Predicting Law Enforcement Officer Job Performance With the Personality Assessment Inventory

Abstract

This study examined the descriptive and predictive characteristics of the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI; Morey, 1991) in a sample of 85 law enforcement officer candidates. Descriptive results indicate that mean PAI full-scale and subscale scores are consistently lower than normative community sample scores, with some exceptions noted typically associated with defensive responding. Predictive validity was examined by relating PAI full-scale and subscale scores to supervisor ratings in the areas of job performance, integrity problems, and abuse of disability status. Modest correlations were observed for all domains; however, predictive validity was moderated by defensive response style, with greater predictive validity observed among less defensive responders. These results suggest that the PAI's full scales and subscales are able to predict law enforcement officers’ performance, but their utility is appreciably improved when taken in the context of indicators of defensive responding.

Acknowledgments

This research was supported in part by Sara E. Lowmaster's appointment to the Student Research Participation Program at the U.S. Army Public Health Command (Provisional) administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education through an interagency agreement between the U.S. Department of Energy and USAPHC (Prov).

Notes

^a N = 85.

^a N = 85.

^a n = 29. ^b n = 56.

^a n = 29. ^b n – 56.

An alternative approach to examining moderation effects is the use of continuous variable interaction terms in hierarchical regression analyses. We repeated the PIM moderation analyses utilizing this approach. Consistent with the threshold correlation analyses, when examining PIM as a moderator using hierarchical regression, 28 significant interactions were found with R ² change values ranging from .046 to .253.

Tables are available from the corresponding author on request.