Stop me if you have heard me say this before: The scientific study of people is complicated. People vary in almost every imaginable way; from physical (e.g., height, weight) to psychological (e.g., intelligence, personality) characteristics. These individual differences help us understand why people behave in certain ways. Given our mission as I-O psychologists to describe, understand, explain, and ultimately predict variability as it pertains to people in the workplace (Cascio & Aguinis, 2011), it is essential for us to be able to accurately and reliably measure these individual differences. Our jobs would undoubtedly be simpler if we could rely solely on objective measurements of physical characteristics. However, decades of research suggest that it is the unobservable phenomena that is most predictive of employee behavior – particularly in complex and knowledge-producing jobs (e.g., cognitive ability, traits; Hunter & Hunter, 1984; Ree & Earles, 1992; Schmidt & Hunter, 1998). Therefore, we are often tasked with measuring psychological phenomena that we cannot directly see or objectively measure.

Dear readers,

For this issue I am pleased to be joined by Satoris (Tori) S. Howes, 2016 winner of the SIOP Distinguished Teaching Contributions Award. Dr. Howes is an associate professor of business and business program lead at Oregon State University–Cascades. Dr. Howes earned her bachelor's degree in Psychology and Public Relations from the University of Central Missouri, her master's degree in I-O psychology from Missouri State University, and her PhD in I-O psychology from Texas A&M University. At the end of her graduate studies, she worked as a consultant in a Chicago branch of a global leadership solutions consulting firm. She then transitioned back into academia, working at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls and Kansas State University, where she was awarded the College of Arts and Sciences William L. Stamey Teaching Award in 2012, the Ralph E. Reitz Outstanding Teaching Award in 2015, and the Outstanding Contributions in Research Award in 2015. Dr. Howes is a regular contributor in the fields of management and I-O psychology in the areas of performance management and feedback, employment selection, occupational health and motivation. She has authored and, along with undergraduate and graduate students, coauthored articles in such journals as the Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Human Relations, and Journal of Vocational Behavior. In addition, Dr. Howes is the coauthor (with Paul M. Muchinsky) of the best-selling I-O psychology textbook, Psychology Applied to Work.