Big Five Domains and Facets Contextualized to the Work Domain Outperform Noncontextualized Ones

Abstract: It is well-established that personality predicts a broad range of outcomes across life domains. However, the criterion validity of personality assessments is often limited. One strategy to increase criterion validity is to move from global, noncontextualized personality assessments toward contextualized personality assessments with reference to a specific context. We investigated whether a Big Five assessment contextualized to the work domain allows for better predictions of work-related outcomes than a noncontextualized Big Five assessment. Two hundred ninety respondents completed both the standard Big Five Inventory-2 (BFI-2) and a work-specific variant thereof. In addition, they provided information on a broad range of work-related outcomes (job satisfaction, turnover intentions, organizational citizenship behavior, burnout risk, and occupational commitment), as well as on global health, a not strictly work-related outcome. Results showed that the contextualized personality assessment generally outperformed the noncontextualized one in terms of criterion validity for all outcomes, with the exception of global health. This applied to both the five broad personality domains and the 15 narrow personality facets. We conclude that if maximizing criterion validity in the work domain is the goal, contextualized personality assessments are preferable to noncontextualized ones.