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Ability Tests Measure Personality, Personality Tests Measure Ability: Disentangling Construct and Method in Evaluating the Relationship between Personality and Ability

Although personality and cognitive ability are separate (sets of) constructs, we argue and demonstrate in this article that their effects are difficult to tease apart, because personality affects performance on cognitive tests and cognitive ability affects item responses on personality assessments....

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Autores principales: Kyllonen, Patrick C., Kell, Harrison
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6480781/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31162459
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence6030032
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author Kyllonen, Patrick C.
Kell, Harrison
author_facet Kyllonen, Patrick C.
Kell, Harrison
author_sort Kyllonen, Patrick C.
collection PubMed
description Although personality and cognitive ability are separate (sets of) constructs, we argue and demonstrate in this article that their effects are difficult to tease apart, because personality affects performance on cognitive tests and cognitive ability affects item responses on personality assessments. Cognitive ability is typically measured with tests of items with correct answers; personality is typically measured with rating-scale self-reports. Oftentimes conclusions regarding the personality–ability relationship have as much to do with measurement methods as with construct similarities and differences. In this article, we review key issues that touch on the relationship between cognitive ability and personality. These include the construct-method distinction, sources of test score variance, the maximal vs. typical performance distinction, and the special role for motivation in low-stakes testing. We review a general response model for cognitive and personality tests that recognizes those sources of test score variance. We then review approaches for measuring personality through performance (objective personality tests, grit game, coding speed, economic preferences, confidence), test and survey behavior (survey effort, response time, item position effects), and real-world behavior (study time, registration latency, behavior residue, and social media). We also discuss ability effects on personality tests, indicated by age and cognitive ability effects, anchoring vignette rating errors, and instructions to ‘fake good’. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for our understanding of personality and ability differences, and suggestions for integrating the fields.
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spelling pubmed-64807812019-05-29 Ability Tests Measure Personality, Personality Tests Measure Ability: Disentangling Construct and Method in Evaluating the Relationship between Personality and Ability Kyllonen, Patrick C. Kell, Harrison J Intell Review Although personality and cognitive ability are separate (sets of) constructs, we argue and demonstrate in this article that their effects are difficult to tease apart, because personality affects performance on cognitive tests and cognitive ability affects item responses on personality assessments. Cognitive ability is typically measured with tests of items with correct answers; personality is typically measured with rating-scale self-reports. Oftentimes conclusions regarding the personality–ability relationship have as much to do with measurement methods as with construct similarities and differences. In this article, we review key issues that touch on the relationship between cognitive ability and personality. These include the construct-method distinction, sources of test score variance, the maximal vs. typical performance distinction, and the special role for motivation in low-stakes testing. We review a general response model for cognitive and personality tests that recognizes those sources of test score variance. We then review approaches for measuring personality through performance (objective personality tests, grit game, coding speed, economic preferences, confidence), test and survey behavior (survey effort, response time, item position effects), and real-world behavior (study time, registration latency, behavior residue, and social media). We also discuss ability effects on personality tests, indicated by age and cognitive ability effects, anchoring vignette rating errors, and instructions to ‘fake good’. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for our understanding of personality and ability differences, and suggestions for integrating the fields. MDPI 2018-07-10 /pmc/articles/PMC6480781/ /pubmed/31162459 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence6030032 Text en © 2018 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Kyllonen, Patrick C.
Kell, Harrison
Ability Tests Measure Personality, Personality Tests Measure Ability: Disentangling Construct and Method in Evaluating the Relationship between Personality and Ability
title Ability Tests Measure Personality, Personality Tests Measure Ability: Disentangling Construct and Method in Evaluating the Relationship between Personality and Ability
title_full Ability Tests Measure Personality, Personality Tests Measure Ability: Disentangling Construct and Method in Evaluating the Relationship between Personality and Ability
title_fullStr Ability Tests Measure Personality, Personality Tests Measure Ability: Disentangling Construct and Method in Evaluating the Relationship between Personality and Ability
title_full_unstemmed Ability Tests Measure Personality, Personality Tests Measure Ability: Disentangling Construct and Method in Evaluating the Relationship between Personality and Ability
title_short Ability Tests Measure Personality, Personality Tests Measure Ability: Disentangling Construct and Method in Evaluating the Relationship between Personality and Ability
title_sort ability tests measure personality, personality tests measure ability: disentangling construct and method in evaluating the relationship between personality and ability
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6480781/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31162459
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence6030032
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