Conditional Reasoning Test For Aggression Research Articles

How does implicit aggressiveness translate into counterproductive work behaviors? The role of job satisfaction and workplace anger

AbstractAlthough implicit aggressiveness, measured by the Conditional Reasoning Test for Aggression (CRT‐A), seems to be important to understand counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs), little is known about psychological mechanisms that explain this relationship. Building on previous work, we examined the role of job satisfaction and workplace anger in this relationship, on a sample of 360 employees who filled in the CRT‐A, and reported on job satisfaction, workplace anger, and CWBs at two occasions separated by 6–12 months. Analyses using a general CWB factor indicated complex relationship between constructs. Additional analyses revealed that: (a) job satisfaction explained the relationship between implicit aggressiveness and organizationally directed CWBs and (b) workplace anger explained the relationship between implicit aggressiveness and interpersonally directed CWBs.

The Eyes Chico, They Never Lie – Using Eye-Tracking to Examine Faking on the Conditional Reasoning Test for Aggression

Abstract. To better understand the process of responding to the Conditional Reasoning Test for Aggression (CRT-A) and its implication for the test's use in personnel selection, we conducted two lab studies in which we compared test scores and eye movements of participants responding honestly and faking the test. Study 1 results showed that, although participants might try to respond differently to the CRT-A while faking, it remains an indirect and unfakeable measure as long as the test's purpose is undisclosed. Study 2 showed that revealing the true purpose of the CRT-A diminishes the test's indirect nature so the test becomes fakeable, solving it requires less attention and participants direct their eyes more to response alternatives congruent with the presentational demands.

Validity evidence and measurement equivalence for the Dutch translation of the conditional reasoning test for aggression

AbstractThe Conditional Reasoning Test for Aggression (CRT‐A) indirectly measures the implicit motive to aggress by engaging respondents in inductive reasoning tasks. Most research involving the CRT‐A has been based on the original English version of the test with most data being collected in the United States. The purpose of the current paper is to evaluate the psychometric properties of a Dutch translation of this test and to examine if it could be used to predict measures of integrity. In the first of two studies, we evaluated the psychometric properties and measurement equivalence of the CRT‐A across US and Dutch samples. In the second study, we examined validity evidence for the Dutch version of the CRT‐A. Results from Study 1 indicated that the test was mostly equivalent across cultures (i.e. limited differential item functioning was detected). Results from Study 2 demonstrated that the Dutch version of the CRT‐A was correlated with measures of behavioral integrity and provided incremental prediction of integrity over and above traditional self‐report measures of explicit personality traits. We discuss the implications for using CRTs across different cultures and languages.

Revisiting the Faking Issues of the CRT-A with Koreans

The Conditional Reasoning Test for Aggression (CRT-A) is an implicit assessment for aggression. The CRTA is known to be resistant to response distortion. We revisited LeBreton et al.’s (2007) studies on the faking issues of the CRT-A with the Korean population. We divided 488 Korean college students into three groups and asked them to take the CRT-A under different instructions. Results showed that Koreans were able to identify aggressive alternatives when the purpose of the test was fully disclosed, and the students were less likely to select aggressive alternatives if they were told that the CRT-A was a personality test.

An Investigation of Differential Relationships of Implicit and Explicit Aggression: Validation of an Arabic Version of the Conditional Reasoning Test for Aggression

Most personality research in the workplace relies on self-reports. Although self-report measures are believed to assess the explicit aspect of personality, a more recent approach for assessing implicit personality is based on conditional reasoning. The Conditional Reasoning Test for Aggression (CRT–A) was developed to assess implicit cognitions that justify aggressive behavior. The integrative model of personality proposes that both the explicit and implicit personality interact together to predict different behavioral outcomes. The results of this investigation are reported in two studies. The purpose of Study 1 was to adapt the CRT–A to the Arabic language and to examine its validity evidence using a large sample of Egyptian employees (n = 1,046). Study 2 aimed at examining the differential relationships of implicit and explicit components of aggressive personality in explaining different forms of aggressive behavior variance (n = 271). The results of Study 1 revealed that the psychometric properties of the adapted Arabic version of CRT–A were similar to those obtained for the United States. In addition, factor analysis results were consistent with the psychological theory used to build the conditional reasoning problems. The results of Study 2 provide substantial empirical support for the integrative model of assessment of aggression.

Disentangling the Relationship Between Implicit Aggressiveness and Counterproductive Work Behaviors: The Role of Job Attitudes

ABSTRACTImplicit aggressiveness, measured by the Conditional Reasoning Test for Aggression (CRT-A), has been shown to be important for understanding counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs). However, it is not clear how employees justify CWBs that stem from their unconscious tendencies. We tested the idea that implicitly aggressive individuals develop negative job attitudes (JAs) to justify their CWBs. In Study 1, 333 employees completed the CRT-A, a battery of JAs, and a CWBs scale. In Study 2, another sample (n = 341) completed the CRT-A and different measures of JAs and CWBs. In both studies, implicit aggressiveness explained JAs and self-reported CWBs. Although the design did not allow establishment of exact causal sequence, both studies were more consistent with the model where CWBs mediated the CRT-A and JA relationship.

A study on the predictive validity of conditional reasoning test for aggression

The purpose of this study was to examine the channeling model to investigate the interaction effect of implicit measure (Conditional Reasoning Test for Aggression: CRT-A) and self-reported measure of aggression to predict helping behavior. Expatriates who were dispatched to China or India (N=101) participated in this study. To reduce the common method bias, their host country co-workers (N=320) evaluated the expatriates’ helping behavior as a behavioral criterion. The results showed that there was a significance difference in helping behavior among the expatriates who had high CRT-A scores. Specifically, latent aggressive individuals who consciously perceived themselves as being non-aggressive but implicitly rationalized their aggressive behavior were less likely to show helping behavior. The academic implications of the current study, along with suggestions for the future research, were discussed.

Exploring Equivalence of a Korean Version of the Conditional Reasoning Test for Aggression

The Conditional Reasoning Test for Aggression (CRT-A) is an implicit assessment of Aggression. The CRT- A has predicted various counterproductive behaviors in the workplace above and beyond self-reported aggression assessment with US participants. In addition, Croatian participants also demonstrated cross-cultural generalizability. This study further investigated the measurement equivalence of the CRT-A on Korean participants. Factor analysis and Differential Item Functioning analysis with 432 US participants and 363 Korean participants demonstrated that the Korean version of the CRT-A is not equivalent. The results revealed that biases exist at the construct level and at the item level in the Korean version of the CRT-A.

A Study on the predictive validity of Conditional Reasoning Test for Aggression: Interaction effect with self-reported measures

The purpose of this study was to examine the channeling model to investigate the interaction effect of implicit measure (Conditional Reasoning Test for Aggression: CRT-A) and self-reported measure of aggression to predict helping behavior. Expatriates who were dispatched to China or India (N=101) participated in this study. To reduce the common method bias, their host country co-workers (N=320) evaluated the expatriates’ helping behavior as a behavioral criterion. The results showed that there was a significance difference in helping behavior among the expatriates who had high CRT-A scores. Specifically, latent aggressive individuals who consciously perceived themselves as being non-aggressive but implicitly rationalized their aggressive behavior were less likely to show helping behavior. The academic implications of the current study, along with suggestions for the future research, were discussed.

Not Aggressive or Just Faking It? Examining Faking and Faking Detection on the Conditional Reasoning Test of Aggression

Substantial research has been dedicated to examining and combating respondent misrepresentation (i.e., “faking”) on personality assessments. Two approaches to combat faking that have garnered particular attention include: (a) designing systems to identify likely fakers and (b) developing difficult-to-fake measures. Consistent with suggestions to combine these strategies, the present article examines a new faking detection system specifically designed for a difficult-to-fake measure (i.e., the Conditional Reasoning Test for Aggression; CRT-A). Four studies (a) help elucidate the conditions under which the CRT-A is fakeable, (b) provide initial construct validity evidence for the faking detection system developed here, (c) examine the effects of faking and faking detection on the CRT-A’s criterion-oriented validity, and (d) show that participants identify CRT-based faking detection items at worse-than-chance levels even when they are fully informed about how these items work. Taken together, these studies reinforce the importance of maintaining the indirect nature of CRTs but also show that the faking detection system developed here represents a promising method of identifying those who may have used inside information to manipulate their scores.

Interaction between implicit aggression and dispositional self-control in explaining counterproductive work behaviors

Implicit component of aggression as a personality trait seems to be important for understanding aggressive behavior in different life domains, including counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs). However, the expression of aggressive urges might depend on the level of self-control an individual possesses. In this paper we report the results of 2 studies that tested the interaction between implicit aggression, as measured with the Conditional Reasoning Test for Aggression (CRT-A), and dispositional self-control (DSC) in explaining counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs). In Study 1, 333 employees completed a study package consisting of the CRT-A, a DSC scale, and a CWB scale. In Study 2, an additional sample of employees (n=341) completed a research battery consisting of the CRT-A, another DSC scale, and another CWB instrument. Additionally, in Study 2 we collected ratings about the participants' DSC and CWBs from their coworkers. The moderation analyses confirmed that high DSC buffers the effect of implicit aggression on self-reported CWBs in both studies, irrespective of whether self-control was self- or other-reported. However, the moderation effect was nonsignificant when other-reports of CWBs were used as the criteria.

Conditional Reasoning Test for Aggression: Further evidence about incremental validity

The Conditional Reasoning Test for Aggression has shown significant correlations with various counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs) and seems to be potentially very useful for screening out applicants inclined to deviant behaviors at work. However, there is a lack of research testing its overlap with other personality determinants of CWBs. In this article, we report the results of three studies testing incremental validity of the Conditional Reasoning Test for Aggression (CRT‐A). Our results have shown that the CRT‐A was mostly unrelated to the Dark Triad traits (Study 1), the HEXACO traits (Study 2), or trait self‐control (Study 3). However, the CRT‐A score was still a significant predictor of CWBs‐related attitudes (Study 1) and self‐reported interpersonal and organizational deviance (Study 3).

Validity Evidence for a Croatian Version of the Conditional Reasoning Test for Aggression

The Conditional Reasoning Test for Aggression (CRT‐A) is based on the idea that aggressive individuals use motive‐based cognitive biases to see their behavior as reasonable and that those biases can be measured with inductive reasoning tasks. Although the initial validation efforts for the CRT‐A in the United States have been reasonably successful, there has been no attempt to determine if the evidence of validity and reliability generalizes to other cultural contexts. In this paper, we describe four studies designed to systematically accumulate validity evidence for the CRT‐A using Croatian participants. Our analyses revealed that the Croatian adaptation of the CRT‐A yielded psychometric characteristics that were similar to those obtained on the US samples (Study 1). CRT‐A scores that predicted counterproductive work behaviors occurrence beyond self‐reported personality (Study 2) were independent from general mental ability as measured with an abstract reasoning test (Study 3), and not susceptible to faking (Study 4).

Measurement issues associated with conditional reasoning tests: Indirect measurement and test faking.

Conditional reasoning is a new measurement technique used to measure cognitive biases associated with latent personality motives. The current article describes 3 studies examining 2 related measurement issues associated with conditional reasoning tests (CRTs). Study 1 examined the necessity of maintaining indirect assessment when administering CRTs. Results indicated that, compared with a control condition, 2 experimental conditions that disclosed the purpose of assessment yielded significant mean shifts on a CRT. Study 2 explored whether CRTs could be faked when the purpose of assessment was not disclosed. Results indicated that when indirect measurement was maintained, CRTs appeared to be resistant to faking. Study 3 compared scores on the Conditional Reasoning Test for Aggression across student, applicant, and incumbent samples. Results indicated no significant mean differences among these samples.

The Conditional Reasoning Measurement System for Aggression:An Overview

The Conditional Reasoning Measurement System is described. This procedure focuses on how people solve what on the surface appear to be inductive reasoning problems. The true intent of the problems is to determine if solutions based on implicit biases are logically attractive to a respondent. In this article, we focus on the types of implicit biases that underlie aggressive individuals' attempts to justify aggressive behavior. People who consistently select solutions based on these types of biases are scored as being potentially aggressive because they are cognitively prepared to rationalize aggression. Scores on the Conditional Reasoning Test for Aggression (CRT-A) have been shown to have acceptable psychometric properties and an average, uncorrected validity of .44 against behavorial criteria (in 10 studies).