Concurrent validity study of the conditional reasoning test - workplace psychopathy : subclinical psychopathy, integrity, workplace deviance, and other professional outcomes in the Canadian military

Abstract

A concurrent validity study was conducted using the Conditional Reasoning Test for Workplace Psychopathy (CRT-WP), with a sample of military members within the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). The CRT-WP is a newly developed implicit measure of subclinical psychopathy which has shown resistance to impression management (Cook & Roulin, 2021). Higher levels of psychopathy in the workplace have been associated with adverse outcomes such as toxic leadership, bullying, negative employee wellbeing as well as many other harmful consequences (Boddy, 2014). The criteria that were assessed against the CRT-WP were integrity (via personality factors), counterproductive work behaviour, transformational leadership and organizational citizenship behaviour.<br> The CRT-WP was found to relate with personality and behavioural factors relevant to integrity which were in line with tendencies typically observed in those higher in psychopathy. It was also able to predict acts of counterproductive work behaviour and abuse. It should be noted that all observed significant relationships achieved small effect sizes. Most notably the CRT-WP displayed incremental validity over integrity measures being investigated within the Canadian Military, in assessing workplace deviance and abuse and was deemed to be important in predicting abusive workplace behaviours. The results of this study give more support for the CRT-WP’s viability in selection settings as this implicit measure has shown promise to predict abusive acts, conduct associated with many detrimental impacts for employees.