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Predictive Validity of a Personality Questionnaire Based on the Five Factors Model: Subjacent Mediations?

ABSTRACT In this study we are interested in the predictive incremental validity of a Q-sort on self image at work; the items are derived from the five factor model (FFM) used in addition to a test of general mental ability, Domino70. The grades obtained by a sample of 120 students were the criterion. The results confirm that the dimension of Conscientiousness shows good predictive position, as well as, more specifically the dimension of Agreeableness. We also show that the personological trait does not intervene directly on the level of academic success. It is mediated by a causal chain extending from the normative proximity or distance of self image to a prototype model created by professors, while the second mediating variable is the coherence of choices as compared to the FFM dimensions. KEYWORDS: predictive validity, personality questionnaire, five factor model, implicative statistic analysis. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND Personality questionnaires are largely used in clinical examination, skill evaluation or even in recruitment (Bruchon-Schweitzer & Ferrieux, 1991). Among them, those that are based on the five factors model FFM (McCrae & Costa, 2006) are frequently used. When a practitioner confines to a goal of describing a personality profile he will be able to support his interpretation on the grounds of validity studies of traits construction and of their disposition, as well as of concurrent criterion predictive validity studies. On the contrary, if the practitioner wants to establish a successful prediction at work, or training, he will have to take into account the criterion predictive validity studies made for the questionnaire that is used1. First, we took into account results of the studies related to the predictive validity of the FFM based questionnaires. The outcome is that the interest in this type of sample is situated at the incremental validity level. The goal of this paper is to make a replication of this type of result, starting from an original personality questionnaire constructed in a Q-sort format, the self image questionnaire at work - Q-ISAT - (Pasquier, 2007) and of D70 (Pichot, 1970) as factor g test. The study was conducted on a sample of 120 students from the Polytechnic University of Timisoara. As academic success criterion we used the overall grades students received from their professors. In addition to the ordinary correlation analyses, we employed a comprehensive approach of the subjacent process with predictive value, using the implicative statistical analysis - I.S.A. (Gras, Kuntz, & Briand, 2001). The first predictive validity studies of the questionnaires coming from FFM supported mostly pessimistic conclusions related to the possibility of performance levels predictions by means of personality inventories (Ellis & Conrad, 1948; Guion & Gottier, 1965; Schmitt, Gooding, Noe, & Kirsch, 1984). Ghiselli and Barthol (1953) calculate predicting/criteria correlations from 0.14 to 0.36 with a central tendancy of 0.22. Guion and Gottier (1965) conclude that a predictive validity of personality inventories very seldom exceeded a correlation of 0.30. Schmitt et al. (1984) give middle values of 0.21. Starting with 1990, several studies provide their results in a clearly more optimistic manner, emphasizing the stronger guarantees offered by the use of FFM, which insure a better basis for analyses, as compared to the concern for making the professional success evaluation criteria reliable and homogeneous and as compared to the analysis techniques used, better adjusted to the issue to be discussed. Tett and Jackson (1991) show that by means of confirmatory studies and after the adjustment of the criterion values and of the predictor, the following validities are obtained: -0.22 for neuroticism; 0.15 for extraversion; 0.27 for openness to experience; 0.32 for agreeableness and 0.17 for conscientiousness. The same year, Barrick and Mount (1991) propose 0. …