Persona and the Five Factor Model of Personality




Persona assesses the five factor model (FFM) of personality - the most widely accepted and used description of temperament amongst academic researchers (eg. Matthews and Deary, 1998).
  Since the early 1990s all of the significant personality research conducted in workplace and occupational settings has been conducted using the FFM because it is the most effective predictor of competencies and job performance (eg. Barrick et al, 2001; Hogan & Holland, 2003; LePine & van Dyne, 2001; Pauonen & Adelheid, 2001; Salgado, 2003).
  Persona was developed over more than a decade of academic research on job performance. A review of existing FFM questionnaires, such as the NEO, NEO-PI-R, NEO-FFI , IASR-B5 and PPQ, showed that for various reasons they were generally not suitable for large scale research in occupational contexts. Persona was developed at Leeds University and Leeds University Business School to assess the FFM personality traits quickly and accurately.
  Persona measures the personality traits of the FFM using standard ten (sten) scores on five bi-polar scales;
 
Introversion
vs
Extroversion
Anxiety
vs
Emotional Stability
Unstructured
vs
Conscientious
Individuality
vs
Conformity
Tough-Minded
vs
Agreeableness
  Each of the trait scales is highly reliable and has good convergent and discriminant validity. Please follow this link for more information about the meaning of Persona scores.
 
Construct Validity of the Persona Scales		  
  Persona uses single word, adjectival items to eliminate the problems associated with conventional statement-based questionnaires. Other researchers, for example Goldberg (1992) and Costa and McCrae (1992), have compiled lists of adjectives and descriptors associated with each personality trait of the FFM. Approximately 50% of the adjectives used in Persona are shared with these lists, suggesting that the Persona personality scales have high construct validity.
  The Persona scales also correlate well with the scales of the NEO-PI-R (Costa and McCrae, 1992), as shown below;
 



Correlations Between the Persona Trait Scales and the NEO-PI-R
(corrected for attenuation; N=165)
0.71**
0.21
-0.23*
-0.16
0.29*
0.28*
0.82**
0.14
0.23*
-0.17
0.08
0.26*
-0.92**
-0.06
-0.16
0.11
-0.12
0.06
0.91**
0.23*
0.22
0.18
-0.12
0.18
-0.70**

**p<0.01
*p<0.05

  The above table shows that Persona correlates well with the comparable NEO-PI-R scales and demonstrates good convergent validity. However, the small correlations in the other cells show that Persona also has good discriminant validity.
  Please follow these links for further information about the accuracy of Persona , Persona expert systems the development of Persona, and the meaning of Persona scores.
  For further information about the five factor model of personality and the validity of Persona, please contact us.
 

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