A Look in the Mirror: The Mastery-Oriented I-O psychologist

Jonathan Cottrell, Eleni Lobene, Nicholas Martin, and Anthony Boyce

NOTE: Prior to being submitted for consideration in TIP, this paper was accepted for presentation at the 2016 Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology

A Look in the Mirror: The Mastery-Oriented I-O psychologist 

Research on personality, especially using the five-factor model (FFM; McCrae & Costa, 1987), has contributed greatly to industrial-organizational (I-O) psychology. In particular, this is because personality traits, especially Conscientiousness, are found to be valid predictors of job performance (Barrick & Mount, 1991; Hurtz & Donovan, 2000) while having relatively less adverse impact than other selection tools, such as cognitive ability tests (Ployhart & Holtz, 2008). Although the FFM is the most widely used personality model, other traits have been studied in the context of work and have been found to correlate with key variables such as job performance and job satisfaction. Such variables include need for achievement (McClelland, Atkinson, Clark, & Lowell, 1976), core self-evaluations (Judge & Bono, 2001), and goal orientation (Phillips & Gully, 1997). As a result, it is of great interest to organizations to be able to understand the personality of its applicants and its incumbents, and often such an examination of traits goes beyond the FFM.

            Despite the success of using personality tests to predict job-related outcomes across a variety of occupations, I-O psychologists themselves, including members of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), have historically not been the subjects of these studies. In fact, very limited research exists examining any individual differences between I-O psychologists and other professions. “I-O psychologist” has been rated as the fastest growing job in the United States (United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014). As a result, it will become increasingly necessary to understand ways in which the I-O personality is distinct from (or similar to) other professions, which can have implications for realistic career previews for prospective I-O psychologists. Thus, the purpose of this paper is a preliminary investigation to compare the personalities of I-O psychologists to a baseline working population, as well as to professionals and nonprofessionals in other occupations across two studies. We hope that this will be the first of many studies that look to understand the I-O personality and that this will spark further research in the area.

Aon-Hewitt’s Model of Personality

Aon-Hewitt’s personality model is largely based on the FFM and is derived from nearly 500 adjectives and descriptive states used by previous measures of personality and other traits. This model is based on previous personality models (e.g., FFM; McCrae & Costa, 1987) and is intended to be a comprehensive measure of both the FFM and broader traits not necessarily well-captured by the FFM (e.g., mastery, humility). This model captures lower-order aspects of the FFM, as recommended by recent research (e.g., DeYoung, Quilty, & Peterson, 2007). In addition, some personality aspects were included that were not captured by DeYoung et al.’s model based on their importance for understanding employee personality. This model is particularly relevant for selection across all jobs, as well as leadership and high-potential assessment. Aon-Hewitt’s model is operationalized through the development of the Adaptive Employee Personality Test (ADEPT-15^®).   ADEPT-15 is a multidimensional pairwise preference computer adaptive assessment that mitigates faking and substantially reduces testing time. This, in conjunction with a large item pool, results in lower statement exposure, faster testing, and potentially higher criterion-related validity (Salgado & Táuriz, 2014)

The final model contains six styles and 15 aspects. The adaptation style contains the aspects of conceptual (intellectual curiosity), flexibility (adaptability and open mindedness), and mastery (learning oriented and improvement focused). Task style contains the aspects of drive (proactivity and persistence) and structure (planful and detail oriented). Interaction style contains the aspects of assertiveness (decisive, bold), and liveliness (outgoing, energetic). Emotional style contains the aspects of Composure (calm, relaxed), Positivity (optimistic, resilient), and Awareness (reflective, self-aware). Teamwork style contains the aspects of Cooperation (trusting, helping others), Sensitivity (caring, understanding), and Humility (modest, genuine). Finally, Achievement style contains the aspects of Ambition (goal directed) and Power (motivation to lead, controlling). Altogether, these make up the styles and aspects underlying the ADEPT-15 (for a more detailed description of each of the 15 aspects and how this model maps to the FFM, see Table 1; Boyce, Conway, & Caputo, 2014).

Table 1

SIOP Member Personality

Information on the personality of I-O psychologists may help inform approaches to training and selection. For example, it could allow firms and schools to use such information to make more informed selection decisions for I-O psychology positions in both academia and practice. As mentioned earlier, however, there is very little research that uses I-O psychologists as subjects. One such study found that SIOP academics and practitioners differ in certain workplace characteristics and values. Specifically, this study showed that practitioners valued affiliation, structure, and financial compensation more than their academic counterparts. Academics, on the other hand, valued autonomy and science (e.g., endorsed the item, “It is important for organizations that scientists continue engaging in basic psychological research”) more than their practitioner counterparts (Brooks, Grauer, Thornbury, & Highhouse, 2003). Although this allows for an understanding of some of the differences between academics and practitioners, it does not give much information about how I-O psychologists differ from other occupations.

There have been previous attempts to interview I-O consultants and understand what they believe are the personal characteristics that best describe a successful I-O consultant. For example, Zelin et al. (2015), as part of the SIOP Careers study, examined competencies required for success at various consulting levels. Examples of such competencies include integrity, trustworthiness, interpersonal skills, initiative, attention to detail, conscientiousness, and adaptability. Adaptability was rated as particularly important among management and executive positions.

 In addition, Vandaveer (2008) interviewed six highly accomplished I-O consultants in different settings and positions (e.g., CEO, partner, senior vice-president, etc.) in an attempt to answer this question. Characteristics named by the consultants included commitment, thirst for learning and growing, open mindedness, mental sharpness, need for achievement, as well as being interested in your work. They also suggest, like Zelin et al. (2015), that successful practitioners need competence in different levels of the organization, including the individual level (e.g., executive consulting), the group level (e.g., assessment and development of teams), as well as the organizational level, such as change management. Altogether, this suggests that I-O consultants require a wide array of knowledge, skills, and high trait levels of personality characteristics. However, this is limited to practitioners and did not ask about the many SIOP members who are in academia (around 40%; SIOP, 2011). As suggested by previous research (Brooks et al., 2003), one cannot infer the personality of academics from that of practitioners.

In an effort to understand personality (as well as other) characteristics that I-O psychologists require to succeed at their jobs, the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) can be a useful tool. This interactive database allows anyone to research the characteristics of thousands of jobs, such as an I-O psychologist. This provides a wide range of information on the types of knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics required to succeed at a given job. Although not providing explicit personality information, O*NET does suggest certain “work styles” that an I-O psychologist should have. Several of these appear to map onto all of the FFM traits: Openness to Experience (adaptability, innovation), Conscientiousness (dependability, achievement, persistence, attention to detail), Extraversion (social orientation, leadership), agreeableness (cooperation, concern for others), and neuroticism (self-control, stress Tolerance). This suggests that I-O psychologists need high levels of a variety of personality traits in order to succeed at their job. However, these ratings are based on ratings provided by job incumbents’ perceptions of work styles needed to succeed at the job and are thus not actual personality trait ratings. Because of the dearth of research in this area, we have no specific expectations about which traits would be higher for I-O psychologists. The following studies attempt to answer this question.

Study 1

Method

Data from 350 professionals from a variety of organizations were collected. Two hundred and fifty (71%) provided usable personality data for the purposes of this study. Out of the 250 participants, 92 (37%) were SIOP members and 158 (63%) were professionals from other fields (from here on referred to as the “baseline sample”) used as a comparison. The baseline sample contained data from individuals who expressed interest in learning more about ADEPT-15 over the past year. These individuals represented a wide variety of domains and industries but were not I-O professionals. Some industries included were manufacturing, hospitality, financial services, healthcare, retail, and telecommunication. Participants completed ADEPT-15 through Aon-Hewitt’s Global Assessment and Talent Engine (G.A.T.E.^®) system and agreed to allow this data to be used in aggregate.

Five personality traits from ADEPT-15 were used in this study: cooperativeness, liveliness, mastery, positivity, and structure (see Boyce, Conway, & Caputo, 2014, for details on the psychometric properties of the assessment). This subset of traits was chosen based on two factors. First, these were thought to be of the most interest to, and could provide the most information about, I-O psychologists. Second, we needed a short survey that could easily be completed between SIOP conference sessions (in order to maximize the potential SIOP member sample size). SIOP participants completed 30 questions in approximately 10 minutes. Baseline participants answered 100 questions, which were completed in around 25 minutes. To examine differences in personality by occupation, we used two-sample t-tests and compared the SIOP sample to the baseline sample.

Results

Table 2 shows the results of this analysis. Members of the SIOP sample tended to have higher mastery levels on average (M = 6.82) than the baseline sample (M = 5.91; t = 3.68, p < .05). The two samples did not differ significantly in mean levels of cooperativeness, liveliness, positivity, and structure.

Table 2

Study 1 Discussion

The results of Study 1, a preliminary investigation based on available data, point to mastery as an area that differentiates SIOP members from other professionals. Previous studies have examined mastery as a predictor of job performance. Specifically, Janssen and Van Yperen (2004) found that leader-member exchange (LMX) mediated the positive relationship between mastery orientation and in-role job performance, innovative job performance, and job satisfaction. This suggests that mastery-oriented employees, who often are highly motivated to work hard and develop their skills and knowledge, tend to have more positive relationships with their supervisors (e.g., receiving more support and freedom to initiate and carry out tasks), leading to greater job performance. Mastery-oriented individuals tend to have higher self-efficacy and greater metacognition, or knowledge of and control over one’s own cognitions (Ford, Smith, Weissbein, Gully, & Salas, 1998). In addition, as mentioned earlier, continual growth and learning was stated by I-O consultants as a major driver of consultant performance (Vandaveer, 2008).

Because this is the first study to examine the distinctiveness of the I-O personality, we wanted to examine further differences among other professional and nonprofessional occupations. This would serve both as an attempt to replicate our previous findings and an opportunity to examine any other personality differences that emerged among other occupations. Although, as before, we have no specific hypotheses as to what personality differences should emerge, we nonetheless feel it provides a valuable first step in understanding ourselves as a rapidly growing profession.

Study 2

Method

Using the same set of SIOP members (n = 92) as in Study 1, we now include a wide range of occupations to compare to SIOP members. We obtained personality data on the same five aspects of ADEPT-15 data (cooperativeness, liveliness, mastery, positivity, and structure) from a total of 1112 individuals from a variety of jobs that were compared to the original sample of SIOP members. Data came from the manufacturing, transportation, hospitality, professional services, and safety industries. Table 3 provides descriptive statistics for each of these nine samples, as well as the SIOP sample.

Table 3

Results

ANOVA analyses were conducted to compare scores on the five ADEPT-15 aspects. The overall F-test examined whether there were any differences among the groups. Results showed significant group differences were found for cooperativeness (F₉, ₁₁₉₅ = 3.88, p < .05), liveliness (F₉, ₁₁₉₅ = 2.44, p < .05), mastery (F₉, ₁₁₉₅ = 12.64, p < .05), positivity (F₉, ₁₁₉₅ = 3.10, p < .05), and structure (F₉, ₁₁₉₅ = 11.89, p < .05). Next, we examined multiple comparisons of mean differences on personality trait levels (using Tukey’s HSD). Because the focus of this study is comparing SIOP members to other professions, we limit our results to those pertinent to this question.

SIOP members did not have significantly higher cooperativeness or liveliness than other professions. However, SIOP members did have higher mean levels of mastery (M = 6.82) than other professions in this study. Of the nine other occupations studied, SIOP members had statistically significantly higher mastery than four groups of employees: restaurant managers (M = 5.30; p < .05), entry level restaurant employees (M = 5.35; p < .05), occupational safety workers (M = 5.92; p < .05, and professional service employees (M = 5.89; p < .05). SIOP members had significantly higher positivity (M = 5.92) than restaurant managers (M =5.14; p < .05) and professional services employees (M = 5.11; p < .05). Finally, SIOP members had lower mean levels of structure than all other jobs (M = 4.78) and had statistically significantly lower structure than restaurant managers (M = 5.50; p < .05) and manufacturing employees (M = 5.52; p < .05).

General Discussion

The purpose of this paper was to begin to understand what is unique about the I-O psychologist personality as compared to employees in other professions. In two studies comparing members of SIOP to workers in other industries, we found that one trait stood out for SIOP members: mastery, or the tendency to be learning oriented and the desire for improvement. This significant difference was found for a baseline sample featuring a variety of jobs as well as individual comparisons to several other job types. In addition, some specific traits (positivity and structure) were found to differ from certain job types, suggesting that there may be other differences between I-O psychologists and specific jobs.

Implications

Mastery emerged in this preliminary investigation as the primary trait that differentiates I-O psychologists from other professions. This finding suggests that I-O psychologists tend to seek a variety of growth and learning opportunities. Organizations that employ I-O psychologists should make such opportunities available so their employees can have improved job performance and potentially improved job satisfaction (this is conceptually similar to growth needs strength (GNS); they like their job more because their organization provides opportunities for growth and learning, which will lead to better performance; Hackman & Oldham, 1975).

Given further replication of these findings, mastery could be included as an individual difference variable by which organizations, as well as academic institutions, judge a person’s ability to be an I-O psychologist. Mastery has been found in previous research to be related to a number of positive outcomes, including job performance (Janssen & Van Yperen, 2004; Porath & Bateman, 2006) and training success (Brett & VandeWalle, 1999; Kozlowski et al., 2001), as well as self-efficacy (Kozlowski et al., 2001), optimism, the desire to work hard, and effort (Brett & VandeWalle, 1999). Similarly, academic institutions and organizations may want to have I-O graduate students and employees higher in mastery because of their desire to learn and develop themselves.

Limitations

We used a convenience sample of SIOP members from the 2015 SIOP conference. Such a sampling strategy does not allow for a full representation of the I-O personality. Part of the reason this is true is that some SIOP members are not themselves I-O psychologists. Future studies should use larger samples of I-O psychologists for comparison purposes in order to better understand the I-O personality. Further, distinctions between academics and practitioners with various experience and tenure would also be particularly useful. As stated earlier, we aim to position this paper as a call to research and a first step to a better understanding of the I-O personality.

A helpful reviewer noted that the samples may be higher in mastery because it was specifically targeted to those interested in learning about themselves. In other words, there may have been a self-selection effect. Future studies should examine the possibility of self-selection when examining personality traits, and particularly mastery, among different occupational groups.

In addition, the context of the included samples was variable but the instructions provided were the same for all administrations. Specifically, the SIOP data were collected for research purposes only, whereas personality scores from other organizations were variously obtained in the context of research, development, and hiring circumstances.  Therefore, it is possible that the results of this study were influenced by differing contexts for the jobs (i.e., hiring versus development) instead of differences in the jobs themselves. Future studies should attempt to separate job context from the personality of employees themselves.

In addition, we were not able to examine effects of race, gender, and other subgroups due to insufficient demographic data from SIOP members. Previous research has shown that mastery orientation in an educational context may have a greater effect on women than men on self-efficacy and on proper cognitive strategies, which then led to greater academic achievement (Patrick, Ryan, & Pintrich, 2000). Future studies should examine how SIOP members of different subgroups may differ in mastery and the differential affect this has on organizational outcomes.

Finally, the data provided in the above studies suggest I-O psychologists tend to be higher in mastery. However, it is unclear whether individuals high in mastery specifically choose to be I-O psychologists because I-O psychology is a research-oriented, academic–practitioner field, or whether other occupations composed predominantly of members with master’s- and doctorate-level educations are similarly elevated on mastery. Future controlled studies would allow for the answering of the effect of education on mastery levels within occupations.

Conclusion

I-O psychology is one of the fastest growing careers in the United States. Despite this, we lack a comprehensive understanding of the personality profile of I-O psychologists. Initial findings presented here from Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate that I-O psychologists tend to be more learning and development oriented than individuals in other occupations, as well as more positive and less structured. We believe these results are just a first step in pursuing a better understanding of our field. Additional controlled research is required to replicate and expand this line of investigation. Future research should continue to examine what makes I-O psychologists unique from other professions in order to better train and develop them for the future.

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Table 1

Theoretical Alignment of Aon Hewitt’s Personality Model With the FFM

Table 2

Personality Differences of SIOP Members Versus the Baseline Sample

Note. * p < .05

Table 3

Study 2 Descriptive Statistics by Sample

*Significantly different from SIOP members, p < .05