Stronger Together: Personality, Intelligence and the Assessment of Career Potential

Personality and intelligence have a long history in applied psychology, with research dating back more than 100 years. In line, early developments in industrial-organizational psychology were largely founded on the predictive power of personality and intelligence measures vis-à-vis career-related outcomes. However, despite a wealth of evidence in support of their utility, the concepts, theories, and measures of personality and intelligence are still widely underutilized in organizations, even when these express a commitment to making data-driven decisions about employees and leaders. This paper discusses the value of personality and intelligence to understand individual differences in career potential, and how to increase the adoption of theories and tools for evaluating personality and intelligence in real-world organizational contexts. Although personality and intelligence are distinct constructs, the assessment of career potential is incomplete without both

Learning approaches: Associations with Typical Intellectual Engagement, intelligence and the Big Five

Learning approaches, i.e. students’ learning strategies and motives, predict academic performance but it is not clear how much variance they share with intelligence and personality. Here, the relationship of the Big Five personality traits, intelligence, and Typical Intellectual Engagement (TIE) with deep, achieving and surface learning was explored in a sample of 579 British undergraduate students. A structural equation model showed that (a) intelligence was negligibly associated with learning approaches; (b) TIE was strongly related to all three types of learning approaches; (c) deep learning shared the greatest amount of variance with TIE, while (d) achieving learning was best explained by Extraversion, Openness to Experience, and Conscientiousness. Only 25% of the variance in surface learning was accounted for by intelligence and personality. Thus, personality traits and learning approaches share much variance but not enough to dismiss either construct as redundant

Individual characteristics and student's engagement in scientific research : a cross-sectional study

Background: In light of the increasing recognition of the importance of physician scientists, and given the association between undergraduate research experiences with future scientific activity, it is important to identify and understand variables related to undergraduate student’s decision to engage in scientific research activities. The present study assessed the influence of individual characteristics, including personality traits and socio-demographic characteristics, on voluntary engagement in scientific research of undergraduate medical students. Methods: For this study, all undergraduate students and alumni of the School of Health Sciences in Minho, Portugal were invited to participate in a survey about voluntary engagement in scientific research activities. Data were available on socio-demographic, personality and university admission variables, as part of an ongoing longitudinal study. A regression model was used to compare (1) engaged with (2) not engaged students. A classification and regression tree model was used to compare students engaged in (3) elective curricular research (4) and extra-curricular research. Results: A total of 466 students (88%) answered the survey. A complete set of data was available for 435 students (83%).Higher scores in admission grade point average and the personality dimensions of “openness to experience” and “conscientiousness” increased chances of engagement. Higher “extraversion” scores had the opposite effect. Male undergraduate students were two times more likely than females to engage in curricular elective scientific research and were also more likely to engage in extra-curricular research activities. Conclusions: This study demonstrated that student’s grade point average and individual characteristics, like gender, openness and consciousness have a unique and statistically significant contribution to student’s involvement in undergraduate scientific research activities.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) - PTDC/ESC/65116/200

Academic Performance and Behavioral Patterns

Identifying the factors that influence academic performance is an essential part of educational research. Previous studies have documented the importance of personality traits, class attendance, and social network structure. Because most of these analyses were based on a single behavioral aspect and/or small sample sizes, there is currently no quantification of the interplay of these factors. Here, we study the academic performance among a cohort of 538 undergraduate students forming a single, densely connected social network. Our work is based on data collected using smartphones, which the students used as their primary phones for two years. The availability of multi-channel data from a single population allows us to directly compare the explanatory power of individual and social characteristics. We find that the most informative indicators of performance are based on social ties and that network indicators result in better model performance than individual characteristics (including both personality and class attendance). We confirm earlier findings that class attendance is the most important predictor among individual characteristics. Finally, our results suggest the presence of strong homophily and/or peer effects among university students

\u201cGive, but Give until It Hurts\u201d: The Modulatory Role of Trait Emotional Intelligence on the Motivation to Help

Two studies investigated the effect of trait Emotional Intelligence (trait EI) on people\u2019s moti- vation to help. In Study 1, we developed a new computer-based paradigm that tested partic- ipants\u2019 motivation to help by measuring their performance on a task in which they could gain a hypothetical amount of money to help children in need. Crucially, we manipulated partici- pants\u2019 perceived efficacy by informing them that they had been either able to save the chil- dren (positive feedback) or unable to save the children (negative feedback). We measured trait EI using the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire\u2013Short Form (TEIQue-SF) and assessed participants\u2019 affective reactions during the experiment using the PANAS-X. Results showed that high and low trait EI participants performed differently after the presen- tation of feedback on their ineffectiveness in helping others in need. Both groups showed increasing negative affective states during the experiment when the feedback was negative; however, high trait EI participants better managed their affective reactions, modulating the impact of their emotions on performance and maintaining a high level of motivation to help. In Study 2, we used a similar computerized task and tested a control situation to explore the effect of trait EI on participants\u2019 behavior when facing failure or success in a scenario unre- lated to helping others in need. No effect of feedback emerged on participants\u2019 emotional states in the second study. Taken together our results show that trait EI influences the impact of success and failure on behavior only in affect-rich situation like those in which people are asked to help others in need

The Art of Research: A Divergent/Convergent Framework and Opportunities for Science-Based Approaches

Applying science to the current art of producing engineering and research knowledge has proven difficult, in large part because of its seeming complexity. We posit that the microscopic processes underlying research are not so complex, but instead are iterative and interacting cycles of divergent (generation of ideas) and convergent (testing and selecting of ideas) thinking processes. This reductionist framework coherently organizes a wide range of previously disparate microscopic mechanisms which inhibit these processes. We give examples of such inhibitory mechanisms and discuss how deeper scientific understanding of these mechanisms might lead to dis-inhibitory interventions for individuals, networks and institutional levels

What makes you not a Buddhist? : a preliminary mapping of values

This study sets out to establish which Buddhist values contrasted with or were shared by adolescents from a non-Buddhist population. A survey of attitude toward a variety of Buddhist values was fielded in a sample of 352 non-Buddhist schoolchildren aged between 13 and 15 in London. Buddhist values where attitudes were least positive concerned the worth of being a monk/nun or meditating, offering candles & incense on the Buddhist shrine, friendship on Sangha Day, avoiding drinking alcohol, seeing the world as empty or impermanent and Nirvana as the ultimate peace. Buddhist values most closely shared by non-Buddhists concerned the Law of Karma, calming the mind, respecting those deserving of respect, subjectivity of happiness, welfare work, looking after parents in old age and compassion to cuddly animals. Further significant differences of attitude toward Buddhism were found in partial correlations with the independent variables of sex, age and religious affiliation. Correlation patterns paralleled those previously described in theistic religions. Findings are applied to spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and for the teaching of religious to pupils of no faith adherence. The study recommends that quantitative psychometrics employed to conceptualize Buddhist values by discriminant validity in this study could be extended usefully to other aspects of the study of Buddhism, particularly in quest of validity in the conceptualization of Buddhist identity within specifically Buddhist populations

L’intelligence comme dispositif de pouvoir

O objetivo do presente estudo, é compreender a inscrição individual e social de discursos usados por alunas, em diferentes posições de classe social, para explicar os seus sucessos académicos. Foram entrevistadas 19 alunas portuguesas do 11º ano de escolaridade provenientes das classes trabalhadora e alta, com elevado rendimento académico. A Análise Foucaudiana do Discurso aponta para a importância da posição de classe na construção dos sujeitos relativamente à sua conceção de inteligência e ao sucesso escolar. A inteligência funciona assim como um dispositivo de poder que regula as relações entre sujeitos de diferentes classes sociais.The objective of the present study is to understand the individual and social inscription of discourses used by students from different social class positions to explain their academic achievement. Nineteen portuguese students, from the 11th grade, with high academic performance and from the working class and upper class, in northern Portugal, were interviewed. Foucauldian Discourse Analysis points to the importance of class position in the construction of the subjects with respect to their concept of intelligence and academic success. Intelligence works as a power device that regulates the relations among subjects of different social classes.L’objectif de cette étude est de comprendre l’inscription individuelle et sociale des discours utilisés par les apprenantes dans différentes positions de classe sociale, pour expliquer leurs succès académiques. Dix-neuf apprenantes portugaises de la 11ème année de scolarité dotées d’un bon rendement scolaire issues des classes ouvrières et moyennes supérieures ont été interviewées. L’Analyse Foucaldienne du Discours souligne l’importance de la position de classe dans la construction des sujets concernant leur conception de l’intelligence et de la réussite scolaire. L’intelligence fonctionne aussi bien en tant que dispositif de pouvoir qui régit les relations entre les individus de différentes classes sociales.(undefined

Psychological Flexibility, ACT, and Organizational Behavior

This paper offers organizational behavior management (OBM) a behavior analytically consistent way to expand its analysis of, and methods for changing, organizational behavior. It shows how Relational Frame Theory (RFT) suggests that common, problematic, psychological processes emerge from language itself, and they produce psychological inflexibility. Research suggests that an applied extension of RFT, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, has led to new interventions that increase psychological flexibility and, thereby enhance, organizational behavior and health