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Abstract. After nearly two decades of awareness on the research–practice gap in human resource management, this study updates and expands on the seminal findings of Rynes et al. (2002) specific to personnel selection. In a sample of 453 human resource (HR) practitioners in the US and Canada, we found that the research–practice gap persists. Notably, compared to the 2002 findings, HR practitioners tended to be worse at identifying personnel selection myths than was shown by Rynes et al. over 15 years ago, while those who reported not conducting validity studies were surprisingly better at identifying several myths as false. Several potential avenues for advancement are suggested in light of the disturbing stubbornness of the research–practice gap in personnel selection.

There are arguably great benefits when employees experience a sense of meaning across life domains. The current study examined whether meaningfulness of work and family predicts one’s tendency to manage work/life outcomes. A total of 386 participants reported the sense of meaningfulness they derived from work and family responsibilities. Analyses explored how individuals’ relative ratings of work and family meaningfulness, as well as the similarity of these perceptions with those of their partners, affect work-family conflict, balance, and enrichment. Results showed that meaningfulness of work influences all work-family outcomes while intra-personal congruence in work and home predicts more work enrichment of family and less strain-based work-family conflict. Congruence between partners work meaning further predicted less strain and behavior based work-family conflict and less work-family balance. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed, and future directions offered.

Major reviews of psychological empowerment (PE) suggest four broad sources to becoming empowered: organizational, leadership, job, and dispositional. This study examines the redundancy, uni...

The unitarian understanding of construct validity holds that deliberate response distortion in completing self-report personality tests (i.e., faking) threatens trait-based inferences drawn from test scores. This “faking-is-bad” (FIB) perspective is being challenged by an emerging “faking-is-good” (FIG) position that condones or favors faking and its underlying attributes (e.g., social skill, ATIC) to the degree they contribute to predictor–criterion correlations and are job relevant. Based on the unitarian model of validity and relevant empirical evidence, we argue the FIG perspective is psychometrically flawed and counterproductive to personality-based selection targeting trait-based fit. Carrying forward both positions leads to variously dark futures for self-report personality tests as selection tools. Projections under FIG, we suggest, are particularly serious. FIB offers a more optimistic future but only to the degree faking can be mitigated. Evidence suggesting increasing applicant faking rates and other alarming trends makes the FIB versus FIG debate a timely if not urgent matter.

Cyberloafing—the use of an electronic device at work for an activity that an immediate supervisor would not consider work-related—is now the most common way that employees waste time at work. It is well established that social norms play a role in cyberloafing, but it is unknown what specific normative information employees attend to when deciding whether or not to cyberloaf. In Study 1, we tested which of four types of normative information could underlie the observed correlation between social norms and cyberloafing. We found that both perceptions of supervisor cyberloafing and perceptions of coworker cyberloafing accounted for unique variance in cyberloafing, and also discovered some evidence that the approval of these referents also had the same effect. In Study 2, we cross-validated these results from Study 1 using a sample that was reasonably representative of the general working population—supporting the generalizability of our findings from Study 1. Furthermore, we conducted supplemental analyses (relative weights analysis and polynomial regression) to untangle nuances in how normative data relates to cyberloafing. In Study 1, we also examined the role of actual norms—as opposed to perceived norms—and found evidence that actual supervisor cyberloafing does influence cyberloafing through employee perceptions of supervisor cyberloafing. Overall, this investigation serves to clarify how social influence plays a role in the cyberloafing phenomenon.

Drawing on trait interaction theory and personality disorder subtypes, we examined narcissism-by-trait interactions (e.g., narcissism × antisocial tendencies) for predicting leadership performance in four independent archival samples ( Ns = 285, 120, 106, 559). This study extends research on multiplicative effects of normative leader characteristics to consider how narcissism becomes particularly disruptive when combined with other extreme interpersonal tendencies. Moderated multiple regression results show interactions involving selected trait pairs varied across samples. Pooled analyses showed (a) differential generalizability across trait pairings and (b) that lower tiered managerial roles and weaker industrial contexts may release such effects. Inconsistencies suggest the need to consider sample-specific trait demands in future trait interaction research, normal, or maladaptive. All told, findings suggest that subclinical personality interactions might accelerate leader derailment, offer unique insights into leader competence, and extend trait interaction research to aberrant tendencies.

Background The Symbol Digit Modalities Test (SDMT) is the most sensitive metric of neurocognitive function in multiple sclerosis (MS), and is consistently interpreted as a measure of information processing speed (IPS). Objective To evaluate the cognitive psychometric profile captured by the SDMT to identify whether different cognitive processes independently underlie performance. Methods Three samples of MS patients (total n=661; 185 research patients at MS center; 370 clinical patients at MS center; 106 persons with MS from the community) completed objective assessments of neuropsychological function across cognitive domains. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used to derive latent cognitive factor scores, and operationalize cognitive domain composite scores, to understand the unique, shared and redundant contribution of different cognitive domains to SDMT performance using hierarchical multiple regression and commonality analysis. Results Across three independent samples we provide converging strong evidence that the cognitive domains of Memory, IPS and Rapid Automatized Naming (lexical access speed) jointly and uniquely contribute to SDMT performance. Conclusion The SDMT measures multiple cognitive processes, which likely explains the high degree of sensitivity to cognitive change in MS. Researchers and clinicians should interpret the SDMT as a multifarious measure of general cognition rather than a specific test of IPS.

This study was undertaken to identify the role of six facets of trait-emotional intelligence (EI) in men’s aggressive tendencies toward intimate partners (N = 131). Consistent with past research, hierarchical regression showed emotional self-regulation and empathy were negatively and uniquely predictive of four self-reported aggressive tendencies: physical aggression, verbal aggression, anger, and hostility. Canonical correlations yielded two distinct patterns of relationships between EI and aggressive tendencies. The first canonical correlation supported an overall negative relationship, especially involving dependent variables anger and hostility. A second canonical correlation revealed higher physical and verbal aggression were associated with higher emotional self-recognition, regulation of others’ emotions, nonverbal emotional expression, and lower empathy. Findings support a multidimensional understanding of EI and aggressive tendencies.

Meaningful work has increasingly been identified as a source of personal fulfillment, a protective factor against daily stress and adversity, and a key mediator linking job characteristics to important organizational outcomes. However, to date, positive organizational scholarship has neglected the role of individual differences in understanding how organizational work becomes more fulfilling. More broadly, there is limited consensus with respect to which traits, actions, or job features sustain meaning, and whether specific pathways may account for these associations. To address such limitations, we applied a regularized partial correlation network and directed acyclic graph to estimate the functional relations among multidimensional measures of these phenomena in a national dataset of workers (n = 570). Results highlight numerous situational and personality effects on work meaning and possible causal pathways linking various traits to experienced meaningfulness at work. Cumulatively, our findings suggest that interventions to encourage long-term changes in work meaning (e.g., job redesign, career coaching, job crafting) may require individuals to undergo changes in how their personality is structured (e.g., adjustment to the work environment and integrations with other aspects of the personality system). However, future experimental and longitudinal research is needed to test our propositions.

This study examines the indirect role of psychological safety in shaping the four cognitions of psychological empowerment (i.e., meaning, competence, self-determination, impact) through three social mechanisms: authentic interactions, spiritual development, and perceived organizational voice. Data were collected from 229 congregation members of a nondenominational church. Preliminary analyses reveal psychological safety is: (a) linked to all four empowerment cognitions, (b) associated with the three proximal social mechanisms, and (c) indirectly predicts three of the four empowerment cognitions through heightened level of authentic interactions, spiritual development, and perceived organizational voice. Moreover, extraversion moderated the relationship of psychological safety with authentic interactions which, in turn, strengthened the size of the indirect effect for the meaning subcomponent of empowerment. Overall, this study suggests empowerment research can draw upon the potential, but frequently untapped, benefits of cultivating a secure space to facilitate member motivation through sincerity, personal development, and perceived voice.

How management and leadership are best conceptualized with respect to each other has been a frequent topic of debate. Five distinct perspectives are identified in the literature, including bipolar, unidimensional, bidimensional, hierarchical—management within leadership, and hierarchical—leadership within management. We assessed the viability of these perspectives by having Academy of Management and Society for Industrial/Organizational Psychology experts ( N = 43) map a comprehensive set of 63 managerial and leadership competencies, as a “common language,” onto defined and undefined management and leadership dimensions. Results reveal interpretable patterns of uniqueness and overlap, suggesting a hybrid co-dimensional/bidimensional configuration. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed in light of the precedence of “what” over “how” in developing leadership and management theory.

Concerns about socially desirable responding on self-report personality tests are heightened in employment settings where motivation to fake is elevated. Building on prior faking models and the classical X = T + e measurement model, we offer a unique performance-based perspective, in which opportunity, ability, and motivation to fake are jointly critical (P = O × A × M). Trait activation theory is used to show how impression management and self-deception can express multiple abilities and traits beyond those targeted and how response biases might be reduced. Three sets of testable hypotheses are offered. That nontargeted traits (e.g., ambition) serving faking might contribute to the prediction of job performance supports the view that faking could benefit selection decisions. Several arguments against this perspective are proposed.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) has been linked to childhood abuse, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and low emotional intelligence (EI). Relationships among adverse childhood experiences (ACE), PTSD symptoms, and partner aggression (i.e., generalized tendency to aggress toward one’s partner) were assessed in 108 male IPV offenders. It was hypothesized that ACE is positively correlated with partner aggression, PTSD mediates the ACE-aggression relationship, and the ACE-PTSD-aggression mediation varies by selected EI facets. Results indicate that ACE has an indirect effect on partner aggression via PTSD and PTSD mediates the ACE–aggression link when emotional self-regulation is low and when intuition (vs. reason) is high. Trauma-exposed IPV offenders may benefit from comprehensive treatments focusing on PTSD symptoms, emotional control, and reasoning skills to reduce aggression.