Assessing the Implicit Personality Through Conditional Reasoning

In this groundbreaking volume, Lawrence R. James and James M. LeBreton introduce a novel conditional reasoning (CR) framework to indirectly assess the implicit personality—the unconscious, inaccessible component of personality that governs much of our behavior but has always been difficult to measure. The authors demonstrate how specific choices on specially constructed inductive reasoning problems positively correlate with the test taker’s personality—either prosocial or aggressive—with the latter informed by unconscious negative cognitive biases and salient rationalizations for socially unacceptable aggression, and for achievement motivation and fear of failure.

The authors conclude this book by exploring the other inductive reasoning problem content domains of depression, addiction proneness, and “toxic leadership” through CR testing.

List of Tables, Figures, and Exhibits

Acknowledgments

• 1. Introduction: The Implicit and Explicit Personalities and the Issue of Their Assessment
• 2. Conditional Reasoning and the Implicit Personality: Concepts and Theoretical Foundations
• 3. The Development of Conditional Reasoning Problems
• 4. Empirical Examinations of Conditional Reasoning Tests
• 5. Additional Examinations of Conditional Reasoning Based on Channeling Models
• 6. Future Directions: New Constructs

References

Index

About the Authors

Lawrence R. James, PhD, is a professor of psychology and management at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is a fellow of Division 5 (Evaluation, Measurement, and Statistics) and 14 (Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology) of APA, a founding fellow of the American Psychological Society (now the Association for Psychological Science), and a fellow of the Academy of Management.

In 2003, Dr. James won the Distinguished Career Award from the Academy of Management Research Methods Division. He has been active in building new measurement systems for personality and in studying the effects of organizational environments on individual adaptation, motivation, and productivity. His statistical contributions have been designed to make possible tests of new models in areas such as organizational climate, leadership, and personnel selection.

James M. LeBreton, PhD, is an associate professor of psychological sciences at Purdue University. In 2009, he won the Early Career Award, cosponsored by the Academy of Management Research Methods Division and the Center for the Advancement of Research Methods and Analysis.

Dr. LeBreton studies how toxic personality traits (e.g., aggression, psychopathy) are related to variables such as decision making, team interactions, counterproductive workplace behaviors, and sexual aggression. His methodological work focuses on issues related to multilevel measurement, multilevel analysis, and tests for moderation and mediation.