Acquaintance-Ratings of Personality and Workplace Deviance: Incremental Validity Beyond Self-Reports

Abstract

It is widely established that the Big Five personality traits of conscientiousness, emotional stability, and agreeableness are antecedents to workplace deviance (Berry, Ones, & Sackett, 2007). However, these meta-analytic findings are based on self-reported assessments of personality traits. A recent meta-analysis by Oh and colleagues (Oh, Wang, & Mount, 2010) identifies the value of other- reported Big Five traits with task performance. The current manuscript extends prior work on acquaintance ratings of personality by comparing self- and acquaintance-ratings of personality to workplace deviance. We tested these relationships in two studies. Study 1 (n = 234) assessed self- and acquaintance-rated conscientiousness, emotional stability, and agreeableness and supervisor ratings of workplace deviance. Study 2 (n = 225) again assessed these self- and acquaintance-rated personality traits and supervisor rated deviance, in addition to self-rated deviance. Across both studies, the traits of conscientiousness and agreeableness were strong predictors of workplace deviance and provided incremental validity beyond their respective self-rated counterpart. Results for emotional stability were mixed. Implications for personality theory and measurement are discussed along with applications for the practice of personnel selection.