Implicit Personality: Theory & Measurement

Implicit Personality: Theory & Measurement James M. LeBreton Purdue University Presentation at the Georgia Tech/CARMA Webcast Honoring the Career Contributions of Professor Larry James

Overview • Discuss Larry’s Contributions in the area of Personality Theory & Measurement. • I will review the implicit and explicit component of personality • Explain how Larry developed conditional reasoning to address the limitations of these traditional measurement systems • Summarize his nearly 20 year research program involving conditional reasoning • I will also try to integrate a few of the “lessons from Larry” that I acquired over the last 15 years of working with him

Lesson # 1 • Read big. Think big. Write big. • There are 134,000 members of APA • Maybe 4,000 are members of Division 14 • Be well-read… • Scientifically • Practically

Impact is the Yardstick of Science • Total Citations – 14,394 • H-Index – 45 • Citation Classics – • 4 papers cited over 1,000 times • 15 papers cited over 200 times • 26 papers cited over 100 times

Lesson #2 • Only conduct research on topics you find absolutely fascinating. • Research should be fun, not work. • Persistence is as important as creativity. • Spend time each day just thinking. • Don’t try to force creativity, let it occur naturally.

Origins of Conditional Reasoning • After studying work environments for 20 years, Larry concluded the action is with people not situations. • After studying people in those work environments, Larry concluded people often lack insight into what motivates their behaviors, thoughts, and emotions.

Origins of Conditional Reasoning • Individuals often provide motivated or biased accounts of their behavior; motivated reasoning • Political debates & the checklist of biases • We are typically oblivious to our own biased reasoning • Yet, we want to believe we are rational; thus we have great confidence in the correctness of our positions, beliefs, conclusions, etc.

Explicit Personality • That part of personality about which we are conscious or aware (i.e., about which we can introspect) • That part of personality that lends itself to self-descriptions concerning characteristics ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving • Measured directly via self-report questionnaires or interviews

Implicit Personality • That part of personality which is hidden and operating outside of conscious awareness • By definition, the part of personality which is not accessible via introspective self-description • Measured indirectly via projective tests or response latency tests

Personality & Organizational Research • The overwhelming majority of organizational research has examined the role of the explicit personality. • Well-Developed Understanding of Key Traits • Big Five Traits • Core Self-Evaluations • Dark Triad • Positive & Negative Affect • Well-Developed Measurement Technologies • Self-Report Questionnaires • Structure Interviews

Personality & Organizational Research • Scant research has examined how the implicit personality influences behavior in organizations. • More rudimentary understanding of Implicit Motives and Implicit Processes • Murray’s Needs • Freud’s defense mechanisms • Measurement technologies with a history of psychometric and practical problems • Projective Tests • Response Latency Tests

Projective Tests: Limitations • Concerns related to: • Time and cost of test administration and scoring • Limited normative data • Lack of standardization in administration, scoring, and interpretation • Weak evidence of interrater reliability and inconsistent validity evidence

Lesson #3 • It is easy to point out the limitations or problems with a particular area of research. • It is much more difficult to offer a potential solution to those problems.

Lesson #4 • Set high standards for your research program. You will rise to the challenge.

Larry’s Self-Imposed Standards for Tests of Implicit Personality • Maintain or enhance the indirect nature of assessment • Maintain the use of diverse, evocative stimuli as part of the assessment process • Maintain the independence from explicit measures • Maintain a relative immunity to test faking/distortion • Must be amenable to the development of non-arbitrary metrics • Must be amenable to standardization of administration, scoring, and interpretation • Must be able to predict real-world behaviors; test scores must yield evidence of criterion-related validity

Lesson 5 • Always let your theory guide your method.

Cognitive Biases as a Window into the implicit personality • James (1998) introduced a psychometrically rigorous and efficient system for measuring aspects of the psychological unconscious. • His approach was based on the principle that systematic biases in what people regard as rational analyses open a window into the operation of their implicit minds.

The Theory: Rational Analysis & the Motive to Aggress • Individuals want to believe that their behavior is rational, reasonable, logical, and appropriate. • These qualities are relative to one’s favored standards, beliefs, and reasoning processes; and, the favored standards, beliefs, and reasoning processes of highly aggressive individuals are often far from rational, reasonable, logical, and appropriate relative to general conceptions of socially acceptable conduct. • Instead, society often views aggressive behavior as unwarranted, too severe, irrational, overstated, and simply inappropriate.

The Theory: Rational Analysis & The Motive to Aggress • Highly aggressive individuals see their behaviors as reasonable and justifiable: • as responses by oppressed persons acting in self-defense, or • appropriate means of seeking retaliation or retribution for past wrongs.

The Theory: Rational Analysis & The Motive to Aggress • James (1998) argued that in order to maintain the sense of rationality, aggressive individuals rely on implicit cognitive biases to enhance the logical appeal of their aggressive behavior. • He referred to these implicit biases as justification mechanisms (JMs) to emphasize the critical role they play in justifying aggressive behavior.

Justification Mechanisms • JMs impact how a person: • Perceive, thinks, and analyzes situations. • JMs impact cognitive processes such as: • Perception (e.g., selective attention) • Information search strategies (e.g., confirmatory biases) • Reasoning • Causal inference

Justifying the Motive to Aggress • The Hostile Attribution Bias consists of an implicit predilection to assume that malevolent purpose or harmful intent is the primary motivation underlying the behaviors of others.

JMs Shape Reasoning • Example: Hostile Attribution Bias • Individuals selectively attend to information that indicates others should not be trusted. • They engage in reasoning strategies that seek to confirm this initial impression and thus justify aggressive behavior against this untrustworthy person. • They may over-emphasize irrelevant information supporting their perception and discountsalient information that might disconfirm this perception.

Justifying the Motive to Aggress • The Potency Biasinvolves an implicit proclivity to frame interactions with others as contests to establish dominance versus submissiveness. • The Retribution Biasinvolves an unconscious tendency to confer logical priority to retaliation over reconciliation. • The Victimization by Powerful Others Biasis an implicit tendency to see everyday people (including oneself) as victims of inequity, exploitation, injustice, or oppression by powerful others.

Justifying the Motive to Aggress • The Derogation of Target Bias is based on an implicit tendency to characterize those one wishes to make (or has made) targets of aggression as evil, immoral, or untrustworthy. To infer or associate such traits with a target makes the target more deserving of aggression. • The Social Discounting Bias is based on the implicit assumption that social norms and customs restrict free will and the right to satisfy needs. Reasoning shaped by this bias reflects disdain for traditional ideals and conventional beliefs.

The Method: Conditional Reasoning • James (1998; James et al., 2004; James et al., 2005) introduced a new measurement system called conditional reasoning which he designed to assess justification mechanisms. • The new measurement system is: • Indirect – asks respondents to solve inductive reasoning problems • Objective – responses are objectively scored without the need for a subjective or clinical analysis or interpretation

Lesson #6 • There are two fundamental rules for the study of personality (implicit or explicit): • Study of personality must occur in contexts that are relevant/evocative to the trait/motive of interest. • Individuals must have degrees of freedom available in those contexts – that is, the study of personality must occur in weak situations.

Item Stem The old saying, "an eye for an eye," means that if someone hurts you, then you should hurt that person back. If you are hit, then you should hit back. If someone burns your house, then you should burn that person's house.

Item Responses Which of the following is the biggest problem with the "eye for an eye" plan? a. It tells people to "turn the other cheek." b. It offers no way to settle a conflict in a friendly manner. c. It can only be used at certain times of the year. d. People have to wait until they are attacked before they can strike.

d. People have to wait until they are attacked before they can strike. • This alternative tacitly promotes retribution as being logically preferable to reconciliation (Retribution Bias) is founded on the unstated assumption that the powerful will inflict harm on the less powerful unless the less powerful strike first (Victimization & Potency Biases)

b. It offers no way to settle a conflict in a friendly manner. • This alternative was designed to be logically attractive to prosocial individuals because it promotes a prosocial counterbalance to the antagonistic and provocative tenor of the aggression alternative, and is grounded in the unstated assumption that conflict is logically less reasonable than compromise and cooperation.

Answers A & C • These two alternatives are included to enhance the face validity of the task and to protect the indirect nature of measurement. • Alternatives a and c are meant to be clearly illogical and rejected by respondents (which is usually the case).

JMs & Conditional Reasoning • James (1998; James et al., 2005; James & LeBreton, 2012) noted that reasoning which varies among individuals with contrasting motives and justification mechanisms is referred to as "conditional reasoning.“ • The previous item is a conditional reasoning problem; the likelihood that a respondent selects the aggressive response is conditional on the extent to which JMs for aggression versus prosocial values and ideologies are instrumental in shaping his or her reasoning.

Conditional Reasoning Tests of Aggression • CRT-A: 22 conditional reasoning (CR) problems and three inductive reasoning problems. • Scored"+1" for aggression (AG) alternative • “0” for every logically incorrect alternative and for each prosocial or non-aggressive (NA) alternative • Total scores are positively skewed • 8-10% of respondents considered highly aggressive

Lesson #7 • Science is a marathon, not a sprint.

Conditional Reasoning • Larry started working on CR ~1994 • I arrived at the University of Tennessee in 1997 • James (1998) • I graduated in 2002 • James et al., 2004 • James et al., 2005 • Bing et al, 2007a • Bing et al., 2007b • Frost et al., 2007 • LeBreton et al., 2007 • James & LeBreton, 2010 • James & LeBreton, 2012

Lesson # 8 • Cross Validate • And then, cross-validate some more.

Lesson # 9 • The true test of any criterion-related validity effort is whether the test predicts actual behavior.

Lesson # 10 • Construct validity evidence used to support the use of a particular criterion is every bit as important as construct validity evidence used to support the use of a particular predictor. • Work forward from psychology, not backward from behavior—all behavior is multiply determined.

Evidence of Criterion-Related Validity

Lesson # 11 • Reliability is one of the most important concepts in psychology. • And, there is WAY more to reliability than alpha.

Evidence of Reliability Internal Consistency CRT .76 (n = 5238) VCRT .78 (n = 225) Alternative Form CRT/VCRT .82 (n = 276) Factorial (n = 4772) Factor 1 .87 Factor 2 .82 Factor 3 .81

Lesson # 12 • Meta-analysis tells you what’s out there, not what’s possible. • Papers end up in the “file drawer” for a number of valid reasons, not simply because they might have null findings. • Peer review serves a valuable role in science.

Meta-Analysis of CRT-A: Evidence of Criterion Related Validity • K = 20 in final analysis • Omnibus uncorrected mean validity = .28 • “Negative” Criteria (Aggression & CWB) uncorrected mean validity = .28 • “Positive” Criteria (Job performance & OCB) uncorrected mean validity = -.17 • “Best Indicators” Criteria (predictive studies that used objective criteria) uncorrected mean validity = .41 (k=9, N=1,254).

Lesson # 13 • There is not a National Institutes of I/O Psychology • If you want to be funded: • Think creatively • Think collaboratively • Think practically

Getting Funded • Climate – NIDA; ONR; NIMH • Scientifically – interested in how perceptions of work environments influence behavior (performance, motivation, etc.) • Practically – addressed problems associated with job attitudes in the military or counselor attrition in drug treatment centers

Getting Funded • Personality – ONR; DOD • Scientifically – interested in how the implicit personality influences behavior • Practically – addressed the implicit motives that contributed to a Navy SEAL quitting basic training (BUDS training); addressed how implicit motives influence who succeeds in Ranger School for the Army

Implicit Personality: Theory & Measurement