Development of a personality-based measure of integrity

Abstract

The present study intended to develop a theoretically driven, personality-based measure of integrity based on previous research that found the strong relationship between a composite of conscientiousness, agreeableness, and emotional stability with integrity (Ones, Viswesvaran, & Schmitt, 1993). Ten items were drawn from an existing personality inventory (i.e., the Trait-self descriptive personality inventory; TSD-PI) used by the Canadian Forces (CF). Confirmatory factor analysis supported a stable three-factor structure for the scale with items corresponding to the three personality factors. The scale related to the Honesty-Humility scale of the HEXACO-PI (Lee & Ashton, 2004) and was unrelated to organizational commitment (Meyer & Allen, 1991). Hierarchical regression analyses provide evidence that the integrity scale predicts counterproductive work behaviour and job performance on the Basic Military Qualification course, over and above the 'Big 5' factors of the TSD-PI. Implications for use within the CF, study limitations, and direction for future research are discussed.