Page 48 - Psychological Management of Individual Performance

Chapter 2

Ability and Non-ability Predictors

of Job Performance

Ruth Kanfer and Tracy M. Kantrowitz
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA

INTRODUCTION 28
GENERAL COGNITIVE ABILITY AND JOB KNOWLEDGE 29
PERSONALIT Y/NON-ABILIT Y TRAITS 34
ALTERNATIVE NON-ABILI T Y MEASURES 37
INTERVIEWS 37
BIODATA 38
INCREMENTAL PREDICTIVE VALIDITY 38
PROGRESS, PROBLEMS, AND PROSPECTS
FOR FUTURE RESEARCH 40
PROGRESS 40
PROBLEMS 41
PROSPECTS 45
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 46
NOTE 46
REFERENCES 46

SUMMARY
This chapter reviews recent advances in theory and research on general cognitive
ability and non-ability predictors of job performance. New theoretical developments
delineating how intelligence and ability relate to performance are described. Results of
meta-analytic findings on general cognitive ability, personality, and biodata/interview
relations to job performance are reviewed, followed by a review of research examining
the incremental predictive validity of non-ability measures over ability predictors for
work behavior and job performance. The meta-analytic findings provide compelling ev-
idence for the predictive validity of general cognitive ability for job performance and,
to a lesser extent, evidence for the predictive validity of some personality traits for
job performance. We discuss abiding issues related to construct mismatch, non-linear
relations between the predictor and criterion, and bidirectionality. Future research
directions that focus on the “how and why” for observed trait–job performance rela-
tionships are recommended.

Psychological Management of Individual Performance. Edited by Sabine Sonnentag.
C 2002 John Wiley& Sons, Ltd. ISBN: 0-471-87726-3