Three forest plots for the validity of conscientiousness by data source.

<p>(A) Conscientiousness data from all data sources. (B) Conscientiousness data from journal articles. (C) Conscientiousness data from non-journal sources. Forest plots for the cumulative meta-analyses by precision for the validity of conscientiousness (i.e., the correlation between conscientiousness and job performance) are displayed. To obtain the plots, validities were sorted from largest sample size to smallest sample size and entered into the meta-analysis one at a time in an iterative manner. The lines around the plotted means are the 95% confidence intervals for the meta-analytic means. For panels A and B, the mean validities drift from smaller to larger as correlations from smaller and smaller sample size studies are added the to the distribution being analyzed. For Panel C, no noticeable drift is observed. The drifts from smaller to larger meta-analytic means are consistent with an inference of statistically insignificant correlations from smaller sample size studies being suppressed (i.e., publication bias). The lack of meaningful drift in panel C suggests that the data suppression is largely in the journal published articles (see panel B). Thus, it is the data published in journal articles that are largely responsible for distorting the research on the validity of conscientiousness.</p

Moderator statistical tests using the between-group <i>Q</i> test.

<p>Moderator statistical tests using the between-group <i>Q</i> test.</p

Three contoured funnel plots for the validity of conscientiousness by data source.

<p>(A) Conscientiousness data from all data sources. (B) Conscientiousness data from journal articles. (C) Conscientiousness data from non-journal sources. Correlations are graphed as circles with an X-axis of correlation magnitude and a Y-axis of the inverse standard error of the correlation. The filled black circles represent the observed correlations and the clear circles represent the trim-and-fill imputed correlations. The clear area contains correlations that are not statistically significant (<i>p</i> > .05). The darkest gray area contains correlations that may be described as marginally significant (<i>p</i>-values ranging from .05 to .10). The lighter gray area contains correlations that are statistically significant (<i>p</i> < .05). Note that most of the imputed correlations are found in the data distribution drawn from studies published in journals; relatively few of the imputed correlations are found in the data distribution drawn from unpublished studies. This fact is consistent with an inference that publication bias in the full data distribution is largely due to the suppression of statistically insignificant correlations in journal published articles. Thus, it is the journal articles that are largely responsible for distorting the research on the validity of conscientiousness.</p