HEXACO personality predicts counterproductive work behavior and organizational citizenship behavior in low-stakes and job applicant contexts

• Published in: Journal of research in personality Vol. 77; pp. 11 - 20
• Main Authors: Anglim, Jeromy, Lievens, Filip, Everton, Lisa, Grant, Sharon L., Marty, Andrew
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Inc 01.12.2018
• Subjects: Counterproductive work behavior; Employee selection; Faking; HEXACO; Organizational citizenship behavior; HEXACO; Employee selection; Faking; Organizational citizenship behavior; Counterproductive work behavior
• ISSN: 0092-6566; 1095-7251
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jrp.2018.09.003

•Job applicants engage in moderate response distortion on HEXACO-PI-R.•Honesty-humility, extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness predict lower CWB.•Honesty-humility, extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness predict higher OCB.•Predictive validity shows small declines in applicant context. This study examined the degree to which the predictive validity of personality declines in job applicant settings. Participants completed the 200-item HEXACO Personality Inventory-Revised, either as part of confidential research (347 non-applicants) or an actual job application (260 job applicants). Approximately 18-months later, participants completed a confidential survey measuring organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and counterproductive work behavior (CWB). There was evidence for a small drop in predictive validity among job applicants, however honesty-humility, extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness predicted lower levels of CWB and higher levels of OCB in both job applicants and non-applicants. The study also informs the use of the HEXACO model of personality in selection settings, reporting typical levels of applicant faking and facet-level predictive validity.