For talent assessment professionals, the challenge has always been to define what makes individuals likely to succeed in specific roles. Traditionally, this has focused on two primary constructs: ability and personality. These elements have been studied extensively, but often in isolation, leading to a somewhat fragmented understanding of human potential.
Recent research by Kevin Stanek and Deniz Ones (2023a, b) however, has highlighted the significant interconnections between ability and personality, urging a more integrated approach to understanding and assessing for talent.
Foundations: Ability and personality
Ability encompasses a broad array of human capacities, such as memory, reasoning, and problem-solving. These abilities are underpinned by the theoretical construct of general mental ability (GMA).
GMA is a key predictor of various life outcomes, including educational achievements and job performance. Indeed, GMA has been described as one of psychology’s most significant contributions to understanding human potential.
Personality, on the other hand, involves a range of traits that influence how we interact with the world, including our emotional expression, interpersonal behavior, and motivational processes. Personality traits are categorized into broader factors, such as the Big Five personality traits, which provide a framework for understanding individual differences in behavior and motivation.
A new perspective: The cybernetic model
Stanek and Ones’ research suggests that when ability and personality are considered together, they offer a more comprehensive picture of human functioning. They propose viewing individuals as cybernetic systems: dynamic entities that use resources to achieve goals based on feedback from their environment and internal processes.
In this model, individuals move through three stages in pursuing day-to-day goals:
1. Current state. The individual’s present self and environment, influenced by past experiences.
2. Transition state. The process of moving from the current state toward a desired goal, which involves evaluating options and resources.
3. Goal state. The desired outcome, whether related to the self, environment, or both.
The cybernetic model emphasizes that individuals are constantly navigating between these states, using their abilities and personality traits to sense, evaluate, and decide on actions. This process is largely adaptive, helping individuals fit their capacities to the demands of their environment.
Practical implications: Combining ability and personality
Understanding the complex interplay between ability and personality can lead to more effective talent assessments. For instance, certain combinations of abilities and personality traits may be more suited to particular roles or environments. This insight is especially valuable in contexts where individuals must adapt to changing demands or manage complex tasks.
In line with the above research, we have been helping our clients better understand their talent by combining ability and personality results into powerful predictive models. Some of these include:
- Growth orientation and potential is one example of a combined assessment construct. It considers personality traits like openness to feedback and abilities related to verbal reasoning, providing insights into how individuals approach personal growth and their potential for success in learning new skills.
- Digital readiness is another construct that combines personality traits related to flexibility and adaptability with cognitive abilities needed to navigate digital environments. This combination helps assess how well candidates might fare in the modern, always-connected workplace.
- Dealing with complexity is a construct based on Elliotte Jaques’ stratified systems theory, which combines behavioral and motivational tendencies with cognitive abilities. It helps predict how individuals might perform in roles that require different degrees of operational focus and strategic thinking.
Challenging stereotypes: New insights
One of the most exciting aspects of combining ability and personality data is the way it challenges common stereotypes. For example, Stanek and Ones (2023a, b) found that individuals who are energetic and action-oriented often excel in tasks requiring long-term memory retrieval and efficient information processing. This finding contradicts the stereotype of the quiet, reserved intellectual and suggests new ways of conceptualising this constellation of traits and abilities.
The integration of ability and personality constructs not only enriches our understanding of human functioning but also opens up new avenues for talent assessment.
By recognizing the interrelationships between ability and personality, talent professionals can develop more nuanced and effective assessment tools and methods, ultimately leading to better job-person fit and more successful outcomes.
Looking ahead: The future of talent assessment
The implications of Stanek and Ones’ research extend beyond the specific examples mentioned. Their work suggests that, in real-life human behaviour and performance, combining cognitive abilities and personality traits is the norm rather than the exception, with significant potential for practical applications in talent assessment.
Examining these complex interrelationships allows us to go beyond simplistic, linear models of human functioning and embrace a more holistic understanding of what drives success in the workplace.
In conclusion, the integration of ability and personality in talent assessments is a long-standing practice that has been given a useful empirical basis by current research findings that we discussed here (See our Sources list below).
By recognizing the interconnectedness of these constructs, we can develop more effective assessments that better predict success and help individuals reach their full potential. As research in this area continues to evolve, the possibilities for new and innovative assessment strategies will no doubt follow.
For more on assessing for personality and ability constellations, why not drop us a line at info@tts-talent.com? For a long form whitepaper on this topic, you can click here to download it from our website.
Sources
Stanek, K. C. & Ones, D. S. (2023a). Our Constellations. A Primer for Of Anchors & Sails: Personality-ability trait constellations. Pleiades Press.
Stanek, K. C. & Ones, D. S. (2023b). Meta-analytic relations between personality and cognitive ability. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 120 (23). Retrieved at:https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2212794120