Personality constructs have been demonstrated to be useful for explaining and predicting attitudes, behaviors, performance, and outcomes in organizational settings. Many professionally developed measures of personality constructs display useful levels of criterion‐related validity for job performance and its facets. In this response to Morgeson et al. (2007), we comprehensively summarize previously published meta‐analyses on (a) the optimal and unit‐weighted multiple correlations between the Big Five personality dimensions and behaviors in organizations, including job performance; (b) generalizable bivariate relationships of Conscientiousness and its facets (e.g., achievement orientation, dependability, cautiousness) with job performance constructs; (c) the validity of compound personality measures; and (d) the incremental validity of personality measures over cognitive ability. Hundreds of primary studies and dozens of meta‐analyses conducted and published since the mid 1980s indicate strong support for using personality measures in staffing decisions. Moreover, there is little evidence that response distortion among job applicants ruins the psychometric properties, including criterion‐related validity, of personality measures. We also provide a brief evaluation of the merits of alternatives that have been offered in place of traditional self‐report personality measures for organizational decision making. Given the cumulative data, writing off the whole domain of individual differences in personality or all self‐report measures of personality from personnel selection and organizational decision making is counterproductive for the science and practice of I‐O psychology.

As world economies and organizations transform to minimize, mitigate, and neutralize their environmental impact and adapt for environmental sustainability, industrial and organizational psychologists are uniquely positioned to aid in these efforts. Industrial and organizational (I–O) psychology has a central role to play and a duty to contribute to organizational greening initiatives. In making our case, we first describe how economic activities, organizations, and workplaces of today are in the midst of unprecedented change in terms of their impacts on and relations with the natural environment. To ensure conceptual clarity, we then delineate environmental sustainability constructs that are relevant in work settings and distinguish them from related concepts (e.g., social responsibility). We also provide an overview of psychological contributions to environmental sustainability and note that so far there is limited I–O psychological research and application. We conclude by describing ways in which I–O psychologists can contribute.

Admissions and personnel decisions rely on stable predictor-criterion relationships. The authors studied the validity of Big Five personality factors and their facets for predicting academic performance in medical school across multiple years, investigating whether criterion-related validities change over time. In this longitudinal investigation, an entire European country's 1997 cohort of medical students was studied throughout their medical school career (Year 1, N ϭ 627; Year 7, N ϭ 306). Over time, extraversion, openness, and conscientiousness factor and facet scale scores showed increases in operational validity for predicting grade point averages. Although there may not be any advantages to being open and extraverted for early academic performance, these traits gain importance for later academic performance when applied practice increasingly plays a part in the curriculum. Conscientiousness, perhaps more than any other personality trait, appears to be an increasing asset for medical students: Operational validities of conscientiousness increased from .18 to .45. In assessing the utility of personality measures, relying on early criteria might underestimate the predictive value of personality variables. Implications for personality measures to predict work performance are discussed.

Over the past 2 decades, increasing attention has been directed at the relationship between individual differences and counterproductive work behaviors (CWB). However, most of this research has focused on personality variables as potential predictors of CWB; surprisingly little research has investigated the link between counterproductivity and cognitive ability. This study presents the first focal investigation of the cognitive ability-CWB relationship. The authors measured organizational and interpersonal CWB using organizational records of formally recorded incidents (e.g., destruction of property, physical violence). In a predictive study, for a large sample of law enforcement job applicants, a standardized psychometric test of cognitive ability predicted CWB, whereas educational attainment did not.

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