PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY 1991,44
THE BIG FIVE PERSONALITY DIMENSIONS AND JOB PERFORMANCE: A META-ANALYSIS
MURRAY R. BARRICK, MICHAEL K. MOUNT Department of Management and Organizations
University of Iowa
This study investigated the relation of the “Big Five” personality di- mensions (Extraversion, Emotional Stability, Agreeableness, Consci- entiousness, and Openness to Experience) to three job performance criteria (job proficiency, training proficiency, and personnel data) for five occupational groups (professionals, police, managers, sales, and skilled/semi-skilled). Results indicated that one dimension of person- ality. Conscientiousness, showed consistent relations with all job per- formance criteria for all occupational groups. For the remaining per- sonality dimensions, the estimated true score correlations varied by occupational group and criterion type. Extraversion was a valid pre- dictor for two occupations involving social interaction, managers and sales (across criterion types). Also, both Openness to Experience and Extraversion were valid predictors of the training proficiency criterion (across occupations). Other personality dimensions were also found to be valid predictors for some occupations and some criterion types, but the magnitude of the estimated true score correlations was small (p < .10). Overall, the results illustrate the benefits of using the 5- factor model of personality to accumulate and communicate empirical findings. The findings have numerous implications for research and practice in personnel psychology, especially in the subfields of person- nel selection, training and development, and performance appraisal. Introduction Over the past 25 years, a number of researchers have investigated the validity of personality measures for personnel selection purposes. The overall conclusion from these studies is that the validity of personality as a predictor of job performance is quite low (e.g., Ghiselli, 1973; Guion & Gottier, 1965; Locke & Hulin, 1962; Reilly & Chao, 1982; Schmitt, Both authors contributed equally to this study. We would like to thank Frank Schmidt, Ralph Alexander, Paul Costa, Mike Judiesch, Wendy Dunn, and Jacob Sines for thoughtful comments about the article and some of the data analyses. We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Mike Judiesch, Wendy Dunn, Eric Neumann, Val Arnold, and Duane Thompson in categorizing the personality scales. Correspondence and requests for reprints should be addressed to Murray R. Barrick, Department of Management and Organizations, College of Business Administration, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242. COPYRIGHT © 1991 PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY. INC 1 2 PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY Gooding, Noe, & Kirsch, 1984). However, at the time these studies were conducted, no well-accepted taxonomy existed for classifying personality traits. Consequently, it was not possible to determine whether there were consistent, meaningful relationships between particular personality constructs and performance criteria in different occupations. In the past 10 years, the views of many personalify psychologists have converged regarding the structure and concepts of personalify. Gener- ally, researchers agree that there are five robust factors of personalify (described below) which can serve as a meaningful taxonomy for classi- fying personalify attributes (Digman, 1990). Our purpose in the present study is to examine the relationship of these five personalify constructs to job performance measures for different occupations, rather than to focus on the overall validify of personalify as previous researchers have done. Emergence of the 5-Factor Model Systematic efforts to organize the taxonomy of personalify began shortly after McDougall (1932) wrote that, "Personalify may to advan- tage be broadly analyzed into five distinguishable but separate factors, namely intellect, character, temperament, disposition, and temper..." (p. 15). About 10 years later, Cattell (1943, 1946, 1947, 1948) devel- oped a relatively complex taxonomy of individual differences that con- sisted of 16 primary factors and 8 second-order factors. However, re- peated attempts by researchers to replicate his work were unsuccessful (Fiske, 1949; Tupes, 1957; Tupes & Christal, 1961) and, in each case, researchers found that the 5-factor model accounted for the data quite well. For example, Tupes and Christal (1961) reanalyzed the correlations reported by Cattell and Fiske and found that there was good support for five factors: Surgency, Emotional Stabilify, Agreeableness, Dependabil- ify, and Culture. As it would
