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Principles of Organizational
Behavior
Principles of
Organizational Behavior
The Handbook of Evidence-­Based Management

Third Edition

Craig L. Pearce
Edwin A. Locke
This edition first published 2023
© 2023 Craig L. Pearce and Edwin A. Locke

Edition History
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Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data

Names: Locke, Edwin A., editor. | Pearce, Craig L., editor. | John Wiley &
Sons, publisher.
Title: Principles of organizational behavior : the handbook of
evidence-based management / Edwin A. Locke, Craig L. Pearce.
Description: 3rd edition. | Hoboken, NJ : Wiley, 2023. | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022056231 (print) | LCCN 2022056232 (ebook) | ISBN
9781119828549 (paperback) | ISBN 9781119828617 (adobe pdf) | ISBN
9781119828600 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Organizational behavior.
Classification: LCC HD58.7 .P7423 2023 (print) | LCC HD58.7 (ebook) | DDC
658—dc23/eng/20230221
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022056231
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022056232

Cover Design: Wiley


Cover Image: © Peopleimages/Getty Images
Contents

Preface ix
Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction xv

1 Select on Intelligence 1
Frank L. Schmidt and In-­Sue Oh

2 Select on Conscientiousness and Emotional Stability 27


Michael K. Mount and Murray R. Barrick

3 Structure Interviews to Recruit and Hire the Best People 47


Cynthia Kay Stevens

4 Attain Emotional Control by Understanding What Emotions Are 65


Edwin A. Locke

5 Motivate Employee Performance Through Goal Setting 83


Gary P. Latham

6 Cultivate Self-­Efficacy for Personal and Organizational Effectiveness 113


Albert Bandura

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vi Contents

7 Pay for Performance 137


Kathryn M. Bartol

8 Promote Job Satisfaction Through Mental Challenge 161


Timothy A. Judge, Ryan Klinger, and Meng Li

9 Follow the Science to Make Training Work 179


Eduardo Salas and Kevin C. Stagl

10 Embed Performance Appraisals into Broader Performance


or Management Systems 211
Maria Rotundo and Kelly D. Murumets

11 Use Participation to Share Information and Distribute Knowledge 237


John A. Wagner III

12 Recognizing Employees 255


Jean M. Phillips, Kathryn E. Dlugos, and Hee Man Park

13 Sustain Organizational Performance Through Continuous


Learning, Change, and Realignment 271
Michael Beer

14 Empowerment’s Pivotal Role in Enhancing Effective Self-­and


Shared Leadership 293
Jay A. Conger and Craig L. Pearce

15 Effective Use of Power and Influence Tactics in Organizations 311


Gary Yukl

16 Engage in Visionary Leadership 329


David A. Waldman

17 Foster Trust Through Ability, Benevolence, and Integrity 345


Jason A. Colquitt and Michael D. Baer

18 Teamwork in Organizations: The Best Teams Learn, Adapt, and


Are Resilient 365
Allison M. Traylor, Scott Tannenbaum, Eric J. Thomas, and Eduardo Salas

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Contents vii

19 Compose Teams to Ensure Successful External Activity 387


Deborah Ancona, Henrik Bresman, and David Caldwell

20 Manage Intrateam Conflict Through Collaboration 403


Laurie R. Weingart, Karen A. Jehn, and Kori L. Krueger

21 Clarity, Conciseness, and Consistency Are the Keys to Effective


Communication 429
Jean Phillips, Kameron M. Carter, and Dorothea Roumpi

22 Stimulate Creativity by Fueling Passion 443


Colin M. Fisher and Teresa M. Amabile

23 Manage Stress at Work Through Preventive and Proactive Coping 463


Ralf Schwarzer and Tabea Reuter

24 Conflict Resolution Through Negotiation and Mediation 483


Kevin Tasa and Ena Chadha

25 Achieve Entrepreneurial Growth Through Swiftness


and Experimentation 503
Jaume Villanueva, Harry J. Sapienza, and J. Robert Baum

26 Achieve Work-Family Balance Through Individual


and Organizational Strategies 531
Malissa A. Clark, Katelyn N. Sanders, and Boris B. Baltes

27 Use Advanced Information Technology to Transform Organizations 551


Dongyeob Kim, Maryam Alavi, and Youngjin Yoo, Ph.D.

28 Make Management Practice Fit National Cultures


and the Global Culture 575
Miriam Erez

29 Strategy and Structure for Effectiveness 595


John Joseph and Metin Sengul

Index621

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Locke828549_ftoc.indd viii 29 Mar 2023 07:14:25 pm
Preface

Our goal with this book was to bring together comprehensive, science-­based, ac-
tionable advice, from the world’s leading experts, for managing organizations. We
deliver on this goal.
There are 29 chapters in this book, each dedicated to a specific management
challenge. The chapters are written by the foremost thinkers on the topics. The
authors hone in on the key principle for their respective topics – the key piece of
advice – for turning knowledge into action. All of their advice is solidly based upon
science. In other words, you can have confidence in their advice.
Our book is in stark contrast to “normal” textbooks, which provide endless lists of
factoids to memorize about topics. Such books are of little value if the reader desires
to apply the information to real-­world situations. It is difficult to glean from such
lists exactly what one should implement – in this book, we prioritize knowledge into
overarching principles, which facilitates the implementation of concrete actions in
real-­world situations.
Books in the “popular press,” on the other hand, generally offer pithy advice
from self-­declared experts, but these books generally have little to no basis in sci-
ence. These types of books are typically easy to read and do attempt to provide
ideas to put into action. Nonetheless, the advice provided is largely overly specific
to the author’s experience and thus lacks transferability to the circumstances of the
reader. As such, while these types of books are generally engaging, they are best
regarded as nonfiction stories, with limited practical value.
Our book is different. It combines science and action. The range of subjects is
expansive, encompassing 29 areas – ranging from selection, to motivation, to lead-
ership, and all topics in between. In the section on selection, for instance, there are
chapters on how to select based on intelligence (In-­Sue Oh and Frank Schmidt),
how to select based on personality (Murray Barrick and Michael Mount), and the
proper use of interviews (Cynthia Stevens). In the section on motivation, there are
chapters on how to manage emotions (Edwin Locke), how to implement goal set-
ting (Gary Latham), how to cultivate self-­efficacy (Albert Bandura), how to pay for
performance (Kathryn Bartol), and how to enhance satisfaction (Timothy Judge,
Ryan Klinger, and Meng Li).
In the section on the development of employees, there are chapters on the science of
training and development (Eduardo Salas and Kevin Stagl), how to use performance

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x Preface

appraisals (Maria Rotundo and Kelly Murumets), how to use employee p ­ articipation
(John Wagner), how to use recognition (Jean Phillips, Kathryn Dlugos, and Hee
Man Park), and how to foster continuous learning (Michael Beer). In the section on
leadership, there are chapters on how to empower effectively (Jay Conger and Craig
Pearce), the proper use of power and influence (Gary Yukl), how to create unifying
vision (David Waldman), and how to foster trust (Jason Colquitt and Michael Baer).
In the section on teams, there are chapters on diagnosing and understanding
team processes (Allison Traylor, Scott Tannenbaum, Eric Thomas, and Eduardo­
Salas), how to manage the boundaries of teams (Deborah Ancona, Henrik Bresman,
and David Caldwell), and how to manage intrateam conflict (Laurie Weingart,
Karen Jehn, and Kori Krueger). In the section on micro-­organizational processes,
there are chapters on how to communicate effectively (Jean Phillips, Kameron
Carter, and Dorothea Roumpi), how to stimulate creativity (Colin Fisher and Teresa
Amabile), how to manage stress (Ralf Schwarzer and Tabea Reuter), and how to
negotiate effectively (Kevin Tasa and Ena Chadha).
In the section on macro-­organizational processes, there are chapters on how to
foster entrepreneurship (Jaume Villanueva, Harry Sapienza, and J. Robert Baum),
how to integrate work and family (Malissa Clark, Katelyn Sanders, and Boris
Baltes), how to use information technology effectively (Dongyeob Kim, Maryam
Alavi, and Youngjin Yoo), how to navigate organizational and international culture
(Miriam Erez), and how to align organizational strategy and structure (John Joseph
and Metin Sengul).
Something that both teachers and students will appreciate about this book is
that the chapters contain cases and exercises to help to illustrate the material. For
example, the chapters have cases that demonstrate both the positive and negative
applications of the primary principle of the chapter. The cases exhibit the con-
crete application of the chapter principle to the real world, which enables deeper
understanding, as well as a degree of practice for the implementation of the princi-
ple in future situations.
The chapters also contain skill sharpening exercises to reinforce the knowledge
of the topic at hand. The types of exercises vary by chapter. Some exercises, for in-
stance, involve a degree of role playing, to facilitate the understanding of how the
principles play out in action. Other exercises involve, in part, completing question-
naires, helping the readers understand where they fall on a particular dimension.
Additional exercises are focused on watching and diagnosing videos pertaining to
the principles. Together, all of the exercises complement the core reading of the
chapters, buttressing the development of knowledge about the principles.
On a more somber note, since the passing of Sabrina Salam, the rising star who
wrote a chapter for the first edition of this book (which is now updated by Jason
Colquitt and Michael Baer), two of the contributors to the current edition, Frank
Schmidt and Albert Bandura, passed away during the process of writing their chap-
ters. Both were giants in the field of organizational science.
Frank Schmidt was known for many advances in organizational science, but
most notably for his cutting-­edge work on employee selection and for his definitive

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Preface xi

contributions on research methods. His chapter in this book is focused on the


importance of intelligence in employee selection. He and his coauthor, In-­Sue Oh,
distilled the knowledge on this topic, which will leave a lasting mark well into the
future.
Albert Bandura was the giant among giants. At the time of his passing, he was,
by far, the most widely cited organizational scientist. His contributions were deep
and broad. Nonetheless, he was best known for his work on social cognitive theory
and on the concept of self-­efficacy. His work provides the foundation for most other
organizational science. His chapter in this book provides a stake in the ground for
transferring his knowledge to the practice of management.
In sum, our book provides comprehensive advice, based on science, written by
the foremost experts, for practicing and aspiring managers. Each chapter focuses
on a core principle that can be applied, with confidence, in real-­world organiza-
tions. In many ways, one can think of this book as a roadmap to organizational suc-
cess. We hope you enjoy reading it. More importantly, we hope you find success in
applying the principles in action.

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Locke828549_fpref.indd xii 29 Mar 2023 07:14:50 pm
Acknowledgments

The editors are grateful to many people, not the least of whom are the contributors
to this book. It could not have happened without their ability to distill the principles
of organizational behavior from science-­based evidence. The editors would also like
to specifically acknowledge the exceptional work of Jeremy Sanville, Craig Pearce’s
research assistant, in bringing this book to fruition – he worked tirelessly in keeping
everything coordinated and on track, from beginning to end.
Introduction1

This handbook is about management principles; each chapter is written by an


expert in the field – but why do we need principles?
To quote Ayn Rand (1982, p. 5):

. . . abstract ideas are conceptual integrations which subsume an incalculable


number of concretes – and without abstract ideas you would not be able to deal
with concrete, particular, real-­life problems. You would be in the position of a
newborn infant, to whom every object is a unique, unprecedented phenomenon.
The difference between his mental state and yours lies in the number of concep-
tual integrations your mind has performed.

You have no choice about the necessity to integrate your observations, your ex-
periences, your knowledge into abstract principles.

What, then, is a principle? A “principle” is a general truth on which other truths


depend. Every science and every field of thought involves the discovery and applica-
tion of principles. A principle may be described as a fundamental reached by induc-
tion (Peikoff, 1982, p. 218).
Everyday examples of principles that we use (or should use) in everyday life are:

“Be honest” (a moral principle)


“Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables” (a nutrition principle)
“Exercise regularly” (a health principle)
“Save for the future” (a personal finance principle)
“Do a conscientious job” (a work or career principle)
“Do not drive under the influence of alcohol or text while driving” (personal
safety principles)

It would be literally impossible to survive for long if one did not think in terms
of principles, at least implicitly. In terms of concrete details, every situation is dif-

1
This introduction is adapted from Locke (2002). I thank Jean Binswanger,
Paul Tesluk, Cathy Durham, and James Bailey for their helpful comments on the
original article.
xvi INTRODUCTION

ferent from every other. Suppose, for example, that a child were told, “Do not run
across that part of this street today.” What is the child to do on other days? On other
streets? On other parts of the same street? Such a dictum would be useless to the
child after the day had passed or if they were in another location. Properly, the child
(at the right age) would be taught a principle such as “Never cross any street without
first looking twice in each direction.” This could guide the child’s actions for life
and in every location in the world.
How are principles formulated? They are formulated by integrating conceptual
knowledge (for more on concept formation, see Locke, 2002 and Peikoff, 1991).
Principles, in turn, are integrated into theories, again by induction (Locke, 2007).

Teaching

The use of principles is critical to both the teaching and practice of management.
Let us begin with teaching. Most instructors would agree that management is a
difficult subject to teach. First, it is very broad in scope. It entails scores if not hun-
dreds of different aspects. The more one studies the field, the more complex and
bewildering it seems to become. Second, there are no concrete rules or formulas
to teach as in the case of accounting, finance, or management science. Manage-
ment is as much an art as a science. Third, although there are theories pertaining
to different aspects of management (e.g. leadership), many find these theories to
be less than satisfactory (to put it tactfully), because they are too narrow, trivial, or
esoteric and/or lack firm evidential support. Often, they are based on deduction
rather than induction (Locke, 2006). The potentially useful theories are mixed in
with those that are not.
Traditionally, teaching has been done with either textbooks and/or the case
method. Both methods contain the same epistemological limitation. Textbooks,
because they try to be comprehensive, pile up detail after detail and theory after
theory, but the details, even of subtopics, are very difficult to integrate. As noted,
any theories that are presented often have severe limitations because they come and
go like snowflakes. The result is that students routinely suffer from massive cognitive
overload and a sense of mental chaos; thus, little of the material is retained once the
final exam is over. This makes it unlikely that what was memorized will be applied to
the students’ jobs and career.
With regard to case studies, these allow for the possibility of induction, but shock-
ingly, it has been reported that some business schools openly prohibit connecting
the cases to each other. This is very unfortunate. Each case is a unique, concrete
instance. Suppose, for example, a business student concluded from the analysis of a
particular case study that a certain high technology firm in New Hampshire should
replace the CEO, develop a top management team, and change to a matrix struc-
ture. What could students take away from such an analysis that would help them be
better managers? Nothing at all if the analysis were left in this form. The case would
only be useful if the student could formulate some general principles from studying
a variety of cases. The best way to do this is by induction from a series of cases (see
Locke, 2002 for a detailed example) though even this could be limited depending
INTRODUCTION xvii

on the choice of cases. Faculty whom I knew who used cases have admitted to me
that they have to use theoretical materials (e.g. principles) for the students to be
able to even analyze the cases in the first place.
The value of this book for teaching, therefore, is twofold. First, it is an alternative
to a traditional textbook. The material in this book is essentialized. Only what the expert
chapter writers consider important is included; thus, there is far less to remember
than in a text. This means the material can be more easily retained and more read-
ily applied to the real world of work. Second, the principles are evidence-­based and thus
tied firmly to reality. This teaching procedure would be mainly deductive, because
the inductively based principles would be provided in advance (by this book) and
students would have practice applying them to the exercises at the end of each
chapter, and/or to their current (and later their future) jobs. Of course, students
could be asked to search out other examples of principles and how they were used
or not used.
Second, this book can be used as an adjunct to a course which uses cases. Here,
both deduction and induction can be used. The book’s principles can help students
to analyze the cases, yet new principles (or qualifications to principles) could be
developed through induction from the cases used.
(There are other problems with the case method that we can only note briefly
here, e.g. the emphasis on verbal glibness; the fact that all the information needed
is already in the case; the fact that the case is taken out of a wider organizational
context; the fact that real action is not possible; and the lack of face-­to-­face contact
with actual employees. Primarily, these problems are inherent in the attempt to
teach a practical skill in a classroom and so have no perfect solution, though student
mini projects within real businesses help).

Management

This book can also help managers and executives be more effective. However, read-
ing a book of evidence-­based principles does not magically turn one into a good
manager. Principles cannot be mastered overnight and cannot be applied mechani-
cally. Regardless of the level of abstraction at which they are formulated, they are
still abstractions, not concrete rules such as “turn off the lights when you leave the
room.” Principles, however, are used to guide specific actions in specific contexts.
Consider the principle: “Motivate performance through goal setting” (Chapter 5
of this book). This principle does not tell one what to set goals for (a very critical
issue); who is to set them; what the time span will be; what strategy to use to reach
them; how performance will be measured; how flexible the goals will be; or how per-
formance will be rewarded. (The latter involves another principle; see Chapter 7).
To some extent, formulating subprinciples can be a help because these would
give some idea of how to implement the principles. For example, subprinciples for
goals (given in Chapter 5) would include (i) make the goals clear and challenging;
(ii) give feedback showing progress in relation to the goals; (iii) get commitment
through building confidence and showing why the goals are important; (iv) develop
action plans or strategies; (v) use priming; and (vi) find and remove organizational
xviii INTRODUCTION

blocks to goal attainment. But these subprinciples do not tell one everything. There
will always be judgment calls to be made, because one cannot teach every possible
context factor that a future manager might face.
Furthermore, principles cannot be applied in a vacuum, or one at a time in some
arbitrary order. Many – maybe dozens or possibly hundreds – of principles must be
used to run a successful business. (The problem of cognitive overload is mitigated
over time by gradually automatizing the principles in the subconscious.) Further-
more, the principles must be orchestrated so that they function in concert rather
than working at cross-­purposes. It is not known how effectively one can teach such
orchestration, although one can make the student aware of the issue and give some
examples. For example, the goal system must be integrated with the performance
appraisal system and the reward system.
It is worth observing here how principles are used in the real world of manage-
ment. We will use Jack Welch as an example in that he is considered among the
greatest CEOs in history, the creator of $300–400 billion in stockholder wealth at
General Electric (e.g. see Slater, 1999; Tichy and Sherman, 1993). Some principles
that Welch used as his personal guides to action are as follows:

◆◆ Reality. Face reality as it really is, not as you want it to be. (We believe that the
failure to practice this principle is a major cause of business failures, e.g.
Enron. Such failures may involve flagrant dishonesty, but they also may involve
simple evasion – the refusal to look at pertinent facts – or putting emotions
ahead of facts.)
◆◆ Change before you have to (view change as an opportunity, not as a threat).
◆◆ Possess energy and energize others.

Welch also helped develop a code of values or guiding principles for GE as a


whole. These included integrity (backed up by control systems).
Obviously, Welch was able not only to formulate but also to apply and orches-
trate principles in a way that no one else had. It helped that he had ambition and
energy, a brilliant business mind, an insatiable curiosity, the capacity to judge tal-
ent, and an uncanny ability to figure out what businesses GE should and should
not be in.
It is interesting that Jacques Nasser was a great admirer of Welch and tried to
emulate his principles at Ford but was unable to do so and ultimately lost his job. It
is clear that there is a long road between knowing good principles and being able to
implement them successfully in the context of a given organization.
Management principles need to be organized and integrated hierarchically so
that the leader will know what to do first, second, and so forth. Except for facing re-
ality as it is (not evading), which should be the primary axiom of every manager, the
hierarchy may not be the same from business to business or in the same business at
different times. Nor will they all be organizational behavior principles. For example,
in one context, the most critical factor may be to decide, as Welch did, what business
or businesses a corporation should be in. This is an aspect of vision and strategic
management. There is no point in trying to manage the wrong business or working
hard to do the wrong thing. But in another context, the critical issue may be cash
INTRODUCTION xix

flow, for example, how to avoid bankruptcy in the next six months (a finance issue).
In a different context, the core problem might be getting the right people in the
right jobs or revamping the incentive system (HR issues).
What factors would determine the hierarchy? Three are critical: (i) Context.
What are the most important facts regarding the present situation of this company?
­Context means seeing the whole and the relationship of the parts to the whole.
(ii) Urgency. What has to be fixed right away if the company is to survive?
(iii) Fundamen­tality. What is the cause of most of the different problems the organi-
zation is faced with or what must be fixed before any other fixes will work (e.g. get
good people in key jobs)?
The hierarchy can change over time. For example, when Welch took over at GE,
he focused first on changing the business mix (selling and buying businesses) and
cutting costs (increasing productivity) and layers of management. Later, he focused
on better utilizing people (empowerment) and still later on improving quality (qual-
ity goals). Reversing the sequence would not have worked, because empowerment
and quality would not help businesses that were not viable and would not “take” in
a ponderous bureaucracy.
The foregoing is to make an important point for the second time: Business is an
art as much as a science. Having correct principles will not work unless the leader
knows how and when to use them. Great leaders are rare because not many of them
can effectively perform all the tasks that leadership requires (Locke, 2003).
The way to manage complexity is not to complexify it, as academics love to do.
After reading some six books about and one book by Jack Welch, we were struck by
how frequently he stressed the importance of simplicity. He said:

Simplicity is a quality sneered at today in cultures that like their business con-
cepts the way they like their wine, full of nuance, subtlety, complexity, hints of
this and that . . . cultures like that will produce sophisticated decisions loaded
with nuance and complexity that arrive at the station long after the train has
gone . . . you can’t believe how hard it is for people to be simple, how much they
fear being simple. They worry that if they’re simple, people will think they are
simpleminded. In reality, of course, it’s just the reverse. Clear, tough-­minded
people are the most simple (quoted in Lowe, 1998, p. 155).

Consider a recent conversation with a consultant who works as a coach to top


executives. He told one of us that one question he always asks in the first meeting
is “By the way, how do you make money?” The ones who answered by wallowing in
complexity usually did not make any. The ones who gave succinct, clear answers
usually did.
For a business leader, achieving simplicity, as opposed to simplemindedness,
is much harder than achieving complexity. To achieve simplicity, one must look
through the morass of complexity one is seemingly faced with, integrate the key
observations, and come up with the essential ideas that will make one’s business suc-
ceed. That is, one must bring order out of chaos. This includes knowing what to
ignore. The way to do this is to think inductively and integrate one’s observations
into principles.
xx INTRODUCTION

Notes Regarding the Third Edition

The third edition of this book includes the following changes: (i) there are new
chapters with new authors and some new authors for some of the original chapters;
(ii) all the chapters have been updated with respect to the latest research, and near-
ly all present new cases examples; typically, however, the original principles have
remained the same (or been slightly reformulated); (iii) all the chapters now have
exercises at the end to help students better understand the principles. Although
authors were asked to title their chapters in terms of a single principle, a few have
two or three related principles, and all have subprinciples.
This last relates to the issue of what the appropriate level of abstraction should be
for management principles. If they are formulated too broadly (e.g. “be rational”),
it can be hard to connect them to specific actions without very extensive elabora-
tion. On the other hand, if they are too narrow (“turn out the light when leaving
every room”), they are not broadly applicable, and one would need thousands of
them – too many to retain – to cover the waterfront. Thus, I encouraged mid-­range
principles and the authors thankfully complied.
In closing, we should note that the principles in this book do not include all
­possible management principles (e.g. none of the chapters discussed strategic man-
agement principles – that would be another book). Also, we do not include the race
issue because that is much too complex an issue to be dealt with in one chapter. That
topic would require a whole book. We chose topics from I/O psychology, human
resource management, and organizational behavior (fields that all overlap) that
I thought would be of most interest and use to present and future managers. I hope
these hopefully timeless principles will contribute to your success at work.

References

Locke, E. A. (2002). The epistemological side of teaching management: Teaching


through principles. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 1, 195–­205.
Locke, E. A. (2003). Foundations for a theory of leadership. In S. Murphy and
R. Riggio (eds), The Future of Leadership Development. Mahwah, NJ: L. Erlbaum.
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1
Select on Intelligence
Frank L. Schmidt1 and In-­Sue Oh2

1
University of Iowa
2
Temple University

Co-author’s Note

Frank Schmidt died on 21 August, 2021 in Iowa City, IA. I am greatly indebted to
him for his legacy in intelligence testing and meta-­analysis, intellectual honesty and
courage, and endless support and mentoring over the years. He will be forever re-
membered and forever missed.
The principle that we wish to convey in this chapter is quite simple: Ceteris pari-
bus, higher intelligence leads to better job performance. Intelligence is the best
determinant of job performance, and hiring people based on intelligence leads
to marked improvements in job performance. These performance improvements
have great economic value for organizations, giving organizations that hire people
based on intelligence a leg-­up over other organizations. This principle is incredibly
broad and generalizable as it has been empirically validated across numerous jobs,
occupations, and industries.
But before elaborating further on this principle, we would like to emphasize
that, surprisingly, most human resource (HR) managers do not hire based on in-
telligence. In fact, most HR managers do not make decisions based on research-­
informed best practices at all (Rynes, Colbert, and Brown, 2002). This gap between
practice and research findings is especially large in the area of staffing, where many
HR managers are unaware of this most fundamental staffing principle based on
extensive research findings and, as a result, fail to use scientifically established valid
employment selection procedures. You may think that this is true only for a small
portion of HR managers, but this is not the case.
In a survey of 5000 Society for Human Resource Management members whose
title was at the manager level and above, Rynes and her research team (2002) asked
two questions relevant to this chapter:

(a) Is conscientiousness, a personality trait, a better predictor of employee per-


formance than intelligence?
(b) Do companies that screen job applicants for values have higher performance
than those that screen for intelligence?
2 FRANK L. SCHMIDT AND IN-­SUE OH

The answer to both the questions is (definitely) no!1 But shockingly, 72% of re-
spondents answered yes to the first question and 57% answered yes to the second
question. That is, on average, two-­thirds of the respondents did not know the most
basic principle established by extensive research findings; namely, that intelligence
is the single best predictor of employee job performance. And worse, these were
largely HR managers and directors with an average 14 years of work experiences
in HR. Of the 959 respondents, 53% were HR managers, directors, and vice presi-
dents, occupying an important role in designing and implementing HR practices.
Given the respondents’ high-­level HR positions and considerable experience, we
speculate that the percentage of wrong answers would be even higher among less
experienced HR staff. This problem is not limited to the United States but is also
widely observed in other countries (e.g. Tenhiälä, Giluk, Kepes, Simon, Oh, and
Kim, 2016). Thus, we believe that many would benefit by reading this chapter.

What Is Intelligence?

The concept of intelligence is often misunderstood. Intelligence is not the ability to


adapt to one’s environment: Insects, mosses, and bacteria are well adapted to their
environments, but they are not intelligent. There are many ways in which organisms
can adapt well to their environments, of which intelligence is only one. Instead, intel-
ligence encompasses the ability to understand and process abstract concepts to solve
problems. Gottfredson (1997, p. 13), in an editorial originally published in the Wall
Street Journal and later reprinted in Intelligence, defined intelligence as “a very general
mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve
problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, and learn quickly and learn
from experience.” This traditional definition captures well what intelligent people
can do, but this definition is still insufficient in capturing why smart people can do
it. For the purposes of this chapter, we define intelligence as the capacity to learn and
retain complex information. Higher levels of intelligence lead to more rapid learning,
and the more complex the material to be learned, the more this is true. Intelligence
is often referred to as general mental ability (GMA), and we use the terms “intelli-
gence” and “GMA” interchangeably throughout the remainder of this chapter.2

1
With regard to the first question, the validity of conscientiousness measured via
self-­reports is 0.22, whereas that of General Mental Ability is 0.65 in predicting
supervisory ratings of job performance (Schmidt, Shaffer, and Oh, 2008). With
regard to the second question, the answer exists only at the individual level, not at
the company level. Arthur, Bell, Villado, and Doverspike’s (2006) meta-­analysis has
shown that the validity of person-organization fit (or value congruence) is 0.13,
even less than that of conscientiousness measured via self-­reports.
2
In the applied psychology and HR/OB literatures, another term, “cognitive ability”
is widely used.
Select on Intelligence 3

Another important nature of intelligence is that it is the broadest of all human


mental abilities. Narrower abilities include verbal ability, quantitative ability, and spa-
tial ability. These narrower abilities are often referred to as special aptitudes. These
special aptitudes also predict job performance (although not as well as GMA), but
only because special aptitude tests measure general intelligence as well as specific
aptitudes (Brown, Le, and Schmidt, 2006). In other words, it is the GMA compo-
nent in these specific aptitude tests that predicts job performance. For example,
when a test of verbal ability predicts job or training performance, it is the GMA part
of that test – not specifically the verbal part – that primarily does the predicting, thus
“not much more than g (GMA)” (Brown et al., 2006; Ree and Earles, 1991, 1992;
Ree, Earles, and Teachout, 1994).
Finally, although behavioral geneticists have concluded that GMA is highly
influenced by heredity, it does not necessarily mean that nothing can improve
GMA (Gottfredson, 1997). A recent meta-­analysis by Ritchie and Tucker-­Drob
(2018) has reported that an additional year of education improves GMA by ap-
proximately one to five IQ points across the life span: “Education appears to be
the most consistent, robust, and durable method yet to be identified for raising
intelligence” (p. 1358).

Higher Intelligence Leads to Better Job Performance

Intelligence plays a central role in virtually all of our daily activities and lifelong
pursuits. It predicts many important life outcomes such as performance in school,
amount of education obtained, rate of promotion on the job, ultimate job level
attained, and salary (Gottfredson, 1997, 2002; Judge, Klinger, and Simon, 2010;
Schmidt and Hunter, 2004). More relevant to this chapter is that it predicts job and
training performance (Schmidt et al., 2008). No other trait predicts so many impor-
tant real-­world outcomes so well.
However, until several decades ago, most people believed that general princi-
ples of this sort were impossible in personnel selection and other social science
areas. It was believed that it was not possible to know which selection methods
would be most effective for a given organization unless a local validation study
was conducted for each job in that organization. This belief, called “situational
specificity,” was based on the fact that validity studies of the same selection proce-
dures in different jobs in the same organization and across different organizations
appeared to give different and often conflicting results. The differences were
attributed to the assumption that each job situation includes subtle yet signifi-
cantly different (i.e. situation-­specific) characteristics related to the nature of job
performance. Therefore, practitioners at that time (to the delight of consulting
firms) were advised to conduct time-­consuming and costly local validation tests
for virtually all jobs in all organizations to determine if a selection procedure was
valid (Ghiselli, 1966).
4 FRANK L. SCHMIDT AND IN-­SUE OH

We now know that these “conflicting results” were caused mostly by statistical and
measurement artifacts (e.g. sampling error3), and that some selection procedures
(e.g. intelligence) have higher validity for predicting performance than others (e.g.
age, graphology) across all jobs (Schmidt and Hunter, 1981, 1998). This discovery
was made possible by a new method, called meta-­analysis or validity generalization,
that allows practitioners and researchers to statistically synthesize the results from
individual studies.4 Many meta-­analyses synthesizing numerous individual studies
based on data collected from various jobs, occupations, organizations, industries,
business sectors, and countries all point to the same conclusion that intelligence is
the single best predictor of job performance (Schmidt et al., 2008). Thus, there
is little to no need to conduct a local validation study to see whether intelligence is
predictive of job performance.
Below, we will briefly review some notable studies among the vast body of lit-
erature documenting the strong link between intelligence and job performance.
Ree and colleagues have shown this for jobs in the Air Force (Olea and Ree, 1994;
Ree and Earles, 1991, 1992; Ree et al., 1994), as have McHenry, Hough, Toquam,
­Hanson, and Ashworth (1990) for the US Army in the famous Project A study. (With
a budget of 24 million dollars, Project A is the largest test validity study ever con-
ducted.) Hunter and Hunter (1984) showed this link for a wide variety of civilian
jobs, using the US Employment Service database of studies. Schmidt, Hunter, and
Pearlman (1980) have documented the link in both civilian and military jobs. Other
large meta-­analytic studies are described in Hunter and Schmidt (1996), Schmidt
(2002), and Schmidt and Hunter (2004). Salgado and his colleagues (Salgado,
Anderson, Moscoso, Bertua, and de Fruyt, 2003a; Salgado, Anderson, Moscoso, Bertua,
de Fruyt, and Rolland, 2003b) demonstrated the link between GMA and job per-
formance across a variety of settings in European countries. Further, the strong link
between GMA and job performance was found whether performance was measured
objectively – via work samples or productivity records – or subjectively – using rank-
ings of performance ratings (Nathan and Alexander, 1988). Finally, the validity of

3
The sampling error is the error caused by using a (non-­representative, small) sam-
ple instead of the entire population of interest. Because of this error, sample-­based
statistics (validity coefficients) can be smaller or greater than their population
parameters, thus causing “conflicting results” (i.e. artifactual variance) across local
validation studies (Schmidt, 1992).
4
Meta-­analysis has also made possible the development of general principles in
many other areas beyond personnel selection (Schmidt and Hunter, 2015). For
example, it has been used to calibrate the relationships between job satisfaction and
job performance with precision (Judge, Thorensen, Bono, and Patton, 2001),
between organizational commitment and work-­related outcomes including job per-
formance (Cooper-­Hakim and Viswesvaran, 2005), and between transformational
leadership and employee, team, and firm performance (Wang, Oh, Courtright, and
Colbert, 2011).
Select on Intelligence 5

GMA for predicting job performance does not differ across major ethnic groups
and gender groups (e.g. Roth, Le, Oh, Van Iddekinge, Buster, Robbins, and
Campion, 2014; Schmidt, 1988).
On a more technical note, there has recently been an important development
in the method of estimating the validity of a selection procedure by correcting for
range restriction more accurately.5 Applying this procedure to a group of existing
meta-­analytic data sets shows that previous figures for the validity of GMA (0.51 for
job performance and 0.56 for training performance as noted in Schmidt and Hunt-
er, 1998) underestimated its real value by around 30%. Specifically, when perfor-
mance is measured using ratings of job performance by supervisors, the average of
eight meta-­analytic correlations with intelligence measures is 0.65–65% as large as
the maximum possible value of 1.00, which represents perfect prediction (Schmidt
et al., 2008, table 1). Another performance measure that is important is the amount
learned in job training programs. For training performance (either based on exam
scores or instructor ratings), the average of eight meta-­analytic correlations with in-
telligence measures is 0.67 (Schmidt et al., 2008, table 2). Thus, the more accurate
estimate of validity of intelligence is even higher than we previously thought.

Why Does Higher Intelligence Lead


to Better Job Performance?
It is one thing to have overwhelming empirical evidence showing a principle is true
and quite another to explain why the principle is true. Although part of the answer
to this question of why higher intelligence leads to better performance in the defini-
tion of intelligence was discussed earlier (i.e. learning ability), a more convincing
answer can be found by examining the causal mechanism through which intelli-
gence influences job performance. According to Schmidt and Hunter (1998), peo-
ple who are more intelligent are able to hold greater amounts of job knowledge be-
cause they can learn more and more quickly than others. Hence, the more “direct”
determinant of job performance is job knowledge, not GMA.6 Said another way, the
biggest influence on job performance is job knowledge, and the biggest influence
on job knowledge is GMA. People who do not know how to do a job cannot per-
form that job well. Research has shown that considerable job knowledge is required
to perform even jobs most people would think of as simple, such as data entry.

5
A new and more accurate method for correcting the biases created by range restric-
tion has been developed and applied (see Hunter, Schmidt, and Le, 2006; Oh,
Schmidt, Shaffer, and Le, 2008; Schmidt, Oh, and Le, 2006; Schmidt et al., 2008).
(Range restriction is the condition in which the variance of the predictor [here
intelligence] in one’s sample of people [job incumbents] is lower than that in the
population of people [job applicants] for which one wants estimates.)
6
The traditional psychological theory of human learning (Hunter, 1986; Hunter
and Schmidt, 1996; Schmidt and Hunter, 2004) posits that the effect of GMA on job
performance would be mostly explained by the learning of job knowledge.
6 FRANK L. SCHMIDT AND IN-­SUE OH

More complex jobs require much more job knowledge. The simplest model of job per-
formance is this: GMA causes job knowledge, which in turn causes job performance.
But even this model is too simple, because GMA also directly influences job per-
formance. That is, GMA does not have to be converted to job knowledge before it
can influence job performance. In all professions, unforeseen problems arise that
are not covered by one’s prior education or a body of job knowledge (i.e. manuals),
and GMA is used directly to solve these problems. Based on two large samples (in
total, over 4500 managers), Dilchert and Ones (2009) found that problem-­solving
across various assessment center dimensions is most highly correlated with GMA.
That is, GMA is not only an ability to learn facts and structured procedures but also
an ability to tackle unstructured, real-­life problems and solve them. This means that
even when workers of varying levels of intelligence have equal job knowledge, the
more intelligent workers still have higher job performance given their advantage in
problem-­solving skills.
Many studies have tested and supported this causal model (Borman, White,
­Pulakos, and Oppler, 1991; Hunter, 1986; Ree et al., 1994; Schmidt, Hunter, and
Outerbridge, 1986). Using an extremely large data set from the US Army Selec-
tion and Classification Project (Project A), McCloy, Campbell, and Cudeck (1994)
differentiated two types of job knowledge – declarative knowledge and procedural
knowledge – and showed that GMA was related to each of the two types of job knowl-
edge, which was, in turn, related to job performance. This research is reviewed by
Hunter and Schmidt (1996) and Schmidt and Hunter (2004).

What Is Required to Make This Principle Work?

Based on research on selection procedure utility (Le, Oh, Shaffer, and Schmidt, 2007;
Schmidt and Hunter, 1998), there are three conditions that are required for com-
panies to improve job performance levels by using GMA tests in hiring and to reap
the resulting economic benefits.
First, the company must be able to be selective in who it hires. If the labor market
is so tight that all who apply for jobs must be hired, then there can be no selec-
tion and hence no gain. The gain in job performance per person hired is greatest
with low selection ratios. For example, if one company can afford to hire only the
top 10%, while another must hire the bottom 10% of all applicants, then with other
things equal the first company will have a much larger gain in job performance.
There is another way to look at this: Companies must provide conditions of employ-
ment that are good enough to attract more applicants than they need to fill the
vacant jobs. It is even better when they can go beyond that and attract not only a lot
of applicants, but the higher-­ability ones that are in that applicant pool. In addition,
to realize maximum value from GMA-­based selection, organizations must be able to
retain high-­performing hires. As discussed later in this chapter, one excellent way
to retain high-­intelligence employees is to place them in jobs consistent with their
levels of intelligence. Otherwise, high-­intelligence employees who are ill-­placed
(and thus not satisfied with their job) may look for alternatives outside the organi-
zation; if they leave, then the organization will incur enormous direct and indirect
costs (e.g. unpaid-­off selection and training costs, performance loss, low morale
among existing coworkers).
Select on Intelligence 7

Second, the company must have some effective way of measuring GMA. The
most common and most effective method is a standardized employment test of
general intelligence, such as the Wonderlic Personnel Test, the Wesman Personnel
Classification Test, or the Watson-­Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal Form. Such
tests are readily available at modest cost. This method of measuring GMA is highly
cost-­effective given its excellent validity and reliability, low cost, and ease of admin-
istration and scoring. However, there are alternative methods of measuring intel-
ligence as listed as follows. We advise the reader that part of the reason that these
alternative methods can be somewhat successful is often due to their high correla-
tion with GMA. For example, meta-­analytic evidence has shown that grade point
average (Roth, Bevier, Switzer, and Schippmann, 1996), work sample tests (Roth,
Bobko, and McFarland, 2005), assessment center scores (Collins, Schmidt, Sanchez-­
Ku, Thomas, McDaniel, and Le, 2003), employment interviews (Huffcutt, Roth,
and McDaniel, 1996), and situational judgment tests (particularly, knowledge-­based
ones; McDaniel, Hartman, Whetzel, and Grubb, 2007) are moderately to strongly
correlated with GMA. That is, as Schmidt (2002) pointed out, performance on these
selection procedures is moderately to strongly a consequence of GMA and, hence,
reflects GMA. These findings further attest to the fact that what is more important
is the constructs (i.e. the traits themselves) measured during the selection process,
not the formats/methods (how the traits are measured). These alternative selection
procedures are generally less valid and more costly (especially assessment centers
and employment interviews) than standardized tests of GMA. Therefore, we recom-
mend that hiring managers simply use GMA tests whenever possible to maximize
cost-­effectiveness. However, many organizations that rarely use written GMA tests
build oral GMA tests into the interview process. For example, high-­tech companies
such as Microsoft and Google use multiple job interviews to measure GMA (and
other important characteristics) among their highly intelligent applicants perhaps
because standardized GMA tests are too easy for many of their highly intelligent ap-
plicants and, thus, cannot differentiate their applicants in terms of GMA. Moreover,
these highly profitable organizations may not care about selection costs.
Third, the variability in job performance among employees must be greater than
zero. That is, if all applicants after being hired have the same level of job perfor-
mance anyway, then nothing is gained by hiring “the best.” However, this is never
the case. Across all jobs studied, there have been large differences between differ-
ent workers in both quality and quantity of output. Hunter, Schmidt, and Judiesch
(1990) meta-­analyzed all the available studies on this topic and found large differ-
ence between employees. In unskilled and semi-­skilled jobs, they found that work-
ers in the top 1% of performance produced over three times as much output as
those in the bottom 1%. In skilled jobs, top workers produced 15 times as much
as bottom workers. In professional and managerial jobs, the differences were even
larger. At the CEO level, we can easily find many examples supporting huge perfor-
mance variability (e.g. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates). These are precisely the reasons why it
pays so handsomely to hire the best workers, managers, and CEOs.
But there is another advantage to hiring the best workers: the pool of talent
available for future promotion is greatly increased. This is of great value to organiza-
tions, because it helps ensure high performance all the way up through the ranks of
managers. When the right people are promoted, their value to the organization in
8 FRANK L. SCHMIDT AND IN-­SUE OH

their new jobs is even greater than it was in their original jobs. Thus, the selection
of high ability people has implications not only for the job they are hired onto, but
also for other jobs in the organization.

Are There Moderators or Exceptions to This Principle?

Is Intelligence More Valid for More Complex Jobs?


For many predictors of job performance (motivational techniques, personality,
etc.), their relationship with job performance depends on some moderators or
boundary conditions (e.g. situational constraints). In addition, some predictors
can replace other predictors. Many relationships in personnel psychology are
bounded by situational constraints, which can be frustrating to managers who are
looking for broad, overarching principles that are applicable across their organi-
zation. There is no relationship in the field of personnel psychology for which
there are as few situational constraints as there are for the relationship between
GMA and job performance.
The only major moderator to the relationship between GMA and job perfor-
mance is job complexity level. That is, the validity of GMA for predicting job per-
formance increases as the difficulty or complexity of the job in question increases.
Schmidt et al. (2008) also reported validities for GMA ranging from 0.55 for low-­
complexity jobs to 0.61 for medium-­complexity jobs to 0.78 for high-­complexity
jobs based on two meta-­analyses that tested job complexity level as a moderator for
the validity of GMA (Hunter, 1986; Salgado et al., 2003b). Similarly, Schmidt et al.
(2008) also reported that the validity of GMA for training performance varies by
job complexity level: 0.56, 0.69, and 0.81 for low-­, medium-­, and high-­complexity
jobs, respectively (Hunter, 1986; Salgado et al., 2003b). That is, while intelligence is
predictive of performance on jobs of all the complexity levels, it is more predictive
for jobs of high complexity.
Contrary to many lay people’s intuition that applicants for high-­complexity jobs
do not differ much from each other in intelligence and thus intelligence may not
work as a selection tool for them, the research findings mentioned here have clearly
shown that there is still considerable variability in intelligence among applicants
for high-­complexity jobs and intelligence is still an excellent selection tool in these
situations (Sackett and Ostgaard, 1994). We believe that the straightforward na-
ture of the link between GMA and job performance comes as good news for many
practitioners who are under time and competitive pressures to allocate resources
as efficiently as possible, because it means that they do not have to consider many
situational peculiarities when designing and implementing an intelligence-­based
staffing system. Given the massive amount of evidence available, there can be no
doubt that intelligence is the best, most useful predictor of job performance across
most situations (Schmidt, 2002).
Select on Intelligence 9

Can Job Experience Replace the Role of Intelligence?

As long as the three conditions described earlier are met, there are no known cases
or situations in which it is inadvisable to select employees for general intelligence.
Nevertheless, some believe there is one exception (as we illustrate later in the ex-
ample of US Steel): That companies should not select on GMA if they can select on
job experience. That is, they believe that job experience is a better predictor of job
performance than is GMA or job experience may replace GMA.
But what does available research show? For applicants with job experience be-
tween zero and five years, experience is a good predictor of job performance. But
in the range of higher levels of experience, say 5–30 years of job experience, job
experience does not predict performance very well (Hunter and Schmidt, 1996;
Schmidt, Hunter, Outerbridge, and Goff, 1988). On most jobs, once people have
about five years of experience, further experience does not translate into higher
performance. This is likely because experience beyond five years does not lead to
further increases in job knowledge. In other words, after five years of on-­the-­job
learning, people in the typical job are forgetting old job knowledge about as fast as
they are learning new job knowledge.
Even for new hires in the one-­to-­five-­year range of job experience, where ex-
perience is a valid predictor of job performance, the validity of experience as a
predictor declines over time. Specifically, experience predicts performance quite
well for the first three years or so on the job and then starts to decline. By 12 years
on the job, experience has low validity. In contrast, GMA continues to predict job
performance quite well even after people have been on the job 12 years or longer
(Schmidt et al., 1988). What this means is that job experience is not a substitute for
GMA. In the long run, hiring on intelligence pays off much more than does hiring
on job experience (Hunter and Schmidt, 1996). Hence, if you must choose, you
should choose GMA. However, typically you do not have to choose; more than one
procedure can be used. It may be desirable to use both experience and GMA in
hiring; as discussed later, it is usually best to use multiple hiring methods whenever
possible. But in this case, the weight given to GMA should be higher than the weight
given to job experience.

Can Intelligence Predict Nontask Performance?

When supervisors assess overall job performance for each employee, they incor-
porate into their final ratings both nontask performance (i.e. organizational citi-
zenship behaviors [OCBs] and counterproductive work behavior [CWB]) and core
job performance (i.e. task performance) (Orr, Sackett, and Mercer, 1989; Rotun-
do and Sackett, 2002). One may ask, given the expanded criterion domain of job
10 FRANK L. SCHMIDT AND IN-­SUE OH

performance beyond task performance (e.g. bookkeeping tasks as an accountant):


Is the validity of GMA for nontask performance, an important aspect of overall job
performance, also strong?
As noted earlier, many people find it hard to believe that GMA is the dominant
determinant of overall job performance (Rynes et al., 2002). Often, they say they
have known people who were very intelligent but who were not a good citizen. This
is related to a facet of job performance called “contextual performance” or “or-
ganizational citizenship behaviors.” Broadly speaking, there are three types of OCBs
(Chiaburu, Oh, Berry, Li, and Gardner, 2011: (i) cooperation (e.g. willingness to
help other employee such as new employees and employees with work-­related prob-
lems), (ii) compliance/loyalty (e.g. willingness to work late in an emergency or on a
holiday, supporting the community relations and reputation of the company), and
(iii) change (e.g. willingness to communicate concerns and suggestions organiza-
tional and work-­related problems and play the role of a change agent). The Project
A research showed that GMA is the predictive of contextual performance such as
extra effort and taking initiative, although the validity of GMA was a bit lower than
that of conscientiousness-­related personality traits. However, a comprehensive meta-­
analysis by Gonzalez-­Mulé, Mount, and Oh (2014) revealed that the validity of GMA
for OCB (0.16 for cooperation, 0.18 for compliance/loyalty, and 0.24 for change) is
moderate and generally similar to that of some of the most valid Big Five personal-
ity traits, such as conscientiousness and emotional stability (Chiaburu et al., 2011).
Note that these meta-­analytic findings contradict and thus inform the previous no-
tion that “the major source of variation in contextual performance, however, is not
proficiency, but volition and predisposition . . . predispositional variables repre-
sented by personality characteristics” (Borman and Motowidlo, 1993, p. 74).
Lay people may also say they have known people who were very intelligent but
dismal failures on the job because of “bad behaviors” such as repeated absences,
carelessness, hostility toward the supervisor, unwillingness to work overtime to meet
a deadline, or stealing from the company. These are examples of the so-­called coun-
terproductive work behaviors. These behaviors reflect another facet of overall job
performance that is also not directly related to core job performance (i.e. task per-
formance) but is still considered when assessing overall job performance. Some
individual studies have suggested that people who are more intelligent are likely to
engage in fewer CWBs – self-­reported or other-­rated or objectively recorded – be-
cause they are more aware of the potential negative consequences of engaging in
CWBs and better able to control their impulses and behaviors. However, a compre-
hensive meta-­analysis by Gonzalez-­Mulé et al. (2014) showed that while the relation-
ship between GMA and self-­rated CWB is almost zero or slightly positive (0.05), the
relationship between GMA and non-­self-­rated CWB (supervisor-­rated or objectively
recorded) is moderately negative (–0.11). Although there may be other interpreta-
tions, these results seem to suggest that intelligent people do not necessarily engage
in fewer CWBs, but they are better able to avoid getting caught by others, thus re-
minding us of the famous phrase, “catch me if you can.” Moreover, the validity of
GMA for CWB is lower than that of the Big Five personality traits.
Select on Intelligence 11

In summary, the validity of GMA when predicting nontask performance (OCB


and CWB) is at best moderate (similar to or lower than that of self-­rated conscien-
tiousness). However, as Ones, Viswesvaran, and Dilchert (2005, p. 400) emphasized,
there is one important caveat that practitioners and researchers should not forget:
“Even if this were true, no organization is likely to forgo hiring on task performance
(Gottfredson, 2002); also, equal validity does not mean that the same kinds of indi-
viduals would be hired using different predictors.” That is, most selection decisions
are and should be generally based on who will show higher task or overall perfor-
mance, the best predictor of which is undeniably GMA. Thus, there is no exception
to the principle that GMA is the best predictor of job performance.

Five Common Questions About Implementing an


Intelligence-­Based Hiring System

Can an Applicant Be Too Intelligent for a Job?


An applicant was rejected for a job as a police officer in a New Jersey city on the
grounds that his intelligence test score was too high! Officials in this city believed
something that many people believe: Intelligence leads to better job performance
but only up to a point, and, after that point, more intelligence actually leads to
lower job performance. Of course, this statement is false, and assumes a nonlin-
ear relationship between intelligence and job performance. Can job performance
suffer from having “too much of a good thing” (GMA)? Hundreds of studies have
shown that this is not the case: There is a straight line (linear) relationship between
intelligence and job performance, and higher intelligence has been shown to lead
to better job performance even up to the highest levels of intelligence (Coward and
Sackett, 1990).
Why then do so many people believe the false assumption? Perhaps it is because
it makes intuitive sense. When imagining a university professor or a medical doctor
working as a janitor, it is easy to think, “This person would be so bored with this job
that he or she would do a poor job.” But such a conclusion ignores the fact that the
university professor or doctor would be highly unlikely to apply for the janitor’s job
to begin with. Among people who actually apply to get real jobs, there is a linear
relationship between intelligence and performance; the higher the intelligence,
the better the job performance.
Moreover, some lay people tend to think that applicants for high-­complexity jobs
are so similar in terms of intelligence that an intelligence test may not differenti-
ate them from one another. If this were true, intelligence tests would not be a valid
selection tool for high-­complexity jobs. However, as discussed previously, there is
substantial variability in intelligence even among the most educated people with
the most advanced degrees. Furthermore, intelligence is a more valid selection
procedure than educational level among applicants with varied levels of education
applying for the same job (Berry, Gruys, and Sackett, 2006). The validity of intel-
ligence remains substantial even in a group of the most talented individuals even at
12 FRANK L. SCHMIDT AND IN-­SUE OH

1-­in-­10 000 scarcity (Lubinski, Webb, Morelock, and Benbow, 2001). In general,
there should be no concern about hiring someone who is too intelligent for a job,
ceteris paribus. Relatedly, recent research by Brown, Wai, and Chabris (2021) has
shown that “there is little evidence for any robust detrimental effects of or risk asso-
ciated with having high cognitive ability” in predicting various “beneficial outcomes
in work, education, health, and social contexts” (p. 18). That is, a saying such as “the
relationship between success and IQ works only up to a point” is only a misconcep-
tion, which should be discredited given the continued positive linear relationships
between GMA and important life outcomes even at the very high end of GMA.
Interestingly, it has also been shown that over their careers people gradually
move into jobs, either within a single organization or by moving to another organi-
zation, that are consistent with their levels of GMA. This “sorting” process occurs
over time and has been called the gravitation process (Wilk, Desmariais, and Sack-
ett, 1995; Wilk and Sackett, 1996). People whose GMA exceeds their job level tend
to move toward more complex jobs (internal or external upward movement) and
people whose GMA is below their job level tend to move toward less complex jobs.

Is Intelligence All That Matters?

If some hypothetical sets of constraints allowed that only a single assessment would
be used in the hiring process, and if the goal of the hiring process were to maximize
future job performance, then we would strongly recommend the use of an intel-
ligence assessment. However, in reality, no such constraints exist. Although GMA
is the best predictor of job performance, it does not follow that the use of intel-
ligence alone in hiring is the best way to select people. In fact, it is well known that
other predictors can be used along with GMA to produce better predictions of job
performance than can be produced by GMA alone. For example, according to the
authors’ recent work, for most jobs, the use of a structured employment interview
in addition to a GMA test increases validity by 18%. And, the use of self-­reported
measures of conscientiousness in addition to a GMA test increases validity by 8%. It
is almost always possible to add some supplemental selection procedure(s) that can
further increase the validity offered by a GMA test. The best supplementary selec-
tion procedure is one that has high validity in and of itself and a low correlation with
scores on a GMA test (in order to minimize measurement redundancy), and a low
cost. It follows that practitioners should use well-­established measures of personal-
ity traits such as conscientiousness (as shown in the next chapter) and structured
employee interviews (Schmidt and Hunter, 1998).

Does the Use of GMA Tests Have Any Adverse Impact?

This is an important question, and one that requires a thorough response. In terms
of gender differences, it has been found that there is no difference in mean levels
of GMA test scores between males and females (Ployhart and Holtz, 2008), although
Select on Intelligence 13

there are some well-­known gender differences in specific aptitudes (i.e. higher
mean scores for females in speech production and higher mean scores for males in
spatial perception). Though we mention differences in specific aptitudes, we do not
recommend the use of specific abilities in staffing contexts, given that the validity of
GMA tests is almost always higher than that of specific aptitudes (“not much more
than GMA”) – even when specific aptitudes are chosen to match the most important
aspects of job performance (i.e. spatial perception for the pilot job). Further, re-
search generally does not support differential validity of GMA tests for males and fe-
males (Hartigan and Wigdor, 1989; Rothstein and McDaniel, 1992), particularly for
jobs that are gender-­neutral (i.e. jobs that tend to have a largely even distribution
of men and women). Rothstein and McDaniel’s meta-­analysis (1992) found slightly
higher validity of GMA tests for job performance in female-­dominated jobs (e.g.
nursing) for females, and the opposite was found in male-­dominated jobs. Today,
most jobs are gender-­neutral or are becoming more so. Overall, one can conclude
that intelligence test scores predict equally accurately for females and males in
most, if not all, cases.
Perhaps, more controversial is the adverse impact that GMA tests seem to pro-
duce in terms of ethnic group differences. Research shows that members of some
minority groups have lower average scores on GMA tests. If applicants are selected
based solely on their GMA test scores, this can lead to lower hiring rates on average
for lower scoring groups.7 These lower hiring rates for minority applicants raise two
potential problems: Legal risks and decreased workplace diversity.
From a legal standpoint, GMA tests are quite defensible in court given that the
tests are valid predictors of job performance and their validity does not differ across
major ethnic groups (e.g. Roth et al., 2014; Schmidt, 1988). In other words, “greater
cognitive ability [GMA] is likely advantageous in many aspects of life [including job
performance, practically to the same degree], no matter one’s race or ethnicity”
(Brown et al., 2021, p. 18). Such demonstrations rely increasingly on summaries
of the kinds of research findings discussed in this chapter, rather than on studies
conducted by organizations (this is part of the move away from the false notion of
situational specificity, as discussed earlier). Since the mid-­1980s, organizations have
been winning more and more such suits, and today, they prevail in 80% or more of
such suits. Moreover, today, there are simply far fewer such suits. In recent years, less

7
The research surrounding the issue of ethnic group differences in test scores is
quite extensive (see Roth, Van Iddekinge, DeOrtentiis, Hackney, Zhang, and Buster,
2017 for updated estimates of Hispanic-­White and Asian-­White differences for
12 widely used selection procedures including GMA tests). For readers who are
interested in a more technical, detailed treatment of this issue, we recommend
Roth, Bevier, Bobko, Switzer, and Tyler (2001); Sackett, Schmitt, Ellingson, and
Kabin (2001); Sackett, Borneman, and Connelly (2008); Schmidt (1988); and
Wigdor and Garner (1982).
14 FRANK L. SCHMIDT AND IN-­SUE OH

than 1% of employment-­related lawsuits are challenges to selection tests or other


hiring procedures, and from a purely economic standpoint, research shows that the
value of the increases in job performance from good selection practices overshad-
ows any potential costs stemming from defending against such suits. Thus, there is
little legal risk stemming from the use of GMA tests.
However, solving the problem of legal defensibility still leaves the problem of
decreased workplace diversity. Given the fact that many hiring managers are under
constant pressure to increase the diversity of their workforce, this can be a serious
issue. Sackett and colleagues (2001) explain that emphasizing GMA tests in selec-
tion with the purpose of maximizing performance typically results in a lower ratio of
minority hires, while eschewing the use of GMA tests with the purpose of increasing
workplace diversity typically results in a decrease in job performance. The authors
go on to ask, “What are the prospects for achieving diversity . . . without sacrific-
ing the predictive accuracy and content relevancy present in knowledge, skill, abil-
ity, and achievement tests?” (p. 303). Over the years, some organizations tried to
reduce this adverse impact by introducing various forms of minority preferences
in hiring, and others used adjusted test scores (e.g. score banding8) or other test
scoring methods with the goal of equalizing minority and nonminority hiring rates.
However, the 1991 Civil Rights Act made such score adjustments illegal, leaving
hiring managers with more questions than answers. Fortunately, a good and legally
appropriate solution to the so-­called validity-­diversity dilemma lies well within the
realm of currently accepted best hiring practices. Specifically, the use of GMA tests
can be supplemented with the use of valid noncognitive predictors – such as self-­
reported measures of conscientiousness – that show little, if any, adverse impact.
In this way, a battery of predictors can be assembled that not only will predict fu-
ture job performance, but also will help reduce the adverse impact associated with
GMA tests. In recent years, some organizations have also attempted to address this
dilemma by balancing the biobjectives of validity (performance) and diversity us-
ing co-­optimization (Pareto-­optimal weighting) methods (De Corte, Lievens, and
Sackett, 2011; Rupp et al., 2020).9

How Do Job Applicants React to the Use of GMA Tests?

Some have argued that the administration of GMA tests during the hiring process
can be a detriment to an organization’s recruitment efforts because applicants do
not like to take ability tests. On the contrary, meta-­analytic research on this subject

8
Score banding is a method associated with “using standard errors to create score
bands where applicants within a band are considered equal and then making
diversity-­related hires within a band” (Rupp, Song, and Strah, 2020, p. 247).
9
According to Rupp et al. (2020), “Pareto-­optimal weighting is similar to regression
weighting in that it also seeks “optimized” composite scores. However, it differs from
regression weighting in that it aims to optimize two (or more) outcomes simultane-
ously” (p. 249).
Select on Intelligence 15

reveals that applicants perceive mental ability and GMA tests to be relevant to job
performance, and that applicants generally react more favorably to GMA tests
than they do to personality assessments, bio-­data, and integrity tests, which they
view as irrelevant to job performance (Hausknecht, Day, and Thomas, 2004). At
the same time, applicants react less favorably to GMA tests than they do to the most
widely used selection tools – employment interviews and résumés (Hausknecht
et al., 2004). Interestingly, it appears to be the case that when GMA or other ability
tests are used, applicants tend to perceive the selection requirements as being more
stringent, thus increasing their perceptions of the status and attractiveness of the
job in question. The conclusion is this: Job applicants generally respond relatively
well to a GMA test because they believe it is relevant to job performance.

Economically, Is a GMA-­Based Hiring System Really Worth the Effort?

One argument against using GMA assessments is that if an organization hires more
intelligent people, then the organization will have to pay them a higher salary, and
this will cancel out any economic gains associated with increases in job performance.
This claim is utterly false. In fact, the potential economic gains that can be realized
by hiring a more intelligent workforce are quite substantial. Several key research
findings are particularly relevant to this issue. First, research has shown that job
performance can be measured in actual dollar value. Second, there is considerable
variance in job performance among employees. Third, the dollar value of the stand-
ard deviation of job performance is at least 40% of a given employee’s salary. These
findings have been synthesized into a single equation that allows hiring managers to
compute the actual dollar value of a particular hiring method. After reviewing all of
the available data and computing the value of various hiring methods, it is clear that
the value gained from the use of GMA assessments far outstrips the cost of hiring
intelligent people. For readers who are interested in a more detailed explanation of
how to compute the dollar value of job performance, we recommend articles by Le
et al. (2007) and Schmidt and Hunter (1998).
As top-­performing employees are promoted to higher levels in the organization,
they are rewarded with higher pay, but the value of those employees’ performance to
the organization increases much more than the employees’ salaries do. This creates
large net benefits to organizations that are careful to use the most effective selection
procedures available. In some cases, offering top performers a salary increase might
be necessary to retain them. In any event, the payoff to the organization in terms of
enhanced job performance is much greater than any increase in the compensation
costs. On the other hand, organizations that hire less intelligent people for entry-­
level positions find that their higher-­level jobs also become filled with mediocre or
poor performers. Thus, selection based on GMA improves performance not only in
the job in question, but also later in higher-­level jobs in the organization.
Last but not least, a recent meta-­analysis (Van Iddekinge, Aguinis, Mackey, and
DeOrtentiis, 2018) has shown that intelligence predicts job performance practi-
cally to the same degree regardless of the level of motivation (e.g. effort level), thus
16 FRANK L. SCHMIDT AND IN-­SUE OH

­ roviding little to no support to the interaction of intelligence and motivation. That


p
is, this meta-­analysis shows that the effects of ability and motivation on performance
are additive rather than multiplicative. We believe many would find this finding –
i.e. performance = f(Ability + Motivation) – counterintuitive given the prevalent
belief that performance = f(Ability × Motivation). However, it is noteworthy that in-
telligence is a “trait” variable and motivating is a “state” variable in the meta-­analytic
finding mentioned here. A growing number of studies on goal difficulty have shown
that ability (e.g. task-­specific strategies, knowledge, or expertise) and motivation
(e.g. goal specificity and difficulty) both at the “state” level “interact” to predict
task performance. In other words, specific challenging goals usually have a more
positive effect on task performance when individuals use smart rather than poor
task strategies (see Wood, Whelan, Sojo, and Wong, 2013 for a review). In addition,
as an “all-­purpose” tool, intelligence is even involved in everyday activities such as
shopping, driving, and paying bills (Gottfredson, 1997). On a fun note, a recent
meta-­analysis has shown that intelligence is also positively related to “reading the
mind in the eyes,” telling others’ mental/emotional states just by seeing their eyes
(Baker, Peterson, Pulos, and Kirkland, 2014).

Case Examples

We will first look at one positive example of real-­world applications of GMA-­based


hiring followed by one negative example.

The Philip Morris Plant in Cabarrus County, North Carolina

The US Employment Service began a new nationwide program of employment test-


ing, operated through state employment offices, in the early 1980s. Like its earlier
program, it was based on the General Aptitude Test Battery. One of the three abili-
ties measured in that program was GMA (the other two were general perceptual
ability and general psychomotor ability). This new program was based on the meth-
ods of meta-­analysis or validity generalization that were mentioned at the beginning
of this chapter.
The large Philip Morris plant in Cabarrus County, North Carolina, was one of the
first organizations to subscribe to the new testing program. They signed an agree-
ment under which the state employment service tested and referred the higher
scoring applicants to Philip Morris for possible hires. For the jobs at Philip Morris,
most of the weight was placed on GMA in determining who was hired.
The human resources department at Philip Morris conducted a study to com-
pare the performance of the workers who had been selected using the GMA assess-
ments and those who had been hired without use of the test. They found that the
Select on Intelligence 17

GMA-­selected workers were superior across a variety of performance measures, in-


cluding a 35% gain in performance output. The GMA-­selected workers learned 8%
more skills during job training and had 25% fewer operator failures and 58% fewer
disciplinary actions. In addition, the incidence of unsafe job behaviors decreased by
35% and the reduction in work days lost to accidents decreased by 82%.
These are large differences. The Philip Morris personnel researchers, Dennis
Warmke and William Van Arnam, noted that the employment interview that the
company was using might have contributed somewhat to the performance superior-
ity of these workers. However, they stated that because the GMA test was the method
used to screen out most of the applicants who were not hired, the GMA test was the
dominant influence producing the performance improvements. This research is
described in McKinney (1984).

US Steel Plant at Fairless Hill, PA

Up until 1978, the US Steel plant at Fairless Hills, PA, selected applicants into their
skilled trades apprentice programs based on the applicants’ total scores on a battery
of ability tests. These total scores were a good measure of GMA, and selection was
from the top down. The plant maintained apprentice programs in the wide variety
of skilled trades needed to run a steel mill: machinists, tool and die makers, electri-
cians, sheet metal workers, etc. The local unit of the United Steel workers union,
however, did not like this selection method. In negotiations with the union, the
company agreed to modify the selection system. In the new system, all applicants
who scored above a low cut-­off on each test, set at about the seventh-grade level,
were considered equally qualified and eligible for hire. Only a few applicants were
screened out by this procedure. Applicants in the passing group were selected based
on plant seniority only. Hence, this plant went from a GMA-­based hiring system to
one in which GMA played only a very minor role.
The apprentice training center at Fairless Hills was a well-­run facility that kept ex-
cellent records of apprentice performance. However, after the new selection system
was introduced, performance plummeted. Scores on the mastery tests of amount
learned in training declined markedly. The flunk-­out and drop-­out rates increased
dramatically. The training time and training costs of those who did make it through
the program increased substantially – because many apprentices had to re-­take mul-
tiple units in the training. And finally, the ratings of later performance on the job
out in the plant declined.
This was a well-­controlled, natural quasi-­experiment. The only change made was
the lowering of mental ability standards in selection. The training program and the
tests given in the program remained the same. The decline in performance was
clearly due to the lower intelligence of the new apprentices.
18 FRANK L. SCHMIDT AND IN-­SUE OH

Conclusion

Higher intelligence leads to better job performance on all jobs, and the in-
creases in job performance resulting from hiring on intelligence have high
economic value for organizations. Higher intelligence causes higher job per-
formance primarily because it causes people to learn more job knowledge
and to learn it more quickly. However, intelligence is also used directly on the
job to solve performance-­related problems, independent of prior job knowl-
edge. The primary requirement that an organization must meet to make
intelligence-­based hiring work well is the ability to attract job applicants and
to retain them once they are hired. Although intelligence is the most impor-
tant determinant of job performance, it is not the only determinant. There-
fore, organizations should use other valid noncognitive procedures such as
a self-­reported measure of conscientiousness along with an intelligence test
whenever possible. This composite use of predictors will also help reduce the
adverse impact associated with an intelligence test while maintaining its high
validity quite well.

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to see the handsome editor-in-chief. But Max Eastman was seldom
in the office. He usually came in when it was nearly time to make up
the magazine for publication. Then he worked quickly with devilish
energy, sifting and scrapping material, titling articles and pictures.
And the magazine was always out on time. Eastman had a lazy
manner and there was a general idea (which apparently pleased
him) that he was more of a playboy than a worker. But he was really
a very hard and meticulous worker. I know of no other writer who
works so sternly and carefully, rewriting, chiseling and polishing his
phrases.
There were amusing incidents. One day a wild blonde of unkempt
frizzly hair dashed into the office and declared she had an urgent
desire to see Max Eastman. We said he wasn't there, but she
wouldn't believe us. So she went hunting all over the building,
upstairs and downstairs, opening every door and peeping behind
them and even into drawers. Finally she invaded the washroom, and
when she left she locked it up and carried away the key.
But we had more composed visitors, also. Crystal Eastman brought
Clare Sheridan. They were a striking pair to look at. Two strapping
representatives of the best of the American and English types. They
were interesting to contrast, the one embodying in her personality
that daring freedom of thought and action—all that was
fundamentally fine, noble and genuine in American democracy; the
other a symbol of British aristocracy, a little confused by the surging
movement of new social forces, but sincerely trying to understand.
In 1920 Clare Sheridan had accompanied Kamenev, the Bolshevik
emissary in London, to Russia. She was the first woman of the
British aristocracy to visit that country after the revolution. She had
published a series of articles from her diary in the London Times. I
had read them eagerly, for they were like a romance, while I was in
London. Her incisive etchings of the Bolshevik leaders stuck in my
memory. She had summed up Zinoviev, "fussy and impatient, with
the mouth of a petulant woman," and when I went to Russia and met
Zinoviev, each time I heard him prate in his unpleasant falsetto
voice, I thought of Clare Sheridan's deft drawing of him.
Clare Sheridan had a handsome, intelligent and arrogant face. She
was curious about The Liberator, its staff and contributors and free
radical bohemian atmosphere. I asked her why a similar magazine
could not exist in London with the same free and easy intercourse
between people of different classes and races. She said that social
conditions and traditions in London were so different. And I knew
from experience that she was telling me the truth. (She did not know
that I had recently returned from London.)
She said that she would like to sculpt my head. But she never got
around to it. Instead she wrote in her American Diary (after seeing
The Emperor Jones with Crystal Eastman, Ernestine Evans, et al.): "I
see the Negro in a new light. He used to be rather repulsive to me,
but obviously he is human, has been very badly treated.... It must be
humiliating to an educated colored man that he may not walk down
the street with a white woman, nor dine in a restaurant with her.... I
wonder about the psychology of the colored man, like the poet,
McKay, who came to see me a few days ago and who is as delightful
to talk to as any man one could meet...."
Unexpectedly, Elinor Wylie was ushered into my little office one
afternoon. She was accompanied by her sister and I rushed out to
find an extra chair. Mrs. Wylie's eyes were flaming and I was so
startled by her enigmatic beauty and Park Avenue elegance that I
was dumb with confusion. She tried to make me feel easy, but I was
as nervous as a wild cat caught indoors. I knew very little about her,
except that she had published a little book of verse. I had read some
of her pieces in The New Republic, and I remembered one
memorable thing called, "The Lion and the Lamb," which was
infused with a Blakelike imagery and beauty. She promised to send
The Liberator a poem, but I don't think she ever did. Perhaps I did
not show enough enthusiasm. I had no idea, at the time, that I was
speaking to one of the few great women poets of the English
language.
I always felt that the real object of these visits was Max Eastman,
who was an ikon for the radical women. And so I acted like a black
page, listening a lot and saying very little, but gratefully
acknowledging all the gifts of gracious words that were offered to
The Liberator.
Lewis Gannett called one day and invited me to lunch with Carl Van
Doren, somewhere down around Park Row. Mr. Van Doren was then
one of the editors of The Nation. He did most of the talking. He was
very practical-minded in the pleasant canny Yankee way. For one
who was a college professor he was remarkably well informed about
the different phases of American social and industrial life. He said
that the Italians and the Negroes were interesting to him as the two
most special groups of workers in America. He considered the
Italians a hardier and a harder-working group. His idea was thought-
provoking and I was struck by the comparison he made between
Italians and Negroes. It was fresh and novel, especially as Negroes
themselves generally compare their status with that of the Jews. I
thought myself that the comparison frequently made between the
Jewish group and the Negro group was mainly psychological, while
the point that Mr. Van Doren scored was sociological.
One day I had sorted and read until my brain was fagged and I
hadn't found a single startling line. Then I picked up a thin sheaf and
discovered some verses which stimulated me like an elixir. They
were mostly sonnets, a little modernistic, without capitals, a little
voluptuous, yet restrained and strangely precise, with a flavor of
Latin eroticism and decadence. They were signed, E.E. Cummings.
I didn't know anything about the author, but I wrote a note asking him
to come in and see Max Eastman. He dropped by one day, a
stripling in a fawn-colored suit and resembling a fawn, with his head
cocked up to one side and a smile which looked like a curiously-
wrought icicle.
Max Eastman was not in. He had not been in the office since I had
written to the author, nor had he seen the poems. So I talked to
Cummings and dared to argue with him about a couple of the
sonnets. I was particularly excited by one called "Maison." It created
something like an exquisite miniature palace of Chinese porcelain.
The palace was so real that it rose up out of the page, but the author
had also placed in it a little egg so rotten that you could smell it. I
argued about that egg, but Cummings said that that was exactly
what he wanted to do. I understood and apologized.
I wanted to make a spread of the verses in The Liberator, but Robert
Minor was substituting as editor-in-chief that month and he had a
violent reaction against the verses. I remember Minor's saying to me
that if I liked such poems I was more of a decadent than a social
revolutionist. I protested that the verses were poetry, and that in any
work of art my natural reaction was more for its intrinsic beauty than
for its social significance. I said that my social sentiments were
strong, definite and radical, but that I kept them separate from my
esthetic emotions, for the two were different and should not be mixed
up.
Robert Minor said he could not visualize me as a real Negro. He
thought of a Negro as of a rugged tree in the forest. Perhaps Minor
had had Negro playmates like that in Texas and he could not
imagine any other type. Minor himself always gave me the
impression of a powerful creature of the jungle. His personality
seemed to exude a kind of blind elemental brute force. He appeared
to me like a reincarnation of Richard Cœur de Lion—a warrior who
had found the revolutionary road to heaven and who would
annihilate even the glorious ineffectual angels if he found them
drifted and stranded on his warpath.
I kept the Cummings verses for the following month when the
editorship was resumed by Max Eastman. Eastman recognized their
distinctive quality, but not in my enthusiastic way. So we didn't make
a special spread of them as we often did with unusual verse. We
printed a couple or more—but not very prominently.
The delirious verses of the Baroness Von Freytag Loringhoven
titillated me even as did her crazy personality. She was a constant
visitor to see me, always gaudily accoutred in rainbow raiment,
festooned with barbaric beads and spangles and bangles, and toting
along her inevitable poodle in gilded harness. She had such a
precious way of petting the poodle with a slap and ejaculating,
"Hund-bitch!"
She was a model, and in marvelous German-English she said: "Mein
features not same, schön, but mein back, gut. The artists love to
paint it." The Baroness's back was indeed a natural work of art.
One day she entertained me by reading, in her masculine throaty
voice, a poem she called "Dornröschen":
Stab for me
lip set intensity.
press to my bower—
my nook, my core
I wait for thee
numb breathlessly
messir
since yore....
I liked the thing so much, I appropriated it for The Liberator. Down in
Greenwich Village they made a joke of the Baroness, even the
radicals. Some did not believe that she was an authentic baroness,
listed in Gotha. As if that really mattered, when she acted the part so
magnificently. Yet she was really titled, although she was a working
woman. The ultra-moderns of the Village used to mock at the
baroness's painted finger nails. Today all American women are
wearing painted finger nails.
How shockingly sad it was to meet Frau Freytag a few years later in
the Kurfurstendamm in Berlin, a shabby wretched female selling
newspapers, stripped of all the rococo richness of her clothes, her
speech, her personality. She went from Berlin to Paris and death.
Poor brave Baroness von Freytag Loringhoven.

Our bookkeeper was an Englishman named Mylius. He was an


equivocal type, soft and sinister, with a deceptive deferential manner.
Dickens would have found him admirable for the creation of Uriah
Heep. Mylius had won international notoriety as the man who was
prosecuted for libeling His Majesty, King George of England. He had
circulated a story that George V had contracted a morganatic
marriage. Mylius liked to come into my office to talk. He was a
money-fool. He presented me with a copy of a worthless book he
had written called, The Socialization of Money. He seemed to think
that money was entirely the invention of governments and bankers,
an evil thing having no relationship to other commodities. I got it out
of Mylius that his father, who was I believe a Greek Jew, was a
banker and had left him a fortune when he died. And he had
gambled away every penny of that fortune at Monte Carlo.
One day Mylius pushed into my office with a fake frightened
expression. He said there was a criminal-looking man outside who
wanted to see me. I went downstairs and found Michael. I brought
him up to my office. Michael had read in a newspaper that I was
working on The Liberator and he had looked up the address and
called to see me. In two years Michael had changed almost beyond
recognition. The college-lad veneer had vanished. A nasty scar had
spoiled his right eyebrow and his face was prematurely old, with
lines like welts. After I went abroad he had landed a job as a street-
car conductor. He had worked a few months and becoming
disgusted, he drifted back to petty banditry. He was copped and
jailed in a local prison, where he made criminal friends more expert
than himself. Now he was in with a gang.
We chatted reminiscently. I related my radical adventures in London.
I exhibited what I had accomplished by way of literature on the side.
And I presented him with a signed copy of the book. Michael looked
with admiration at the frontispiece (a photograph of myself) and at
me.
"Jeez," he said, "you did do it, all right. You're a bird."
"What species?" I asked.
Michael laughed. "What are you wanting me to say? You are an
eagle?"
"Oh no," I said, "that's a white folk's bird. Blackbird will do."
"There you're starting again," Michael said. "You know I haven't been
in Harlem since you left."
I said that I was living in the same place and invited him to come up.
I told him that my landlord, Mr. Morris, had asked after him.
Michael shook his head. "It ain't like before. I'm in with a rotten gang.
We'se all suspicious of one another. If I came around to see you,
they'd soon get wise to it and want to mess around there, thinking
there was something to make."
I said I wouldn't care, since there was nothing. And knowing them
might be another exciting diversion, I thought.
Michael's face became ugly. "No, you're better off without knowing
that gang. They couldn't understand you like me. They're just no
good. They're worse than me. And lookit that guy what send you out
to me. He was looking at me as if I wasn't human. I know that my
mug ain't no angel's since that wop bastard gashed me, but all the
same I ain't no gorilla."
"Couldn't you find another job and start working again?" I asked.
He shook his head. "It's too late now. I can't get away or escape. I'm
not like you. Perhaps if I had had some talent, like you."
I knew that he was doomed. I had a pocket edition of Francis
Thompson's "Hound of Heaven" on my desk. It was one of my
favorite things. Michael looked at it. I said that Thompson was an
Irish poet.
"I read a lot, whenever I get a chance," he said, "newspapers and
magazines."
I read a little from "The Hound":
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after....
In the rash lustihead of my young powers,
I shook the pillaring hours
And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears,
I stand amid the dust o' the moulded years—
My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap....
I told Michael something of the writer's way of living. And I gave him
the book.
"Can you spare it?" he asked. I said I was always "sparing" books,
dropping them everywhere, because they were too heavy to tote.
"I guess when the gang sees me with these here," said Michael,
"they'll be thinking that I'm turning queer."
As I opened the door to let him out, I saw Mylius acting as if he were
just passing by on the way upstairs to his office. He had been
listening at the keyhole. Michael went on out. Mylius said, "I was
scared he was going to assassinate you in there."
"He isn't a criminal," I said. "He's just an old college friend down on
his luck." Mylius was interested and wanted to talk some more, but I
was seized by such a loathsome feeling for the big white reptile, I
turned my back and shut my door.
I never saw Michael again. Just before I left for Europe the following
year I received a pathetic scrawl informing me that he had been
caught in a hold-up and sentenced to prison for nine years....
THE HARLEM INTELLIGENTSIA
I had departed from America just after achieving some notoriety as a
poet, and before I had become acquainted with the Negro
intellectuals. When I got the job of assistant editor on The Liberator,
Hubert Harrison, the Harlem street-corner lecturer and agitator,
came down to Fourteenth Street to offer his congratulations.
I introduced him to Robert Minor, who was interested in the activities
of the advanced Negro radicals. Harrison suggested a little meeting
that would include the rest of the black Reds. It was arranged to take
place at the Liberator office, and besides Harrison there were Grace
Campbell, one of the pioneer Negro members of the Socialist Party;
Richard Moore and W.A. Domingo, who edited The Emancipator, a
radical Harlem weekly; Cyril Briggs, the founder of the African Blood
Brotherhood and editor of the monthly magazine, The Crusader; Mr.
Fanning, who owned the only Negro cigar store in Harlem; and one
Otto Huiswood, who hailed from Curaçao, the birthplace of Daniel
Deleon. Perhaps there were others whom I don't remember. The real
object of the meeting, I think, was to discuss the possibility of making
the Garvey Back-to-Africa Movement (officially called the Universal
Negro Improvement Association) more class-conscious.
I remember that just as we ended our discussion, Max Eastman
unexpectedly popped in to see how the Liberator office was running.
Jokingly he said: "Ah, you conspirators," and everybody laughed
except Robert Minor. Minor had recently renounced his anarchism
for Communism and he was as austere-looking as a gaunt Spanish
priest.
It was interesting to meet also some of the more conservative Negro
leaders, such as the officials of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People. Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, the author of
The Souls of Black Folk and editor of The Crisis, had me to luncheon
at the Civic Club. Of Dr. DuBois I knew nothing until I came to
America. It was a white woman, my English teacher at the Kansas
State College, who mentioned The Souls of Black Folk to me, I think.
I found it in the public library in Topeka. The book shook me like an
earthquake. Dr. DuBois stands on a pedestal illuminated in my mind.
And the light that shines there comes from my first reading of The
Souls of Black Folk and also from the Crisis editorial, "Returning
Soldiers," which he published when he returned from Europe in the
spring of 1919.
Yet meeting DuBois was something of a personal disappointment.
He seemed possessed of a cold, acid hauteur of spirit, which is not
lessened even when he vouchsafes a smile. Negroes say that Dr.
DuBois is naturally unfriendly and selfish. I did not feel any
magnetism in his personality. But I do in his writings, which is more
important. DuBois is a great passionate polemic, and America
should honor and exalt him even if it disagrees with his views. For
his passion is genuine, and contemporary polemics is so destitute of
the pure flame of passion that the nation should be proud of a man
who has made of it a great art.
Walter White, the present secretary of the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People, possessed a charming
personality, ingratiating as a Y.M.C.A. secretary. One felt a strange,
even comic, feeling at the sound of his name and the sight of his
extremely white complexion while hearing him described as a Negro.
The White stories of passing white among the crackers were
delightful. To me the most delectable was one illustrating the finger-
nail theory of telling a near-white from a pure-white. White was
traveling on a train on his way to investigate a lynching in the South.
The cracker said, "There are many yaller niggers who look white, but
I can tell them every time."
"Can you really?" Walter White asked.
"Oh sure, just by looking at their finger nails." And taking White's
hand, he said, "Now if you had nigger blood, it would show here on
your half-moons."
That story excited me by its paradox as much as had the name and
complexion of Walter White. It seemed altogether fantastic that
whites in the South should call him a "nigger" and whites in the
North, a Negro. It violates my feeling of words as pictures conveying
color and meaning. For whenever I am in Walter White's company
my eyes compose him and my emotions respond exactly as they do
in the case of any friendly so-called "white" man. When a white
person speaks of Walter White as a Negro, as if that made him a
being physically different from a white, I get a weird and impish
feeling of the unreality of phenomena. And when a colored person
refers to Walter White as colored, in a tone that implies him to be
physically different from and inferior to the "pure" white person, I feel
that life is sublimely funny. For to me a type like Walter White is
Negroid simply because he closely identifies himself with the Negro
group—just as a Teuton becomes a Moslem if he embraces Islam.
White is whiter than many Europeans—even biologically. I cannot
see the difference in the way that most of the whites and most of the
blacks seem to see it. Perhaps what is reality for them is fantasy for
me.
James Weldon Johnson, song writer, poet, journalist, diplomat and
professor, was my favorite among the N.A.A.C.P. officials. I liked his
poise, suavity, diplomacy and gentlemanliness. His career reveals
surprises of achievement and reads like a success story. When a
Negro makes an honorable fight for a decent living and succeeds, I
think all Negroes should feel proud. Perhaps a day will come when,
under a different social set-up, competent Negroes will be
summoned like other Americans to serve their country in diplomatic
posts. When that time comes Negroes may proudly cite as a
precedent the record of James Weldon Johnson, Negro pioneer of
the American diplomatic service, who performed his duties
conscientiously and efficiently under unusually difficult conditions.
Jessie Fauset was assistant editor of The Crisis when I met her. She
very generously assisted at the Harlem evening of one of our
Liberator prayer meetings and was the one fine feature of a bad
show. She was prim, pretty and well-dressed, and talked fluently and
intelligently. All the radicals liked her, although in her social viewpoint
she was away over on the other side of the fence. She belonged to
that closed decorous circle of Negro society, which consists of
persons who live proudly like the better class of conventional whites,
except that they do so on much less money. To give a concrete idea
of their status one might compare them to the expropriated and
defeated Russian intelligentsia in exile.
Miss Fauset has written many novels about the people in her circle.
Some white and some black critics consider these people not
interesting enough to write about. I think all people are interesting to
write about. It depends on the writer's ability to bring them out alive.
Could there be a more commendable prescription for the souls of
colored Americans than the bitter black imitation of white life? Not a
Fannie Hurst syrup-and-pancake hash, but the real meat.
But Miss Fauset is prim and dainty as a primrose, and her novels are
quite as fastidious and precious. Primroses are pretty. I remember
the primroses where I lived in Morocco, that lovely melancholy land
of autumn and summer and mysterious veiled brown women. When
the primroses spread themselves across the barren hillsides before
the sudden summer blazed over the hot land, I often thought of
Jessie Fauset and her novels.
What Mary White Ovington, the godmother of the N.A.A.C.P.,
thought of me was more piquant to me perhaps than to herself. Her
personality radiated a quiet silver shaft of white charm which is lovely
when it's real. She was gracious, almost sweet, when she dropped in
on The Liberator. But as I listened to her talking in a gentle
subjective way I realized that she was emphatic as a seal and
possessed of a resolute will.
She told me about her reaction to Booker T. Washington, the
officially recognized national leader of the Negroes. Miss Ovington
had visited Tuskegee informally. Booker T. Washington had
disregarded her, apparently under the impression that she was a
poor-white social worker. When he was informed that she originated
from a family of high-ups, he became obsequious to her. But she
responded coldly. By her austere abolitionist standard she had
already taken the measure of the universally popular and idolized
Negroid leader.
I repeated the story to my friend Hubert Harrison. He exploded in his
large sugary black African way, which sounded like the rustling of dry
bamboo leaves agitated by the wind. Hubert Harrison had himself
criticized the Negro policy of Booker T. Washington in powerful
volcanic English, and subsequently, by some mysterious grapevine
chicanery, he had lost his little government job. He joined the
Socialist Party. He left it. And finally came to the conclusion that out
of the purgatory of their own social confusion, Negroes would sooner
or later have to develop their own leaders, independent of white
control.
Harrison had a personal resentment against the N.A.A.C.P., and
nick-named it the "National Association for the Advancement of
Certain People." His sense of humor was ebony hard, and he
remarked that it was exciting to think that the N.A.A.C.P. was the
progeny of black snobbery and white pride, and had developed into
a great organization, with DuBois like a wasp in Booker
Washington's hide until the day of his death.
And now that I was legging limpingly along with the intellectual gang,
Harlem for me did not hold quite the same thrill and glamor as
before. Where formerly in saloons and cabarets and along the
streets I received impressions like arrows piercing my nerves and
distilled poetry from them, now I was often pointed out as an author. I
lost the rare feeling of a vagabond feeding upon secret music singing
in me.
I was invited to meetings in Harlem. I had to sit on a platform and
pretend to enjoy being introduced and praised. I had to respond
pleasantly. Hubert Harrison said that I owed it to my race. Standing
up like an actor to repeat my poems and kindle them with second-
hand emotions. For it was not so easy to light up within me again the
spontaneous flames of original creative efforts for expectant
audiences. Poets and novelists should let good actors perform for
them.
Once I was invited to the Harlem Eclectic Club by its president,
William Service Bell. Mr. Bell was a cultivated artistic New England
Negro, who personally was very nice. He was precious as a jewel.
The Eclectic Club turned out in rich array to hear me: ladies and
gentlemen in tenue de rigueur. I had no dress suit to wear, and so, a
little nervous, I stood on the platform and humbly said my pieces.
What the Eclectics thought of my poems I never heard. But what
they thought of me I did. They were affronted that I did not put on a
dress suit to appear before them. They thought I intended to insult
their elegance because I was a radical.
The idea that I am an enemy of polite Negro society is fixed in the
mind of the Negro élite. But the idea is wrong. I have never had the
slightest desire to insult Harlem society or Negro society anywhere,
because I happen not to be of it. But ever since I had to tog myself
out in a dress suit every evening when I worked as a butler, I have
abhorred that damnable uniform. God only knows why it was
invented. My esthetic sense must be pretty bad, for I can find no
beauty in it, either for white or colored persons. I admire women in
bright evening clothes. But men! Blacks in stiff-starched white
façades and black uniforms like a flock of crows, imagining they are
elegant—oh no!

X
A Brown Dove Cooing
THE LIBERATOR staff had an extra extraordinary moment one
afternoon when Max Eastman walked in with Charlie Chaplin. The
great little man gave his hand to all of us and touched our hearts.
And after looking over the place he perched like a Puck atop of a
desk.
Chaplin informed me that he liked some of my poems which had
appeared in The Liberator. I was glad, and gave him a copy of
Spring in New Hampshire. In his book, My Trip Abroad, he put this
one, "The Tropics in New York":
Bananas ripe and green and ginger-root,
Cocoa in pods and alligator pears,
And tangerines and mangoes and grape fruit,
Fit for the highest prize at country fairs.

Set in the window, bringing memories


Of fruit-trees laden by low-singing rills.
And dewy dawns and mystical blue skies
In benediction over nun-like hills.

My eyes grew dim, and I could no more gaze;


A wave of longing through my body swept,
And, hungry for the old, familiar ways,
I turned aside and bowed my head and wept.
Chaplin came up to Croton one evening of a week-end when I was
there with Max Eastman, Crystal Eastman, Eugen Boissevain,
Boardman Robinson, and the danseuse, Tamiris. He astounded us
with some marvels of comedian tricks. They were swift and sure like
the sharp lines of Goya. Not a suggestion in them of that clowning
which he uses so lavishly on the screen. With an acute gesture of
hands and feet he performed a miracle. With one flick of his hair and
a twist to his face, his features were entirely translated into another
person's. Deftly manipulating a coat, he transformed his dapper little
self until he looked like a weirdly tall undertaker hanging against the
wall. The only thing of Charlie Chaplin on the screen, which
suggested anything like his magnificent spontaneous personal
appearance that night is the incomparable "Shoulder Arms." Pictures
like "The Kid" and "The Gold Rush" are great, but elaborate and
lavish. "Shoulder Arms" is a feat of rapid economical design, as
startling as the best of Goya's grotesqueries.
Another evening when I was at Croton, Chaplin drove up
unexpectedly. He was accompanied by Neysa McMein, an exotic
person and a fashionable artist. She possessed an archaic beauty
and poise which were strangely arresting in those days when women
were cultivating a more athletic style in beauty. Miss McMein was
very popular among the smart set of New York's literati. She was a
southerner, and she was shocked cold when she realized that I was
a guest and not a servant in Max Eastman's house. I must record to
her honor that she did not precipitate a crisis. She merely acted like
a perfect grande dame who was not amused. But our party was
frost-bitten. It was a relief when she departed.
Some time after, Max Eastman seized an opportunity to read some
of my poems to Miss McMein, without disclosing my identity. She
expressed great appreciation and a desire to buy a book of them.
Max Eastman then revealed that I was the author. She was
surprised. But she did not like the verses any less or the idea of my
equal association with whites any more.
However, I did assist at one unforgettable and uninhibited little-
brown-jug-from-down-home party with Charlie Chaplin. It was in
Greenwich Village at the house of Eugen Boissevain. It was a small
gathering with Max and Crystal Eastman, Dudley Field Malone and
Doris Stevens, a leader of the Woman's Movement, William Gropper,
myself and a couple of others. Charlie Chaplin had met Hubert
Harrison at my office and admired his black Socratic head and its
precise encyclopedic knowledge. He had expressed a desire that
Harrison should be included in the party.
I thought it was a happy idea to have another Negro. Hubert
Harrison asked if I was thinking of taking a colored girl. I said I didn't
think I would, for the only girls in Harlem I knew intimately were
Sanina's maids of honor and I was afraid they wouldn't fit in.
Harrison agreed and I suggested that, as he was acquainted with the
élite of Harlem, he might bring down a beautiful brown. Harrison
promised to do that.
The party was warming up with Jamaica rum cocktails and snatches
of radical gossip when Harrison arrived. Clinging coyly to his arm
was an old brown girl who was neither big nor little, short nor fat, or
anything. Nothing about her was exciting, voice, or clothes, or style
—simply nothing. I was amazed, and wondered why of all Harlem
Harrison had chosen her. If she were his wife or his mistress I could
understand, but the lady herself quickly announced that she was
nothing to Harrison at all. And so she was introduced round the
room. Harrison never explained why he brought that kind of woman.
Erotically he was very indiscriminate and I suppose that descending
from the soap-box, he remembered the party and invited the first
pick-up he met to accompany him.
At this intimate little party there was no white shadow and no black
apprehension, no complexes arising out of conscious superiority or
circumstantial inferiority. We were all in a spirit of happy relaxation,
like children playing merrily together and, absorbed in the games,
forgetful of themselves. Harrison was a little stiff at first with his
starched bosom—his was the only dress suit in the group—but his
simple Sudanese soul soon came up laughing in spite of it.
Suddenly I was excited. I saw Charlie Chaplin hopping from one end
of the room to the other, and I thought he was about to improvise
some treat again, as he had up at Croton. But no, it wasn't that. He
was trying to escape. Harrison's brown dove was fluttering in pursuit
of Chaplin and filling the room with a crescendo of coo-coo-cooing,
just as if she were down home in the bushes. She had at last
discovered that the Mr. Chaplin to whom she had been introduced
was indeed the authentic Charlie Chaplin, lord of the cinema. And
importunately she was demanding his autograph, "so I kin tell it in
Harlem about my adventure."
But Chaplin was determined not to turn our informal little soirée into
an autograph evening. And oh, it was delicious to see the king of the
comics skipping hither and thither and declaring he had no pen. The
brownie flew into the anteroom and returned triumphant with her
vanity case containing card and pencil and announced that she
always kept herself provided with the right things for her customers.
I diverted her attention from her quarry by pouring her a tumbler of
Jamaica rum, and we started a game. Soon the little brown jug was
full and running over and chasing everybody. She said that she was
aware that I was the contact man between Harlem and the Village.
And I felt so flattered to be taken as a sweetman that I tried to imitate
the famous Harlem strut. To Crystal Eastman, who was acting as
hostess and who was as usual distinctively dressed, the brown jug
confided that she would like to exchange visitors between Harlem
and Greenwich Village. And soon she was passing out her cards.
But I noticed that the address was crossed out. She explained that
she was rooming temporarily, but said she would let us have her new
address as soon as she was fixed up. Her last place had recently
been raided by the police!
Well, that was one evening, a surprise party that nobody had
dreamed about, something really different and delightful. Parties are
so often tediously the same thing: swilling and scrappy
unsatisfactory smart talk. I had a good time, which stirred me to
thoughts of Philadelphia when I was railroading. I felt sure that none
of the whites there had ever before had the pleasure of a brown
madam at a bohemian party.
When I told the story of the party to some of the élite of Harlem, I
was simply dumbfounded by their violent reaction. They insisted that
the Negro race had been betrayed, because a little brown jug from
Harlem had provided a little innocent diversion in Greenwich Village.
I didn't know what to say. So I hummed an old delicious ditty of my
pre-blasé period: "Little brown jug, don't I love you...."

XI
A Look at H.G. Wells
WHEN H.G. Wells came over here to the Naval Conference as a
star reporter for the liberal New York World and the neo-Tory London
Daily Mail, his restless curiosity urged him to find time from his
preoccupation with high international politics to bestow a little
attention on The Liberator. Max Eastman had him to dinner at his
home in Greenwich Village, and later there was an informal
reception for the Liberator staff and collaborators.
I had stumbled upon Wells at about the same time that I began
reading Bernard Shaw. While I admired Shaw for the hammering
logic of his prefaces and his sparkling wit, I liked in H.G. Wells those
qualities I like in Dickens—the sentimental serving of his characters
with a vast sauce of provincial humor.
During my residence in London I had followed Wells's popular
Outline of History as it appeared in instalments, and upon returning
to America I read in the published volume the instalments that I had
missed.
If it is worth recording, I may say here that I took a violent prejudice
against Mr. Wells's History. I felt something flippant in the style and I
did not like Mr. Wells's attitude toward colored people in general and
Africa and Negroes in particular. In the League of Free Nations book
he put out in 1918 he said: "Africa is the great source upon which
our modern comforts and conveniences depend.... The most obvious
danger of Africa is the militarization of the black.... The Negro makes
a good soldier, he is hardy, he stands the sea and he stands the
cold...."
I suppose the average white reader will exclaim: "And what's wrong
with that? It is wise and sane and humanitarian." But he should
remember that I am Negro and think that the greatest danger of
Africa is not the militarization of the black, but the ruthless
exploitation of the African by the European. There is also something
to be said in favor of native comforts and conveniences. Before the
arrival of the European with gunpowder the African was accustomed
to protecting his rights with arrow and spear. Now, against modern
civilization, he must needs learn the use of modern methods and
weapons. The liberal apologists of the European grip on Africa may
be very unctious and sentimental about native rights. But the
conditions indicate that if the natives must survive, they must
themselves learn and practice the art of self-protection.
Mr. Wells always seems to be shouting about his unusually scientific
mind. Yet I must confess that I was shocked by the plan of his large
tome outlining world history. Because it appears there as if Africa
and Africans have not been of enormous importance in world history.
Mr. Wells mentions Africa in his language-formation section and
leaves Africa there as if nothing more developed. One learns more of
Africa from earlier historians than Mr. Wells, who did not know so
much about science. Herodotus gives us some remarkable
information that he acquired by traveling four hundred years before
Jesus Christ. And Ptolemy, the Egyptian geographer, has rendered a
remarkable description of Central Africa in the second century after
Christ, although I learned as a school boy that it was discovered by
David Livingstone. And as late as the fifteenth century, in the high
tide of the European renaissance, Leo the African adventured below
the Sahara to give the world historical facts about the Negro nations.
Mr. Wells gives a large outline of the nations of Europe and a not-so-
large one of the nations of Asia. He makes no mention of the great
Negro nations of Western Africa and the Western Sudan before and
after the Moslem invasion; of the Negroid nations of Songhoy and
Ghana, Fezzan and Timbuctu, Yoruba and Benin, Ashanti and
Dahomey, which were arrested in their growth and finally annihilated
by the slave traffic and European imperialism, nor of the Senegalese
who played a dominant part in the history of Morocco and the
conquest of Spain.
Yes indeed, Africa and its blacks are of foundational importance in
the history of the world, ancient and modern, and in the creating of
European civilization. However, Mr. Wells's ignoring of the African
civilizations in his Outline of History may be deliberate. In his
marvelous World of William Clissold, he speculates whether the
Negro could participate in "common citizenship in a world republic."
Says he: "The Negro is the hardest case ... yet ... in the eighteenth
century he was the backbone of the British navy...." It is entirely too
funny to think—seven years after the appallingly beastly modern
white savagery of 1914-18—of Mr. Wells naïvely wondering whether
the Negro is capable of becoming a civilized citizen of a world
republic. He cites the precedent of Negroes in his British navy. He

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