Personality testing: enhancing in-service selection of mid-career soldiers

Personality assessment in military - Bright and dark sides of the assessment measures: A review

BACKGROUND

Personality assessment has its own bright and dark sides, especially in the military setting. It is at play since the emergence of clinical psychology and its application in the recruitment process during World War I and II. Change in personality assessment trends, the evolution of complex personality traits, and changing geopolitical settings across the world necessitate the development of cost-effective, time-efficient, and reliable assessment measures that overcome issues in current assessment measures and fulfil the needs of present timesOBJECTIVE:The objective of this paper is to explore the evolution of personality assessment measures and their uses in military settings along with the comparison of self-report and non-self-report measures. It would give directions for the development of new measures to overcome the issues and drawbacks associated with current measures of research.

METHODS

The research question was formulated using the most valid SPIDER technique for a comprehensive search. PubMed, Google Scholar, and PsycNet databases were searched. 19 articles were selected based on inclusion and exclusion criteria out of 775 articles.

RESULTS

Thematic analyses show that personality assessment in the military is done to a) detect psychopathology, b) detect aberrant responses, c) recruit new personnel, d) predict training and performance outcomes, and e) predict leadership. The research contributes to the body of knowledge by showing an integrated picture of the most widely used assessment tools and the purpose it serves.

CONCLUSION

There is a need to develop assessment measures that are culture free and can assess more complex personality attributes.

Prediction of performance by non-cognitive traits

Project A clearly demonstrated that performance is multidimensional and that some aspects are better predicted by noncognitive measures. Substantial research and development in the ensuing years has focused on personality and vocational interests. The articles in this special issue convincingly demonstrate that at least one personality measure developed by military researchers, the Tailored Adaptive Personality Assessment System (TAPAS), is resistant to faking, which was an important concern about earlier single statement instruments. Moreover, several articles report showing that TAPAS predicts retention and important aspects of "will do" performance. On the other hand, these papers show that TAPAS adds little or no incremental validity to "can do" aspects of performance over and above the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB). Three measures of vocational interest are described in articles in this special issue and research has been positive about their ability to predict attrition, rates of promotion and reenlistment, and job satisfaction. A number of topics for further research are noted.