The Proactive Personality Scale and objective job performance among real estate agents.

Abstract

A sample of 131 real estate agents was used to examine the criterion validity of the Proactive Personality Scale (T. S. Bateman & J. M. Crant, 1993). A job performance index was computed for each agent from archival records of the number of houses sold, number of listings obtained, and commission income over a 9-month period. Experience, social desirability, general mental ability, and 2 of the Big Five factors—Conscientiousness and Extraversion—were controlled for, and the Proactive Personality Scale explained an additional 8% of the variance in the objective measure of agents' job performance. These results provide additional evidence for the criterion validity of the Proactive Personality Scale and suggest that specific personality measures can have incremental validity over the Big Five factors. Attempting to predict job performance with personality measures has a long tradition in organizationa l research. This body of work has led some researchers to conclude that personality—relative to other predictors— is a rather weak predictor of performance (e.g., Hunter & Hunter, 1984; Schmitt, Gooding, Noe, & Kirsch, 1984). Recently, however, researchers have begun to reconsider the structure of personality (e.g., Digman, 1990) and the extent to which personality may validly predict on-thejob performance (e.g., Barrick & Mount, 1991, 1993; Barrick, Mount, & Strauss, 1993). The purpose of this study was to examine the criterion validity of a recently introduced measure, the Proactive Personality Scale, by using objective job performance as the criterion measure. After discussing the theoretical underpinnings of the proactive personality construct, I review research pertaining to four domains that must be controlled in a rigorous test of the criterion validity of the Proactive Personality Scale: the Big Five factors, general mental ability (GMA), work experience, and social desirability.