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The Five Factor Model of personality and job performance in

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 Journal of Applied Psychology Copyright 1997 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.
1997. Vol. 82, No. 1,30-43 Oa21-901(W7/$3.fX>

The Five Factor Model of Personality and Job Performance

in the European Community
Jesus F. Salgado
University of Santiago de Compostela
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

In 3 prior meta-analyses, the relationship between the Big Five factors of personality and
job criteria was investigated. However, these meta-anatyses showed different findings.
Furthermore, these reviews included studies carried out only in the United States and
Canada. This study reports meta-analytic research on the same topic but with studies
conducted in the European Community, which were not included in the prior reviews.
The resulls indicate that Conscientiousness and Emotional Stability are valid predictors
across job criteria and occupational groups. The remaining factors are valid only for
some criteria and for some occupational groups. Extraversion was a predictor for 2
occupations, and Openness and Agreeableness were valid predictors of training profi-
ciency. These findings are consistent with M. R. Barrick and M. K. Mount (1991) and
L. M. Hough, N. K. Eaton, M. D. Dunnette, J. D. Kamp, and R. A. McCloy (1990).
Implications of the results for future research and the practice of personnel selection are
suggested.

Three reviews of criterion validity of various personal-
ity instruments showed that personality appears to be a
predictor with a null or very small validity for predicting
job performance (Ghiselli, 1973; Guion & Cottier, 1965;
Schmitt, Gooding, Noe, & Kirsch, 1984). A consequence
of this rinding was the belief that personality is a poor
predictor of job performance, even though surveys con-
ducted in Europe and the United States (e.g., Levy-
Leboyer, 1994; Ryan & Sackett, 1987) have shown that
measures of personality are used frequently in personnel
assessment and selection. However, the current consolida-
tion of the Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality (Dig-
man, 1990) is changing the view on personality at work.
The FFM originated in initial works by Fiske (1949),
Norman (1963), and Tuppes and Christal (1963), who
reproduced a highly stable structure with five factors (see
John, 1990). According to Costa and McCrae (1985,
1992), the factors are Neuroticism, Extraversion, Open-
ness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientious-
This research was partially supported by Xunta de Galicia
(Spain) Grant 21104A95.1 gratefully acknowledge the follow-
ing researchers for their cooperation: D. Bartram, P. Feij, A.
Furnham, P. Gibbons, S. Moscoso, G. Prieto, I. T. Robertson,
J. P. Rolland, H. Schuler, N. Seisdedos. and P. Van Leest. I also
thank Murray Barrick for comments and suggestions.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed
to Jesus F. Salgado, Departamento de Psicologia Social y Basica,
University of Santiago de Compostela, 15706 Santiago de Com-
postela, Spain. Electronic mail may be sent via Internet to
psjesal@usc.es.
30
ness. Neuroticism concerns the degree to which the indi-
vidual is insecure, anxious, depressed, and emotional ver-
sus calm, self-confident, and cool. Extraversion concerns
the extent to which individuals are gregarious, assertive,
and sociable versus reserved, timid, and quiet. Openness
to Experience defines individuals who are creative, curi-
ous, and cultured versus practical with narrow interests.
Agreeableness concerns the degree to which individuals
are cooperative, warm, and agreeable versus cold, dis-
agreeable, and antagonistic. Conscientiousness measures
the extent to which individuals are hardworking, orga-
nized, dependable, and persevering versus lazy, disorga-
nized, and unreliable. Although the most accepted labels
are those of Costa and McCrae, others have used different
names for the factors. These names suggest differences in
the content of the factors across authors and personality
scales. However, factor analysis and content analysis of a
great number of personality questionnaires show that there
is a general consensus regarding the meaning of the di-
mensions and that differences are minor (see John, 1990;
Mount & Barrick, 1995).
As the FFM is recent, most current research on the
relation between personality and job performance was
carried out with instruments that were not designed to
assess the Big Five. This could have resulted in difficulty
in assessing the validity of the Big Five for predicting job
behavior. Nevertheless, several studies show that the most
well-known instruments for personality assessment (e.g.,
California Personality Inventory, Eysenck Personality In-
ventory, Guilford-Zimmerman Temperament Survey, and
Myers—Briggs Personality Type Indicator) may be as-
 THE BIG FIVE AND PERFORMANCE IN THE EC
sumed to be included in the FFM (Briggs, 1992; Costa,
Busch, Zonderman, & McCrae, 1986; Johnson, Butcher,
Null, & Johnson, 1984; Noller, Law, & Comrey, 1987).
This research has provided a way to integrate the validity
coefficients of personality measures by using the Big Five
as a theoretical model.
The last method, the integration of personality measures
with the FFM, was used in two reviews of criterion valid-
ity (Barrick & Mount, 1991; Tett et al., 1991). The two
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
studies were meta-analytic integrations. The first was a
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
large-scale meta-analysis using 117 validity studies and a
total sample that ranged from 14,236 for Openness to
19,721 for Conscientiousness. Barrick and Mount (1991)
found that Conscientiousness (p — .22) is a valid pre-
dictor across occupations and across criteria and that the
other personality factors only generalize their validity for
some occupations and some criteria. For example, Consci-
entiousness shows a true validity from .21 to .23 for five
occupational groups. Extraversion is a valid predictor for
managers (p = .18); Emotional Stability is a valid pre-
dictor for police (p = .10); and Agreeableness is a valid
predictor for police and managers (p = .10, in both
cases). Openness to Experience did not show validity
for any occupational group. As far as the criteria were
concerned, Conscientiousness shows a validity that ranges
from .20 to .23 for three criteria (job proficiency, training,
and personnel data). Extraversion is a valid predictor of
training proficiency (p = .26), as are Emotional Stability
(p = .07), Agreeableness (p = .10), and Openness to
Experience (p = .25). However, in a partial reconsidera-
tion of their results, Mount and Barrick (1995) found that
the validity of Conscientiousness had been underestimated
in their prior meta-analyses, and they have suggested that
a value of .31 is closer to its true validity.
However, Tett et al. (1991), using confirmatory studies
only (i.e., those that were based on hypothesis testing
or on personality-oriented job analysis), found that all
personality dimensions are valid predictors of job perfor-
mance. However, Extraversion (n = 2,302) and Conscien-
tiousness (n = 450) have lower validity coefficients,
whereas Neuroticism (n = 900), Openness (n = 1,304),
and Agreeableness (n = 280) have higher validities. All
confidence intervals (except for Neuroticism) include
zero, indicating that the associated mean validities may
be unreliable. Tett et al. (1991) arrived at different conclu-
sions from Barrick and Mount (1991). These differences
may have been a consequence of using only confirmatory
studies versus a mixed strategy. A relevant finding of Tett
et al. was the important moderating effects that hypothesis
testing had on validity.
A third review of the relationship between personality
measures and performance criteria was reported by
Hough, Eaton, Dunnette, Kamp, and McCloy (1990).
This article, which reported on criterion-related validity
31
studies carried out between 1960 and 1984, stated that
nine personality constructs may be useful predictors of
job-related criteria. There were two particularly relevant
findings. First, using the Big Five taxonomy (in fact, six
factors) developed by Hogan (1982), Hough et al. classi-
fied 146 personality scales into the six construct catego-
ries and then added a seventh category called Miscellane-
ous. Developing a matrix of convergent and discriminant
validities, Hough et al. found mean correlations of .46,
.43, .37, .34, .40, .33, and .05 between the scales that
assessed Surgency, Adjustment, Agreeableness, Depend-
ability, Intellectance, Affiliation, and Miscellaneous, re-
spectively. A review of the miscellaneous category sug-
gested to Hough et al. a division into three separate cate-
gories: achievement, masculinity, and locus of control.
The second finding dealt with the criterion-related validity
of the personality constructs. They used six different crite-
ria: education, training, job involvement, job proficiency,
delinquency, and substance abuse. Training and job profi-
ciency are the most commonly used criteria in personnel
selection. For job proficiency, Hough et al. found an ob-
served validity of .13 for Adjustment (Emotional Stabil-
ity) and Dependability (Conscientiousness). For training
criteria, they found an observed validity of . 16 for adjust-
ment, .14 for intellectance (Openness), .11 for depend-
ability, . 10 for agreeableness, and .08 for surgency (Extra-
version). Hough et al. did not correct validities for mea-
surement errors and range restriction. However, if the
reliability distributions of criteria and predictors and the
range restriction distribution used by Barrick and Mount
(1991) were applied above, then the true validity of ad-
justment and dependability would be .23 for job profi-
ciency. For training criteria, the true validities would be
.28, .25, .19, .18, and .14 for Adjustment, Intellectance,
Dependability, Agreeableness, and Surgency, respectively.
Thus, these results indicate that Adjustment and Depend-
ability are valid predictors for the two most used criteria
and that the Big Five are predictors of training criteria.
Therefore, Hough et al.'s findings were partly convergent
with those of Barrick and Mount but partly divergent.
Unfortunately, however, Hough et al. did not report the
variability coefficients of validities, and thus the compari-
son between the Hough et al. and the Barrick and Mount
findings can only be tentative.
In any case, these reviews appear to show that the Big
Five are valid predictors of job performance. However,
the detected inconsistencies suggest that more research
should be directed toward studying the relationship be-
tween personality and performance. A second aspect of
the reviews concerns the degree of the validity generaliza-
tion for personality measures. Barrick and Mount (1991),
Hough (1992), Hough et al. (1990), and Tett et al. (1991)
included research conducted only in the United States and
Canada, and they have not answered the question, "Does
 SALGADO
validity generalize across countries, or are there geograph-
ical boundaries for validity generalization?'' It is possible
that in other countries with cultural and organizational
characteristics that differ from the United States and Can-
ada, the Big Five may present different relations with job
performance criteria. In fact, some findings suggest that
cross-cultural differences affect the Five Factor Model
(McCrae, Costa, & Yik, in press). Moreover, recruitment
and selection practices in the United States and Canada
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This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
might be different from those in other countries such as
the European Community (EC). This appears to be the
case for Great Britain, Germany, France, The Netherlands,
Norway, and Spain (Altink, Roe, & Greuter, 1991; Bru-
chon-Schweitzer & Ferrieux, 1991; Prieto, Blasco, &
Quintanilla, 1991; Robertson & Marion, 1986; Shack-
leton&Newell, 1991;Stnith, 1991; Smith &Abrahamsen,
1992). In European countries, biodata and personality
appear to have been used more often than in the United
States (Schmidt, Ones, & Hunter, 1992).
As a whole, the inconsistencies detected in previous
reviews and the question of the degree of the validity
generalization suggest that more research should be con-
ducted outside the United States and Canada to test the
Five Factor Model for predicting job performance. In con-
nection with the suggestion for more research, this article
reports on a meta-analysis on the relation between the
Big Five and job performance. It had two specific objec-
tives: (a) to explore the relation between the Big Five and
job performance using validity studies not included in the
meta-analysis by Barrick and Mount (1991), Hough et
al. (1990), and Tett et al. (1991), and (b) to study the
degree of validity generalization for personality measures,
comparing the findings of the previous reviews with the
results of the validity studies conducted in the EC.
From Barrick and Mount (1991), Hough et al. (1990),
and Tett et al. (1991), it is clear that there is general
support for Conscientiousness and Emotional Stability
and partial support for the other dimensions as predictors
of job performance. Therefore, it seemed appropriate to
test the following predictions:
Emotional Stability and Conscientiousness will be valid
predictors for all occupations and criteria. Extraversion and
Agreeableness will be valid predictors for occupations in
which the interpersonal factors are likely to be important
for effective job performance (e.g., managers, police, and
sales). Openness to Experience will be a valid predictor
for training criteria.
Method
Literature Review
To obtain the sample of original studies to be included in the
meta-analysis, the following strategy was used. First, a computer
search of the American Psychological Association's PsycLIT
database was conducted for 1973 through 1994 with the follow-
ing terms: personality, personnel, performance, selection, and
the names of the various EC countries. Then, there was an
article-by-article search through European behavioral science
journals thought most likely to contain data on the validity of
personality measures: Bolletino di Psychology! Applicata, Diag-
nostica, Ergonomics, European Journal of Applied Psychology,
European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychologists,
Giomale di Psicologia, Journal of Occupational Psychology,
Revista de Psicologia General y Aplicada, Revista de Psicologia
Social Aplicada, Revista de Psicologia del Trabajo y las Organi-
zaciones, Revue de Psychologie Appliquee, Zeitschrift fur Dif-
ferentialpsychologie, and Zeitschrift fur Organisationspsycholo-
gie. Thirdly, nine European publishers of psychology materials
were asked for validity studies of personality instruments. Fi-
nally, 25 European researchers were asked for both published
articles and unpublished papers on the topic. The final result of
the search included 105 independent studies.
There were 69 studies excluded from the total pool for various
reasons: 8 had military samples; 3 were in non-European coun-
tries and included non-Europeans; 58 studies reported only the
significant correlations. Therefore, the meta-analysis was con-
ducted with 36 studies. None of them appeared in the Tett et
al. (1991) source list. Mount (personal communication, May 2,
1996) compared these 36 studies with those included in Barrick
and Mount (1991), and found that not one overlapped.
Procedure
My goal was to identify all published and unpublished studies
that reported relational statistics (e.g., Pearson product-mo-
ment correlations) or data from which relational statistics could
be calculated, such as analyses of variance (i.e., t values). A
colleague with experience in personality assessment and I com-
piled the data reported here. For each study, the following infor-
mation was recorded if available: (a) sample demographics such
as sex, age, occupation, and education; (b) type of performance
measurement used; (c) reliability of performance measures; (d)
sample sizes; (e) reliability of tests; and ( f ) statistics concern-
ing the relationship between predictors and criteria. Each re-
searcher recorded the information for each study independently.
There was a high degree of agreement between researchers, and
any disagreement was resolved by referring to the original study.
The next step involved classifying the scales from the invento-
ries according to the five factors according to the procedure of
Barrick and Mount (1991). First, the description of the five
factors presented by Digman (1990) was given to the research-
ers. Then, a list and the definition of the personality scales
from each inventory was provided for each researcher with
instructions to assign each scale to the most appropriate factor.
Furthermore, some studies reporting factor analyses of the ques-
tionnaires were also used as a basis for of the decision (e.g.,
Bartram, 1993b; Matthews et al., 1990; McCrae & Costa, 1990;
Noller et al., 1987). If the two researchers agreed on a dimen-
sion, the scale was coded in that dimension. The disagreement
was solved by a discussion until the researchers agreed on a
dimension, but this case was less than 10%. All the scales were
assigned to a single Big Five factor. For each scale, only one
overall validity coefficient was used. In situations where more
 THE BIG FIVE AND PERFORMANCE IN THE EC
than one coefficient was reported, the Barrick and Mount (1991)
procedure was also used. The Appendix shows the tests used in
the single studies and the number of studies conducted in the
original language of the test and the number using translations.
The studies included were conducted with some of the best
known questionnaires in North America and Europe. The major-
ity of the questionnaires in the Appendix support the convergent
and discriminant validity for their scales and factors.
Unfortunately, a number of studies did not report information
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
on the tests and criterion reliabilities. Like Barrick and Mount
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
(1991), information about the inventories' reliabilities was ob-
tained from manuals and from articles in which these data were
reported (e.g., Saville & Willson, 1991). The distribution for
criterion reliabilities was developed with the information present
in the studies and then the criterion reliability coefficients pub-
lished in the Journal of Applied Psychology and Personnel Psy-
chology since 1984 were added. Finally, the artifact distribution
for range restriction was based on two strategies: (a) some
range restriction coefficients were obtained from the studies that
reported both restricted and unrestricted standard deviation data,
and (b) another group of range restriction coefficients were
obtained using as a restricted standard deviation the reported
one in the study, and as an unrestricted standard deviation that
reported in the manuals. This last strategy appears to have been
the correct one, according to Sackett and Ostgaard (1994).
The reliability of the predictor was estimated with the coeffi-
cients reported in the studies included in the meta-analysis and
the coefficients published in the various questionnaire manuals.
The mean predictor reliability was .80 (SD — .11). For the
criterion reliability, three distributions were developed, as in
Barrick and Mount (1991), for performance rating, training,
and personnel data, with one distribution for each respective
criterion. For the performance rating (i.e., supervisory rating),
the distribution was estimated with a pool of coefficients ob-
tained from the validity studies and the criterion reliability coef-
ficients reported in articles in the Journal of Applied Psychology
and Personnel Psychology from 1984 to 1994. For this distribu-
tion, the mean was .62 (SD = .12). For training criterion (i.e.,
training performance ratings), the same mean and standard devi-
ation of the reliability was used. With respect to the personnel
data (i.e., accidents, wages, or absenteeism), only four studies
had this type of criteria, which did not include information
about reliability. For this reason, a perfect reliability was as-
sumed. When Ihe analysis was made with all criteria as a whole,
a dislribution with .63 as mean (SD = .12) was used. Finally,
Ihe range restriction distribution, which was developed with the
procedure described above, had a mean of .92 (SD — .11).
Comparison of these distributions with those of Barrick and
Mount and Tett et al. shows the present reliability and range
restriction distributions to be very similar, but a little more
conservative. Therefore, the distributions developed here have a
lower effect on the corrected validity than the distributions of
Barrick and Mount and of Tett et al.
The Barrick and Mount (1991) and Tett et al. (1991) meta-
analyses probably understated the magnitude of the validities
(Mount & Barrick, 1995). In these meta-analyses, the validity
of single cases from the personality inventories, not the Big
Five constructs, were examined. The scales were only elements
or facets of the construct. Therefore, if interest is at the theoreti-
33
cal construct level and not in the level of scales, validity must
be corrected for imperfect construct assessment. A problem with
this correction for construct validity arises if facets or elements
have a higher validity than the personality dimension. In such
a case, the correction could result in an overestimation of the
validity of the dimension. Mount and Barrick (1995) examined
this question for the components of Conscientiousness and found
that if the purpose is to predict overall job proficiency, the
dimension is a better predictor than its facets, which are only
slightly better when conceptually related to the criterion. Mount
and Barrick (1995, p. 171) concluded that it is more appropriate
to use composite scores to calculate validities, and they suggest
the formula of Hunter and Schmidt (1990, p. 455) to estimate
the validity at a construct level. This formula combines the lower
level of the elements or facets as if the raw scores were summed
up to an overall measure. Ones, Schmidt, and Viswesvaran
(1994) suggested the use of correlations between composites or,
if these are not available, the use of generalizability coefficient
corrected correlations to examine the construct validity. Then,
this estimate can be used to correct the validities found in the
meta-analysis. For example, Mount and Barrick (1995) used
an average correlation between predictor constructs of .47 to
generate the composite score correlation. This is the average
correlation among a large number of scales measuring facets of
conscientiousness as reported by Ones (1993). In the present
research, the mean correlation within constructs found by
Hough et al. (1990) was used as an estimate of the construct
validity of the Big Five. At present, Hough et al. seem to have
the most representative and comprehensive of the correlations
between the scales that assess the same personality construct.
For example, the mean intercorrelation for Emotional Stability
is based on 165 correlations (n = 35,148), for Extraversion (r
= 146), Openness (r = 52; n = 11,297), and for Agreeableness
(r = 44; n = 22,060). The mean for Conscientiousness is based
on 121 correlations (n = 46,116) (see Hough, 1989; Hough et
al.. 1990, for these data).
After the studies were collated and their characteristics re-
corded, I applied the meta-analytic formulas of Hunter and
Schmidt (1990), and used computer software (Schmidt, 1994)
to make all computations. Some of the recent advances and
refinements in psychometric meta-analysis were implemented in
this software program (Law, Schmidt, & Hunter, 1994a, 1994b;
Schmidt et al., 1993), which contains the following refinements:
the use of mean r instead of study-observed rs in the formula for
sampling error variance and a new nonlinear range-correction
procedure. As my interest was in the relationship between the
Big Five and job performance as theoretical constructs, the mean
validity was corrected for measurement error in both predictor
and criterion, as well as for range restriction (Schmidt & Hunter,
1996).
Results
Analysis of the Personality Factors Pooled Across
Criteria and Occupations
There were 36 studies in the meta-analysis, but the
number of validities differed among the five factors. Emo-
tional Stability and Extraversion were the most repre-
 34 SALGADO
Table 1
Meta-Analytic Results for Personality Factors Pooled Across Criteria and Occupations
Factor K N r Si Si
Emotional Stability 32 3,877 .09 .0107 .0082
Extraversion 30 3,806 .05 .0191 .0079
Openness 18 2,722 .04 .0083 .0066
Agreeableness 26 3,466 .01 .0096 .0076
Conscientiousness 24 3,295 .10 .0113 .0072
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
Note. K — number of correlations; r = mean observed validity; 5? = observed variance; S, = sampling error variance; S* = residual variance;
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
% VE = percentage of variance explained by artifactual errors; r, = estimated true validity at the scale level; p = estimated true validity at the
construct level; SDP = population standard deviation; CV = credibility value.
sented and Openness was the least. Agreeableness and
Conscientiousness showed an intermediate number of cor-
relations. These data appear logical because Neuroticism
and Extraversion were the factors initially identified
within the Five Factor Model. Moreover, instruments to
assess these two dimensions were developed before instru-
ments for the other three factors.
Table 1 shows the results of the meta-analysis for the
five factors. The first column presents the number of corre-
lations for the five personality factors on which the meta-
analysis was conducted. For each personality dimension,
the validities were pooled across criteria and occupations.
Therefore, the validities in Table 1 had the most general
level of analysis on which the validity could be based.
Column 2 shows the sample size for each factor; as
is logical, Emotional Stability and Extraversion had the
highest sample size and Openness had the lowest. These
samples were remarkably smaller than those for the same
factors in Barrick and Mount (1991). Approximately, the
relation in sample size between the two studies is 5:1.
However, my sample sizes are larger than those of Tfett et
al. (1991). Comparing the last two studies between them,
I found the present research to show a favorable ratio of
approximately 3:1.
The succeeding columns present the mean observed
validity, the observed variance, the sampling error vari-
ance, and the residual variance. It seems apparent that all
factors show a different validity and that the observed
variability is close to the sampling error variance.
With respect to the estimated true validity, there are
two estimates shown in Table 1. The first, r c , is the validity
corrected for measurement error in criterion and predictor
and for range restriction. This estimate is the same as in
Barrick and Mount (1991) and Tett et al. (1991). The
second estimate is p, the validity corrected also for con-
struct validity. This estimate was computed by Mount and
Barrick (1995). The first estimate of true validity, r c ,
which is shown in the table, provides a more directed
comparison with Barrick and Mount. However, the follow-
ing comments are based on the p values.
Conscientiousness (p — .25) shows the highest validity
Si % VE SDe 90% CV
.0020 78 .13 .19 .07 .10
.0111 42 .08 .12 .16 -.08
.0016 81 .06 .09 .06 .01
.0020 79 .01 .02 .07 -.07
.0039 66 .15 .25 .09 .13
and is followed by Emotional Stability (p = .19). Further-
more, as the 90% credibility values (CV) show, these two
dimensions generalize the validity for all types of criteria
and occupations. Therefore, these findings are consistent
with my hypotheses above. The other three factors show
a very low validity, and, in the case of Agreeableness, it
is very close to 0. Also, these last results are consistent
with my hypotheses because these factors do not general-
ize their validity across all occupational groups and all
types of criteria.
On the other hand, the four statistical artifacts (sam-
pling error, predictor and criterion reliability, and range
restriction) account for a large percentage of observed
variability in the correlations of four dimensions: Emo-
tional Stability, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscien-
tiousness. The unexplained variance is only greater than
the explained variance in the case of Extraversion.
Analysis by Personality-Criterion Combinations
The results of the meta-analysis of the personality di-
mensions and three criterion types are shown in Table
2. According to my hypotheses, Conscientiousness and
Emotional Stability are valid predictors for all criterion
types, and Openness is a valid predictor for training crite-
ria. Table 2 shows that these hypotheses are correct. Emo-
tional Stability is a valid predictor for the three criteria
with a true validity that ranges from .12 to .27 for person-
nel data and training criteria, respectively. Also, Conscien-
tiousness shows validity generalization for the three crite-
ria with a validity that ranges from .11 to .39 for personnel
data and training, respectively. Openness shows validity
for training criterion, as I hypothesized (p = .26), but,
for personnel data, it also shows validity generalization.
Finally, Agreeableness is a valid predictor for training
criterion (p = .31). This last finding was not hypothe-
sized, but it is consistent with Barrick and Mount (1991)
and Hough et al. (1990) for the same predictor-criterion
combination. In effect, Barrick and Mount found a true
validity equal to . 10 for Agreeableness as a predictor of
training, with the 90% CV being equal to .10. Further-
 This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

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 36 SALCADO
more, as noted above, Hough et al. found an observed
validity equal to .10, which would be equal to .18 if it
were to be corrected. Extraversion does not show validity
for any criteria. In spite of previous findings, a cautionary
note is in order for the validities using personnel data as
criteria, as only three studies were in this category. Taken
together, these results are similar to Barrick and Mount
(1991) and Hough et al. (1990). For Conscientiousness,
they are also similar to Mount and Barrick (1995).
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Analysis of Personality-Occupation Combinations
The results for the meta-analysis for the Big Five across
five occupational groups (professionals, police, managers,
sales, and skilled labor) are shown in Table 3. Although
the five groups are not present for the five factors, Emo-
tional Stability shows validity for four groups (profes-
sionals, police, managers, and skilled labor). This finding
is consistent with my hypothesis: Conscientiousness
shows validity for all occupations (police, professionals,
managers, sales, and skilled labor). This finding is also
consistent with my stated hypothesis. Extraversion gener-
alizes validity for managers and police. Also, these results
seem consistent with my hypothesis, as both occupations
appear to have interpersonal requirements that may be
predicted from the facets of Extraversion, although, for
managers, the validity is very low. Openness is a valid
predictor for police and skilled labor, but these results
were not hypothesized in advance. Agreeableness was
found to be a valid predictor for professionals, skilled
labor, and managers, but this last finding is contradictory
with my hypothesis, according to which there is a positive
relation between Agreeableness and the managerial occu-
pations. However, all previous conclusions must be inter-
preted with some caution because the number of studies
included in some categories is small (e.g., three or four).
These results and those of Barrick and Mount (1991, see
Table 2), appear to show great consistency.
Discussion
This study was a meta-analytic integration of the valid-
ity coefficients of the Big Five for predicting job perfor-
mance. This topic was studied by Barrick and Mount
(1991), Hough et al. (1990), and Tett et al. (1991).
However, this research is still relevant and is different
from these three studies. None of the single studies in-
cluded in this research was part of the databases of Bar-
rick and Mount, Hough et al., or Tett et al. Furthermore,
all of these single studies were conducted in EC countries.
Therefore, the present findings provide a different aspect
of evidence about the Big Five and its relevance.
My results show that the overall validity of the personal-
ity constructs is small, excepting Emotional Stability and
Conscientiousness, even when effects of measurement er-
ror in predictors and criteria and range restriction have
been corrected. In this sense, these results show a great
similarity to Barrick and Mount (1991) and Hough et al.
(1990).
A second relevant aspect is that Conscientiousness
shows the highest estimated true validity, and it is general-
izable for all occupations and criteria. This finding is
consistent with my hypothesis. Also, it is similar to Bar-
rick and Mount (1991) and Hough et al. (1990), but was
partially divergent from Tett et al. (1991), who found that
Conscientiousness showed lower validity than the other
personality dimensions. Together, the findings from Bar-
rick and Mount, Hough et al., Tett et al., and this study
support the inclusion of Conscientiousness as a relevant
variable in a model of job performance. Recent results
confirm this inclusion as appropriate (see Barrick &
Mount, 1993; Barrick, Mount, & Strauss, 1993; Mount &
Barrick, 1995; Piedmont & Weinstein, 1994; Salgado &
Rumbo, in press).
A third relevant finding was that the estimated true
validity for Emotional Stability has a size very close to
that for Conscientiousness. Moreover, as in the case of
Conscientiousness, the validity of Emotional Stability is
generalizable across jobs and criteria. This is contrary to
Barrick and Mount (1991) but is consistent with Hough
et al. (1990). Barrick and Mount suggested two possible
explanations for their results: The nonvalidity of Emo-
tional Stability may have been due to a type of range
restriction based on a "selecting-out" process in the ap-
plicant pool, where the subjects low in Emotional Stability
were already excluded from the labor force. Barrick and
Mount also offered an alternative explanation, suggesting
that there may be a nonlinear relationship between Emo-
tional Stability and job performance. These two explana-
tions may be inappropriate. With respect to the first expla-
nation, if the selecting-out process is true, then there
would be chronic unemployment for individuals with low
scores in Emotional Stability, but reality does not seem
to support that. Furthermore, the range restriction would
also be possible for other personality dimensions. For ex-
ample, the effect could be in Conscientiousness, with indi-
viduals low in this factor excluded from the jobs. The
second explanation has the following problem: A nonlin-
ear relation may be hypothesized for the rest of personality
dimensions, including Conscientiousness. Moreover, it
would be necessary to make explicit what type of nonlin-
ear relation there is (e.g., cuadratic or cubic).
The results for Openness to Experience show that this
dimension is a valid predictor for training proficiency, as
was hypothesized. This finding is consistent with Barrick
and Mount (1991) and Hough et al. (1990), who sug-
gested that individuals with high scores in Openness to
Experience may be people who are most likely to benefit
 THE BIG FIVE AND PERFORMANCE IN THE EC 37

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 38 SALGADO
from training programs. Other results support this sugges-
tion. For example, Dollinger and Orf (1991) found that
Openness was the most relevant predictor of job perfor-
mance in high school students. This finding was likewise
confirmed by Salgado and Santamaria (1995).
With respect to Extraversion, my hypothesis was con-
firmed. A positive correlation was found between that
factor and two occupations in which interpersonal charac-
teristics were likely to be important. However, the dimen-
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
sion did not seem to be a valid predictor for training
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
proficiency. This was contrary to Barrick and Mount
(1991) but was consistent with Hough et al. (1990).
Therefore, more research concerning this point is needed.
Finally, the results for Agreeableness suggest that this
factor may be relevant to predicting training performance.
As the training situation demands a significant amount
of social interaction, the interpersonal facets assessed by
Agreeableness may be relevant predictors of success in
such a situation. This is consistent with Barrick and Mount
(1991) and Hough et al. (1990). Also, Agreeableness
appears to be a predictor of job performance in three
occupations: professional, managers, and skilled labor, al-
though the magnitude of the validity is very small for
both managers and skilled labor.
In connection with the degree of the validity generaliza-
tion, the present results seem relevant. The FFM of per-
sonality is a useful taxonomy for comparing results
among countries. First, Conscientiousness appears to be
a valid predictor for all criteria and occupations in the
two most industrialized regions of the world. Therefore,
North American and European companies may find it use-
ful to include Conscientiousness measures in their person-
nel selection programs in both local and foreign facilities.
Conscientiousness does not seem to have geographical
boundaries for its validity. A similar conclusion is true
for Openness and Extraversion when these two factors
were used for predicting training performance.
A limitation of the present study originates with the
studies included in the database. Like Barrick and Mount
(1991), Hough et al. (1990), and Tett et al. (1991), the
majority of single studies in this meta-analysis were con-
ducted with instruments that were not originally intended
to assess the Big Five. The measures were clustered with
the Big Five as a conceptual framework. Other studies
have shown that the best known instruments for personal-
ity assessment may be assumed in the FFM. Therefore,
these studies support the integration method of the validity
coefficients of personality measures using the Big Five as
a theoretical model. However, the method of grouping the
personality measures (obtained by instruments that were
not developed using the Big Five) into five factors could
be problematic. For example, several researchers arrived
at different clusters for the same questionnaires. In a factor
analytic study of the MMPI, Costa, Zonderman, McCrae,
and William (1985) found that the MMPI only provided
measures of four factors, with Conscientiousness ex-
cluded from the model. Correlating the MMPI and the Big
Five as they are measured by NEO-PI (Costa & McCrae,
1985), Costa, Busch, Zonderman, and McCrae (1986)
found that the MMPI includes Neuroticism, Extraversion,
Openness, and Agreeableness, but not Conscientiousness.
On the other hand, Johnson, Butcher, Null, and Johnson
(1984) found four factors and excluded Agreeableness.
Cortina, Doherty, Schmitt, Kaufman, and Smith (1992)
found that the MMPI assesses Neuroticism, Extraversion,
and Conscientiousness but cannot assess Openness and
Agreeableness. Moreover, the correlation between the
MMPI measure for Openness and the measure of the In-
wald Personality Inventory (IPI; Inwald, Knatz, & Shus-
man, 1983) for the same factor was .01, and the correla-
tion for Agreeableness was .13. These findings show a
lack of convergent validity for these measures. Cortina et
al. (1992) suggested that Openness may be not repre-
sented in the IPI, the MMPI, or in one but not the other.
This explanation may be extended to Agreeableness.
These problems with integration of personality mea-
sures into the Big Five suggest that more research is nec-
essary. For example, in the future a meta-analytic integra-
tion using only studies conducted with the Five Factor
Model should be undertaken. This would be a type of
confirmatory study of the relation between the Big Five
and job performance. A second direction for future re-
search would be to check whether the elements or compo-
nents within each Big Five factor are better predictors of
job criteria than the factor as a whole. In this direction, the
development of a service orientation index and reliability
index may be considered (see Hogan & Hogan, 1989;
Hogan, Hogan, & Busch, 1984). Although some evidence
suggests that the elements do not improve the predictive
validity over the factor (Mount & Barrick, 1995), more
research seems necessary.
Another relevant question concerns the use of absolute
correlations or signed correlations. Contrary to most
meta-analyses, Tett et al. (1991, 1994) used the absolute
value of the correlations in order to solve the problem of
averaging the signed correlation of bipolar personality
scales. According to the above Tett et al. studies, the aver-
aging method may have underestimated the validity of
personality dimensions. For example, this might occur
when the dimension predicts one criterion positively and
another negatively. In other words, Tett el al. suggested
that criterion specificity may be a relevant moderator of
the validity of personality measures. This concerns the use
of global measures of job performance versus measures
of competencies (Warr & Conner, 1992). Other research
suggests that the small validity of personality measures
may be due to the use of global criteria that can mask
specific relations (Robertson & Kinder, 1993; Salgado,
 THE BIG FIVE AND PERFORMANCE IN THE EC
1996). Robertson and colleagues provided a direction for
investigation (Gibbons, Baron, Nyfield, & Robertson,
1995a, 1995b; Nyfield, Gibbons, Baron, & Robertson,
1995; Robertson, 1993, 1994). They found that each Big
Five factor reflects specific competencies of the jobs and
the magnitude of the validities is greater than that found
here and by Barrick and Mount (1991). Therefore, the
relation between the Big Five, various occupations, and
work competencies is an area of continued interest for
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This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
researchers in applied psychology.
Finally, it is necessary to acknowledge that the Five
Factor Model, although a current paradigm in the field of
personality, is not unanimously accepted, and some recent
criticisms have been made. For example, Block (1995)
suggested that factor analysis is not an appropriate and
sufficient base to decide the theoretical constructs of per-
sonality. Block also criticized the assumptions of the lexi-
cal hypothesis and the variability of conceptions about
the Big Five. Other researchers have criticized the model
on the basis of the need of many (Eysenck, 1992) or an
insufficient number of factors (Tellegen & Waller, 1995).
Such criticism was answered by Costa and McCrae
(1995) and Goldberg and Saucier (1995), who said that
the Big Five has been reproduced a great number of times,
with different factor methods, by different researchers,
with different instruments, and in different languages.
Others factors were found only in isolated samples. Con-
sequently, the model is not exhaustive, but it manages to
support a more comprehensive explanation of various fac-
ets of human personality. Furthermore, regarding person-
ality at work, the Five Factor Model provides the follow-
ing important advantages: (a) it is a very parsimonious
taxonomy; (b) it is a framework for integrating results of
many studies carried out to investigate the relationships
between personality and work behaviors; and (c) it ad-
vances understanding of job performance by offering
some personality dimensions related to all jobs and
criteria.
In summary, this research supports the relevance of the
Five Factor Model as a predictor of job performance. It
also extends past research by adding studies not included
in previous meta-analytic reviews. Finally, it shows that
in all European Community countries. Conscientiousness
and Emotional Stability are valid predictors for all jobs
and criteria.
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 THE BIG FIVE AND PERFORMANCE IN THE EC 43

Appendix

Personality Instruments Used in the Studies in the Meta-Analysis

Instrument Source Original Translated

Amsterdamse Biografische Vragenlijst Wilde, 1976 1

Cuestionario de Personalidad Pinillos, 1962 1
Customer Service Questionnaire Saville & Holdsworth, 1994 1
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Eysenck Personality Inventory Eysenck & Eysenck, 1964 1 3

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Eysenck & Eysenck, 1975 2

Freiburger Personlichkeitsinventar Fahrenberg, Hampel, & Selg, 1984 2
Group Embedded Figures Test Witkin et al., 1971 2
Guilford-Zimmerman Temperament Survey Guilford & Zimmerman, 1976 2
ICES Personality Inventory Bartram, 1993b 9
Cuestionario de Motivation y Ansiedad Pelechano, 1975 1
NEO-Five Factor Inventory Costa & McCrae, 1992 1
Occupational Personality Questionnaire Saville & Holdsworth, 1984 2
Prestatie Motivalie Test Hermans, 1976 1
RPD-Personlijjkheidsvragenlist Van der Maesen de Sombreff & Olsder, 1986a 3
16 Personality Factor Inventory Cattell, Eber, & Tatsuoka, 1970 1 4

Received January 16, 1996

Revision received August 1, 1996
Accepted August 1, 1996 •

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