Role of Supervisor Personality and Procedural Knowledge about Professional Conduct as Predictors of Prosocial Feedback Delivery
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
Implicit trait policy (ITP) theory argues that the relationship between personality and behavior is mediated by implicit trait policy, or effectiveness beliefs that people hold about trait-expressive behaviors in social situations. Also, ITP theory argues that personality affects ITPs, such that people are likely to hold stronger effectiveness beliefs about behaviors that express their own personality than behaviors that do not. The current study applied the ITP theory perspectives explained above in the context of feedback delivery in organizational settings to test the hypothesis that supervisor agreeableness is related to prosocial feedback (e.g., showing empathy and kindness in providing performance feedback) through its relationship with effectiveness beliefs about prosocial behavior at work (i.e., prosocial ITP). Based on the data that were collected from a sample of supervisors (N = 248), we found that supervisor agreeableness was related to prosocial feedback delivery only through its relationship with prosocial ITP.
Metrics
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Funding data
References
Ackerman, P. L. (1996). A theory of adult intellectual development: Process, personality, interests, and knowledge. Intelligence, 22, 227-257.https://doi.org/10.1061/S0160-2896(96)90016-1
Adler, S., Campion, M., Colquitt, A., Grubb, A., Murphy, K. R., Ollander-Krane, R., & Pulakos, E. D. (2016). Getting rid of performance ratings: Genius or folly? A debate. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 9, 219-252.https://doi.org/10.1017/iop.2015.106
Aguinis, H., Villamor, I., & Ramani, R. S. (2021). MTurk Research: Review and recommendations. Journal of Management. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206320969787
Avolio, B. J., Walumbwa, F. O., & Weber, T. J. (2009). Leadership: Current theories, research and future directions. Annual Review of Psychology, 60, 421-449.https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.60.110707.163621
Baron, R. A. (1988). Negative effects of destructive criticism: Impact on conflict, self-efficacy, and task performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 73, 199-207.https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.73.2.199
Baron, R. A. (1990). Countering the effects of destructive criticism: The relative efficacy of four interventions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 75, 235-245.https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.75.3.235
Bass, B., & Bass, R. (2008). The Bass handbook of leadership: Theory, research and managerial application. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Becker, T. E. (2005). Development and validation of a situational judgment test of employee integrity. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 13, 225-232.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2389.2005.00319.x
Bem, S. L. (1974). The measurement of psychological androgyny. Journal of Consulting & Clinical Psychology, 42(2), 155-162.https://doi.org/10.1037/h0036215
Bergman, M. E., Donovan, M. A., Drasgow, F., Overton, R. C., & Henning, J. B. (2008). Test of Motowidlo et al.’s (1997) theory of individual differences in task and contextual performance. Human Performance, 21, 227-253. https://doi.org/10.1080/08959280802137606
Borman, W. C., & Motowidlo, S. J. (1993). Expanding the criterion domain to include elements of contextual performance. In N. Schmitt & W. C. Borman (Eds.), Personnel selection in organizations (pp. 71-98). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Buckingham, M., & Goodall, A. (2015). Reinventing performance management. Harvard Business Review, 93, 40-50.
Campbell, J. P., Gasser, M. B., & Oswald, F. L. (1996). The substantive nature of job performance variability. In K. R. Murphy (Ed.), Individual differences and behavior in organizations (pp. 258-299). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Campbell, J. P., McCloy, R. A., Oppler, S. H., & Sager, C. E. (1993). A theory of performance. In N. Schmitt & W. C. Borman (Eds.), Personnel selection in organizations (pp. 35-70). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Capelli, P., & Tavis, A. (2016). The performance management revolution. Harvard Business Review, 94, 58-67.
Costa, P. T., Jr., & McCrae, R. R. (1992). Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) professional manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources, Inc.
Costa, P. T., Jr., Terracciano, A., & McCrae, R. R. (2001). Gender differences in personality traits across cultures: Robust and surprising findings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(2), 322-331.https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.81.2.322
Crook, A. E., Beier, M. E., Cox, C. B., Kell, H. J., Hanks, A. R., & Motowidlo, S. J. (2011). Measuring relationships between personality, knowledge, and performance using single response situational judgment tests. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 19, 363-373.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2389.2011.00565.x
Culbert, S. A., & Rout, L. (2010). Get rid of the performance review: How companies can stop intimidating, start managing-and focus on what really matters. New York: Business Plus.
Cunningham, L. (2014). In big move, Accenture will get rid of annual performance reviews and ranking. Retrieved fromhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-leadership/wp/2015/07/21/in-big-move-accenture-will-get-rid-of-annual-performance-reviews-and-rankings/?tid=pm_pop_b
DeNisi, A. S., & Murphy, K. R. (2017). Performance appraisal and performance management: 100 years of progress? Journal of Applied Psychology, 102, 421-433.https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000085
DeSimone, J. A., & Harms, P. D. (2018). Dirty data: The effects of screening respondents who provide low-quality data in survey research. Journal of Business and Psychology, 33, 559-577. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-017-9514-9
DeSimone, J. A., Harms, P. D., & DeSimone, A. J. (2015). Best practice recommendations for data screening. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 36, 171-181.https://doi.org/10.1002/job.1962
Digman, J. M. (1990). Personality structure: Emergence of the five-factor model. Annual Review of Psychology, 41, 417-440.https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ps.41.020190.002221
Dunn, A. M., Heggestad, E. D., Shanock, L. R., & Theilgard, N. (2018). Intra-individual response variability as an indicator of insufficient effort responding: Comparison to other indicators and relationships with individual differences. Journal of Business and Psychology, 33, 105-121.https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-016-9479-0
Eagly, A. H., & Karau, S. J. (2002). Role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders. Psychological Review, 109(3), 573-598. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.109.3.573
Eagly, A. H., & Wood, W. (1991). Explaining sex differences in social behavior: A meta-analytic perspective. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 17(3), 306-315.https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167291173011
Ghosh, K., Motowidlo, S. J., & Nath, S. (2015). Technical knowledge, prosocial knowledge, and clinical performance of Indian medical students. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 23, 59-70.https://doi.org/10.1111/ijsa.12095
Hunter, J. E. (1983). A causal analysis of cognitive ability, job knowledge, job performance, and supervisory ratings. In F. Landy, S. Zedeck, & J. Cleveland (Eds.), Performance measurement and theory (pp. 257-266). Hillsdale: Erlbaum.
Kell, H. J., Motowidlo, S. J., Martin, M. P., Stotts, A. L., & Moreno, C. A. (2014). Testing for independent effects of prosocial knowledge and technical knowledge on skill and performance. Human Performance, 27, 311-327.https://doi.org/10.1080/08959285.2014.929692
Kortum, P., & Motowidlo, S. J. (2006). It takes more than technical knowledge to be an effective human factors professional. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 50, pp. 1958-1962. Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.
Krumm, S., Lievens, F., Hüffmeier, Lipnevich, A. A. (2015). How “situational” is judgment in situational judgment tests? Journal of Applied Psychology, 100, 399-416.https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037674
Leung, K., Su, S., & Morris, M. W. (2001). When is criticism not constructive? The roles of fairness perceptions and dispositional attributions in employee acceptance of critical supervisory feedback. Human Relations, 54, 1155-1187.https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726701549002
Levy, P. E., & Williams, J. R. (2004). The social context of performance appraisal: A review and framework for the future. Journal of Management, 30, 881-905.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jm.2004.06.005
Lievens, F., & Motowidlo, S. J. (2016). Situational judgment tests: From measures of situational judgment to measures of general domain knowledge. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 9, 3-22.https://doi.org/10.1017/iop.2015.71
Lupoli, M. J., Jampol, L., & Oveis, C. (2017). Lying because we care: Compassion increases prosocial lying. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 146(7), 1026-1042.https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000315
Marinova, S. V., Moon, H., & Kamdar, D. (2013). Getting ahead or getting along? The two- facet conceptualization of conscientiousness and leadership emergence. Organization Science, 24 (4), 1257-1276.https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1120.0781
Martin-Raugh, M. P., & Kell, H. J. (2021). A process model of situational judgment test responding. Human Resource Management Review, 31(2), 100731.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrmr.2019.100731
Martin-Raugh, M. P., Kell, H. J., & Motowidlo, S. J. (2016). Prosocial knowledge mediates effects of agreeableness and emotional intelligence on prosocial behavior. Personality and Individual Differences, 90, 41-49.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2015.10.024
McCrae, R. R. (1996). Social consequences of experiential openness. Psychological Bulletin, 120 (3), 323-337.https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.120.3.323
Motowidlo, S. J. (2003). Job performance. In W. C. Borman, D. R. Ilgen, & R. J. Klimoski (Eds.), Comprehensive handbook of psychology: Industrial and organizational psychology (Vol. 12, pp. 39-53). New York, NY: Wiley.
Motowidlo, S. J., & Beier, M. E. (2010). Differentiating specific job knowledge from implicit trait policies in procedural knowledge measured by a situational judgment test. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95, 321-333. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0017975
Motowidlo, S. J., Borman, W. C., & Schmit, M. J. (1997). A theory of individual differences in task and contextual performance. Human Performance, 10, 71-83.https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327043hup1002_1
Motowidlo, S. J., Crook, A. E., Kell, H. J., & Naemi, B. (2009). Measuring procedural knowledge more simply with a single-response situational judgment test. Journal of Business and Psychology, 24, 281-288.https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-009-9106-4
Motowidlo, S. J., Dunnette, M. D., & Carter, G. W. (1990). An alternative selection procedure: The low-fidelity simulation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 77, 640-647.https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.75.6.640
Motowidlo, S. J., Ghosh, K., Mendoza, A. M., Buchanan, A. E., & Lerma, M. N. (2016). A context-independent situational judgment test to measure prosocial implicit trait policy. Human Performance, 29, 331-346.https://doi.org/10.1080/08959285.2016.1165227
Motowidlo, S. J., Hooper, A. C., & Jackson, H. L. (2006). Implicit policies about relations between personality traits and behavioral effectiveness in situational judgment items. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, 749-761. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.91.4.749
Motowidlo, S. J., Martin, M. P., & Crook, A. E. (2013). Relations between personality, knowledge, and behavior in professional service encounters. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 43, 1851-1861.https://doi.org/10.1111/jasp.12137
Motowidlo, S. J., & Van Scotter, J. R. (1994). Evidence that task performance should be distinguished from contextual performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 79, 475-480. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.79.4.475
Murphy, K. R. (2008). Explaining the weak relationship between job performance and ratings of job performance. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 1, 148-160.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1754-9434.2008.00030.x
Murphy, K. R. (2020). Performance evaluation will not die, but it should. Human Resource Management, 30, 13-31.https://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12259
Murphy, K. R., & Cleveland, J. N. (1995). Understanding performance appraisal: Social, organizational and goal-oriented perspectives. Newbury Park: Sage.
Niemann, J., Wisse, B., Rus, D., Van Yperen, N. W., & Sassenberg, K. (2014). Anger and attitudinal reactions to negative feedback: The effects of emotional instability and power. Motivation and Emotion, 38, 687-699.https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-014-9402-9
Oh, I.-S., & Berry, C. M. (2009). The five- factor model of personality and managerial performance: Validity gains through the use of 360 degree performance ratings. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(6), 1498-1513.https://doi.org/10.1037/a0017221
Sargeant, J., Mann, K., Sinclair, D., Van Der Vleuten, C., & Metsemakers, J. (2008). Understanding the influence of emotions and reflection upon multi-source feedback acceptance and use. Advances in Health Sciences Education, 13, 275-288.https://doi.org/10.1007/s10459-006-9039-x
Schäpers, P., Mussel, P., Lievens, F., König, C. J., Freudenstein, J.-P., Krumm, S. (2020). The role of situations in situational judgment tests: Effects on construct saturation, predictive validity, and applicant perceptions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 10, 800-818.http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/apl0000457
Schmit, M. C., Motowidlo, S. J., DeGroot, T., Cross, T., & Kiker, D. S. (1996, April). Explaining the relationship between personality and job performance. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, San Diego, CA.
Sibley, C. G., & Duckitt, J. (2000). Personality and prejudice: A meta-analysis and theoretical review. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 12(3), 248-279.https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868308319226
Sobel, M. E. (1982). Asymptotic confidence intervals for indirect effects in structural equation models. In S. Leinhardt (Ed.), Sociological methodology (pp. 290-312). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Spence, J. R., & Keeping, L. (2011). Conscious rating distortion in performance appraisal: A review, commentary, and proposed framework for research. Human Resource Management Review, 21, 85-95.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrmr.2010.09.013
Steelman, L. A., Levy, P. E., & Snell, A. F. (2004). The feedback environment scale: Construct definition, measurement, and validation. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 64, 165-184.https://doi.org/10.1177/0013164403258440
Steelman, L. A., & Rutkowski, K. A. (2004). Moderators of employee reactions to negative feedback. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 19, 6-18.https://doi.org/10.1108/02683940410520637
VandeWalle, D., Ganesan, S., Challagalla, G. N., & Brown, S. P. (2000). An integrated model of feedback-seeking behavior: Disposition, context and cognition. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85, 996-1003.https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.85.6.996
Whitaker, B. G., Dahling, J. J., & Levy, P. E. (2007). The development of a feedback environment and role clarity model of job performance. Journal of Management, 33, 570-591.https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206306297581
Young, S. F., Richard, E. M., Moukarzel, R. G., Steelman, L. A., & Gentry, W. A. (2017). How empathetic concern helps leaders in providing negative feedback: A two-study examination. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 90, 535-558. https://doi.org/10.1111/joop/12184
Yu, A., Martin, M. P., & Motowidlo, S. J. (2012). Knowledge about legal professionalism. Poster presented at the 120th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Orlando, FL.
Zhang, Z., Mai, Y., & Yang, M. (2021). WebPower: Basic and advanced statistical power analysis [Computer software manual]. https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/WebPower/