When employees experience discrimination, harassment or bullying in the workplace, it can lead to anxiety, depression, sleep disturbances and other health problems. Furthermore, it can also cause employees to lose confidence in their abilities and self-esteem, which affects their performance and engagement.

Aside from the individual impact, poor treatment in the workplace can also lead to a problematic work climate and high levels of employee turnover. Employees who have experienced workplace abuse often become internally disengaged and may feel compelled to leave the company.

But how big is the problem? How often do psychological and physical assaults take place in the workplace? A gigantic new meta-analysis (Dhanani et al., 2021) provides hard numbers, and the researchers even calculate the financial cost to our society…

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Studies (small sample only):

Cortina, L. M., Rabelo, V. C., & Holland, K. J. (2018). Beyond blaming the victim: Toward a more progressive understanding of workplace mistreatment. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 11(1), 81-100.

Dhanani, L. Y., LaPalme, M. L., & Joseph, D. L. (2021). How prevalent is workplace mistreatment? A meta‐analytic investigation. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 42(8), 1082-1098.

Han, S., Harold, C. M., Oh, I. S., Kim, J. K., & Agolli, A. (2022). A meta‐analysis integrating 20 years of workplace incivility research: Antecedents, consequences, and boundary conditions. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 43(3), 497-523.

McCord, M. A., Joseph, D. L., Dhanani, L. Y., & Beus, J. M. (2018). A meta-analysis of sex and race differences in perceived workplace mistreatment. Journal of applied psychology, 103(2), 137.

Vranjes, I., & Lyubykh, Z. (2021). Workplace mistreatment: A review and agenda for research. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Business and Management.

Yao, J., Lim, S., Guo, C. Y., Ou, A. Y., & Ng, J. W. X. (2022). Experienced incivility in the workplace: A meta-analytical review of its construct validity and nomological network. Journal of Applied Psychology, 107(2), 193.

Zhou, Y., Mistry, T. G., Kim, W. G., & Cobanoglu, C. (2021). Workplace mistreatment in the hospitality and tourism industry: a systematic literature review and future research suggestions. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 49, 309-320.

Is personality irrelevant? – The Big Five and Career Success (Psychology, Personnel Selection, Business Psychology, Recruitment)

More than 100 years of research have impressively shown: Based on the Big Five personality factors, career success can be predicted surprisingly poorly on average (Schmidt, Oh & Shaffer, 2016). For example, a huge meta-analysis showed that the personality traits extroversion and emotional stability explain only 0.8% and 1.4% of the variance in job performance, respectively. By comparison, cognitive performance (intelligence) explained 42.5%!

So are personality traits really largely irrelevant at work? Get the answer in the video…

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Studies (small sample only):

Schmidt, F. L., Oh, I.-S., & Shaffer, J. A. (2016). The validity and utility of selection methods in personnel psychology: Practical and theoretical implications of 100 years of research findings. Working paper retrieved from www.researchgate.net. doi: 10.13140/RG.2.2.18843.26400

Van Aarde, N., Meiring, D., & Wiernik, B. M. (2017). The validity of the Big Five personality traits for job performance: Meta‐analyses of South African studies. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 25(3), 223-239.

Wilmot, M. P., & Ones, D. S. (2019). A century of research on conscientiousness at work. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(46), 23004-23010.

Wilmot, M. P., Wanberg, C. R., Kammeyer-Mueller, J. D., & Ones, D. S. (2019). Extraversion advantages at work: A quantitative review and synthesis of the meta-analytic evidence. Journal of Applied Psychology, 104(12), 1447.

Zell, E., & Lesick, T. L. (2022). Big five personality traits and performance: A quantitative synthesis of 50+ meta‐analyses. Journal of Personality, 90(4), 559-573.

How can you spot people who will be excellent in their job?

Take a look at the following list and try to assess which of the factors are most important:

– School grades

– Handwriting

– Extroversion

– Conscientiousness

– Integrity

– Intelligence

– Openness to new experiences

– References

The search for the “perfect employee” has occupied personnel selection research for more than 100 years. One of the most influential and largest meta-analyses (Schmidt et al, 2016) provides remarkable insights (see video). Nevertheless, many companies unfortunately still do not sufficiently take these findings into account. The consequences can be devastating….

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Studies (small selection only):

Dazzi, C., & Pedrabissi, L. (2009). Graphology and personality: an empirical study on validity of handwriting analysis. Psychological reports, 105(3_suppl), 1255-1268.

Huffcutt, A. I., Culbertson, S. S., & Weyhrauch, W. S. (2014). Moving forward indirectly: Reanalyzing the validity of employment interviews with indirect range restriction methodology. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 22(3), 297-309.

Hurtz, G. M., & Donovan, J. J. (2000). Personality and job performance: the Big Five revisited. Journal of applied psychology, 85(6), 869.

Kausel, E. E., Culbertson, S. S., & Madrid, H. P. (2016). Overconfidence in personnel selection: When and why unstructured interview information can hurt hiring decisions. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 137, 27-44.

Neter, E., & Ben-Shakhar, G. (1989). The predictive validity of graphological inferences: A meta-analytic approach. Personality and Individual differences, 10(7), 737-745.

Schmidt, Frank L. and Oh, In-Sue and Shaffer, Jonathan A., The Validity and Utility of Selection Methods in Personnel Psychology: Practical and Theoretical Implications of 100 Years of Research Findings (October 17, 2016). Fox School of Business Research Paper. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2853669

Zell, E., & Lesick, T. L. (2022). Big five personality traits and performance: A quantitative synthesis of 50+ meta-analyses. Journal of Personality, 90(4), 559-573.

Leaders play an outstanding role in companies and organizations. While an incompetent boss can spoil the pleasure of working (and sometimes even more), an inspiring boss can contribute to work being perceived as meaningful and fulfilling. All the more important is the question: Can good leadership behavior be trained?

To answer this question, a gigantic meta-analysis evaluated 335 studies with over 26,000 subjects (Lacerenza et al., 2017). The researchers were able to show not only that good leadership behavior can indeed be trained, but also what is particularly important in leadership training….

These research findings are of great importance for decisions in the field of industrial and organizational psychology, business psychology, personnel psychology, and leadership psychology.

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Studies (small sample only):

Collins, D. B., & Holton, E. F. (2001). The effectiveness of managerial leadership development programs: A meta-analysis of studies from 1982 to 2001. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 15, 217-248. http:// dx.doi.org/10.1002/hrdq.1099

Day, D. V. (2000). Leadership development: a review in context. The Leadership Quarterly, 11, 581-613. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S10489843(00)00061-8.

Lacerenza, C. N., Reyes, D. L., Marlow, S. L., Joseph, D. L., & Salas, E. (2017). Leadership training design, delivery, and implementation: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(12), 1686.

Nerdinger, F. W. (2014). Work motivation and job satisfaction. In Industrial and organizational psychology (pp. 419-440). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Nerdinger, F. W. (2014). Leadership of employees. In Industrial and organizational psychology (pp. 83-102). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Nerdinger, F. W., Antoni, C., Bamberg, E., Blickle, G., Felfe, J., & Göritz, A. (2016). Industrial and organizational psychology A & O. Journal of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 60(1).