocentrism, therefore, was compatible with allocentrism, even in a society as different from the United States as Iran, and the individualism of Western psychological theory did not preclude a sensitivity to the positive potentials of allocentrism.

RESEARCH: Negatively Reinforcing Personal Extrinsic Motivations: Religious Orientation, Inner Awareness, and Mental Health in Iran and the United States

In Iranian and American samples, a new Negatively Reinforcing Personal Extrinsic Religious Motivations Scale contained four factors. These four Personal-Negative factors correlated positively with the Allport and Ross Intrinsic and Extrinsic Religious Orientation Scales. In correlations with measures of an inner psychological awareness, Intrinsic and Extrinsic constructs predicted greater Self-Consciousness and Self-Knowledge in Iran, but not in the United States. In both cultures, however, intrinsicness was associated with lower Alexithymia and greater Emotional Intelligence whereas the opposite was true of extrinsicness, especially after partialing out the Intrinsic Scale. A few findings suggested that Extrinsic motivations might have positive mental health implications, but linkages with Anxiety, Depression, Perceived Stress, and Self-Esteem overwhelmingly depicted intrinsicness as adjusted and extrinsicness as maladjusted. Each Personal-Negative factor displayed evidence of incremental validity. Factor analysis of all religious orientation variables in each sample yielded two components, a general religious motivation factor and a bipolar Intrinsic dimension. Iranians were higher on several Extrinsic measures. Americans displayed higher Intrinsic scores. These data suggested that religious motivation was more highly integrated within the Iranians and that Allportian concepts supplied a productive conceptual framework for understanding Iranian Muslim as well as American Christian religious commitments.

Values Enactment in Organizations: A Multi-Level Examination:

Business writers and practitioners recommend that core organizational values be integrated into employee work life for enhanced organizational productivity, yet no published studies have empirically examined the antecedents and outcomes of values enactment. Using longitudinal data on 2,622 employees, hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) results revealed that tenure and department-level values enactment were significant predictors of individual values enactment. Furthermore, employees who demonstrated high levels of values enactment were less likely to leave, and employees of high or low levels of values enactment in departments whose levels of values enactment matched their own were the most likely to be promoted.

Social Science as Dialogue: Narcissism, Individualist and Collectivist Values, and Religious Interest in Iran and the United States

This investigation most importantly sought to illustrate the use of social science to promote cross-cultural dialogue. Fukuyama (1992) explained contemporary cultural trends in terms of a triumphant individualism that would overcome all other forms of social life, including what he described as the “fundamentalist resentment” of Iran. Lasch (1979) more pessimistically diagnosed Western social arrangements in terms of an emerging “culture of narcissism.” In this study, Iranian and American university students responded to measures of narcissism, individualist and collectivist values, religious interest, and psychological adjustment (identity, self-actualization, and self-consciousness). Variables related to a sense of community (collectivist values, religious interest, and identity) correlated negatively with narcissism in both societies, as did self-actualization. These data supported a moderate position between the polarized extremes of Fukuyama and Lasch and more importantly demonstrated how social scientific methods might be useful in creating a “space” for conducting a “dialogue between civilizations.”