The application of personality assessment techniques for clinical and personnel decisions has always been a major activity for psychologists all over the world. In South Africa personality assessment tools are often used for purposes of selection, placement, determination of job satisfaction and development. Psychological testing in South Africa was originally initiated with white test-takers in mind, and currently none of the available personality questionnaires used in South Africa have been found to provide a reliable and valid picture of personality for all cultural (language) groups. Since 1994 South Africa has had a new constitution and there are stronger demands for the cultural appropriateness of psychological tests. In this study, the implicit perspectives of personality of Sesotho-speaking South Africans are being determined in order to develop a more culturally fair personality assessment tool for South Africans. A qualitative research design was used with an interview as data-gathering instrument. A Sesotho-speaking fieldworker was recruited to interview 120 Sesotho-speaking South Africans from the Free State Province. The study population was purposely drawn from different sections of the Sesotho-speaking population. A total of 4873 Sesotho-speaker personality descriptors were obtained from the participants and then translated into English. Content analysis was used to analyse, interpret and reduce these descriptors to a total of 94 personality characteristics, which highlights the most important perspectives of personality for Sesotho-speaking individuals. The personality characteristics were divided into seven categories, namely sociability, interpersonal relatedness, emotionality, meanness, conscientiousness, dominance and other. The majority of the characteristics are representative of communalism or the collective consciousness in African communities. Sesotho-speaking persons are socially active and are sympathetic, caring and tolerant towards others, they are willing to become involved in the feelings, problems and welfare of others. The findings of this study were compared to the Five Factor Model and evidence were found for the extraversion, conscientiousness, neuroticism and agreeableness factors, but not for the openness to experience factor. In comparison with the Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory support were found for 17 of the 22 personality scales. Characteristics such as admonitory, resourcefulness, religion, humour, fair, judgemental and discriminating can be seen as characteristics indigenous to the Sesotho culture. Limitations in the research are identified and recommendations for future research are made. / Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.

The application of personality assessment techniques for clinical and personnel decisions has always been a major activity for psychologists all over the world. In South Africa personality assessment tools are often used for purposes of selection, placement, determination of job satisfaction and development. Psychological testing in South Africa was originally initiated with white test-takers in mind, and currently none of the available personality questionnaires used in South Africa have been found to provide a reliable and valid picture of personality for all cultural (language) groups. Since 1994 South Africa has had a new constitution and there are stronger demands for the cultural appropriateness of psychological tests. In this study, the implicit perspectives of personality of Sesotho-speaking South Africans are being determined in order to develop a more culturally fair personality assessment tool for South Africans. A qualitative research design was used with an interview as data-gathering instrument. A Sesotho-speaking fieldworker was recruited to interview 120 Sesotho-speaking South Africans from the Free State Province. The study population was purposely drawn from different sections of the Sesotho-speaking population. A total of 4873 Sesotho-speaker personality descriptors were obtained from the participants and then translated into English. Content analysis was used to analyse, interpret and reduce these descriptors to a total of 94 personality characteristics, which highlights the most important perspectives of personality for Sesotho-speaking individuals. The personality characteristics were divided into seven categories, namely sociability, interpersonal relatedness, emotionality, meanness, conscientiousness, dominance and other. The majority of the characteristics are representative of communalism or the collective consciousness in African communities. Sesotho-speaking persons are socially active and are sympathetic, caring and tolerant towards others, they are willing to become involved in the feelings, problems and welfare of others. The findings of this study were compared to the Five Factor Model and evidence were found for the extraversion, conscientiousness, neuroticism and agreeableness factors, but not for the openness to experience factor. In comparison with the Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory support were found for 17 of the 22 personality scales. Characteristics such as admonitory, resourcefulness, religion, humour, fair, judgemental and discriminating can be seen as characteristics indigenous to the Sesotho culture. Limitations in the research are identified and recommendations for future research are made. / Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.

Researchers have raised concerns about measurement equivalence in comparing personalities across cultures using personality assessments. The self-reported personality measurements often do not assess the same construct, trigger different response styles (i.e., extreme response style), or use behavioral exemplars that are inappropriate across cultures (Byrne&Watkins, 2003; Chen, 2008; Poortinga, van de Vijber,&van Hermert, 2002, van de Vijver&Leung, 1997). James et al. (2005) developed a new measurement system for aggression that is different from traditional personality assessment. It is referred to as the Conditional Reasoning Test for Aggression (CRT-A). The CRT-A is an indirect measure for assessing unconscious motives to be aggressive that was developed in the USA. It has not been studied with people from different cultures. Study 1 investigated the equivalences of the Aggression Questionnaire (AQ) and the CRT-A by administering both to groups of Americans (n=432) and Koreans (n=363). Results based on the exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and DIF analyses showed that the AQ and CRT-A are not invariant across these cultures. Study 2 replicated LeBreton et al.(2007) study regarding faking issues of the CRT-A with the Korean population. Study 2 found that on the CRT-A, Koreans were able to identify aggressive alternatives when they were told to do so, and Korean students and employees did not score differently on the CRT-A. Implications and future directions of the study are discussed herein.

Efforts to develop an empirically derived typology of a major component of the implicit aggressive personality are described. A variety of samples (from both student and work populations) completed the Conditional Reasoning Test for Aggression (CRT-A; James, McIntyre, Glisson, Bowler, and Mitchell, 2004; James et al., 2005). Individual scores on the CRT-A were analyzed utilizing cluster analytic methodology in order to develop a typology of the key defense mechanisms used by the implicit aggressive personality. The resulting clusters were analyzed using affirmation analysis (Feild and Schoenfeldt, 1975) to test the reliability of each. A useful system for classifying the implicit aggressive personality resulted from this endeavor. It is expected that both scientists and practitioners can use this typology as a means for classifying aggressive individuals. Implications include the development of an organizing framework facilitating scientific communication in research on the aggressive personality as well as a classification system for organizations to identify those applicants and incumbents that might be potentially detrimental to the well-being of their coworkers.

Several decades of leadership research have failed to yield a personality measure that accurately predicts successful leaders (Bernus&Manis, 1985; Stogdill, 1974; Vroom&Yago, 2007; Yukl, 1989). A new implicit measure of personality, the Conditional Reasoning Test for Leadership (CRT-L), shows promise in this endeavor. This project investigated the construct and criterion-related validities of this measure. Previous research on implicit personality measures, and specifically conditional reasoning measures, has demonstrated that their relationship to their explicit measure counterparts tends to be modest or nonexistent. This was the case for the CRT-L, which had no relationship to the NEO Hostility Scale or the Motivation to Lead (MTL) Scale. As expected, the two explicit measures did have a significant and positive relationship (r = .42). The CRT-L was also effective at predicting leadership and power criteria. It had positive and significant relationships with Leadership Peer Nominations (r = .25) and Power Peer Nominations (r = .21) and was more successful in these predictions than either of the explicit measures. The results of this research provide evidence for the effectiveness of the CRT-L as a leadership measure and further validation work is encouraged.

No description available.

Thesis (M.Com. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2009.

Thesis (M.Com. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2009.

No description available.

In meiner Dissertationsschrift unterschied ich zwischen expliziten und impliziten Repräsentationen der eigenen Persönlichkeit und konzeptualisierte diese als Teile des reflektiven bzw. impulsiven Systems (Strack & Deutsch, in press). Am Beispiel der Persönlichkeitseigenschaften Schüchternheit, Ängstlichkeit und Ärgerlichkeit erfasste ich implizite Repräsentationen des Persönlichkeits-Selbstkonzeptes mit Hilfe von Impliziten Assoziations Tests (IATs, Greenwald, McGhee & Schwartz, 1998) und den neuen Impliziten Assoziations Prozeduren (IAPs) als indirekte Messverfahren. Im Gegensatz zu direkten Fragebogen-Verfahren, die das explizite Persönlichkeits-Selbstkonzept erfassen, stellen indirekte Verfahren chronometrische Messverfahren dar, die das direkte Fragen nach Selbsteinschätzungen vermeiden. Die Ergebnisse zeigten vier wichtige Dissoziationen zwischen direkten und indirekten Verfahren bei der Messung des Persönlichkeits-Selbstkonzeptes. Erstens waren indirekte Verfahren robuster gegen Verfälschungsinstruktionen als direkte Verfahren. Zweitens war die konvergente Validität zwischen indirekten Verfahren geringer als zwischen direkten Verfahren. Drittens leisteten indirekte Verfahren einen inkrementellen Beitrag zur Vorhersage von Verhalten. Viertens waren indirekte Verfahren weniger geeignet für das gleichzeitige Erfassen von zwei unterschiedlichen Eigenschaften als direkte Verfahren. / In my dissertation thesis I differentiated between explicit and implicit representations of one’s own personality and considered them as elements of reflective and impulsive information processing, respectively (Strack & Deutsch, in press). Using the traits of shyness, anxiousness, and angriness as examples, I assessed implicit representations of the personality self-concept with the Implicit Association Tests (IATs, Greenwald McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998) and the new Implicit Association Procedures (IAPs) as the tools for indirect measures. In contrast to direct questionnaire measures that assess the explicit personality self-concept, indirect measures are chronometric procedures that avoid asking direct self-judgment questions. The results showed four important dissociations between direct and indirect measures in the assessment of the personality self-concept. First, indirect measures were more robust against faking than direct measures. Second, the convergent validity between indirect measures was lower than that between direct measures. Third, indirect measures added incremental validity to the prediction of behavior. Fourth, indirect measures were less apt for the concurrent assessment of two traits within one sample than direct measures.