EXTRAVERSION AS A SOURCE OF BIAS IN PERFORMANCE APPRAISALS

EXTRAVERSION AS A SOURCE OF BIAS IN PERFORMANCE APPRAISALS

Master thesis, MSc, Human resource management University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business

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EXTRAVERSION AS A SOURCE OF BIAS IN PERFORMANCE APPRAISALS

ABSTRACT

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INTRODUCTION

A person with an extravert personality is often seen as the ideal candidate for a job. Even in the ICT and financial sector, companies seem to prefer employees with an extravert personality. One might wonder why companies are so interested in the more extroverted employees. Is it essential for an accountant, who mostly works independently, to be very outgoing and assertive, in order to be considered as an excellent accountant? Susan Cain (2012), author of the book ‘The power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking’, claims that in Western society, people favor extrovert personality traits (what she refers to as ‘extrovert bias’), while introvert personality traits are often undervalued. According to Susan Cain, there is a negative social stigma against introversion. In previous research this so called ‘extrovert bias’ has been studied in work related settings, like job interviews.

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Performance appraisal systems have a very big influence on the behavior, performance and morale of employees. It plays an important role in the allocation of incentives and the opportunities for development and promotion of employees within an organization. Performance appraisal also influences the quality employees in an organization (Rynes, Gerhart, & Parks, 2005). Performance appraisal focuses both on assessing competencies and obtaining, developing and employing workers with specific knowledge and skills. This ensures the employee qualitatively suits the job description (Youndt, Snell, Dean, & Lepak, 1996). Performance appraisal is used to provide current employees with feedback about several activities, with the aim of developing competencies, improving performance and allocating rewards to high performing employees (Grote, 2000). Performance appraisal systems are thus very important for the survival and competiveness of a business. Appraisal systems have to be fair in order to recruit and retain valuable employees. Therefore it is important that these systems are objective, unbiased and rational (Poole & Jenkins, 1997).

Current literature does not provide information which could explain the relationship between extraversion and appraisal (Kanfer et al. 2001). A possible explanation for the bias towards extraversion can be found in the literature about stigmatization.

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on the work floor and to prevent negative consequences of this bias from affecting individuals and organizations.

This thesis contributes to the literature about performance appraisal, focusing on the effects of extrovert personality traits in performance appraisal. This study will both cover the literature about performance appraisal and literature about the effects of stigmas. Previous research concerning this topic focused on pregnancy bias (Halpert, Wilson, & Hickman 1993), the stigma of obesity in performance appraisal (Bento et al. 2012) and finally gender and age biases (Mobley, 1982). Nevertheless, there is a gap in the research concerning the field of personality traits.

This study will address the following research question:

“Is performance appraisal positively biased towards employees with an extrovert personality due to a positive stigma towards extroverts?”

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

The term personality is often described as the set of traits, relatively permanent individual characteristics, which makes everyone unique (Lakshmi, 2008). During the last decades, the big five model of personality (also referred to as the five factor model) has been stressed by

numerous trait theorists (McCabe & Fleeson, 2012). The model of Digman (1990) is one of the most used big five model. His model encompasses neuroticism, extroversion, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness. Caldwell & Burger (1998) investigated the relationship between the big five personality traits and success in job application interviews. Caldwell & Burger (1998) discovered that applicants with the personality traits ‘extraversion’ and ‘conscientiousness’ are more likely to be invited for a second job interview. This study supports Susan Cain’s (2012) claim of bias in employee hiring and performance appraisal in favor of extroverted employees.

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extroverts, introverts are described as people who are more likely to withdraw themselves from stimulating situations and emotional conflicts. Persons with an introvert personality prefer to work alone instead of in groups (Lakshmi, 2008).

In this research the term extraversion refers to the definition formulated by Eysenck (1947). He described extraversion in a broad sense as ‘sociability’. Eysenck measures the dimensions on a continuum with introvert and extrovert as two extremes. Extraversion is a personality spectrum and many, known as ‘ambiverts’, fall in the gap between extraversion and introversion (Walsch, 2012). Compared to introverts, extroverts are more talkative, assertive, outgoing. Furthermore, extroverts are highly social, gregariousness and prefer to work in groups. In contrast to introverts, extroverts are also more in need of external stimulation and prefer to be surrounded by others.

In this research paper the term ‘stigma’ will be used as formulated by Goffman (1963). Goffman described stigma as the discrepancy between a person’s actual identity and the expectation from others of what this persons in situations should be like (virtual social identity). This discrepancy between actual and virtual social identity can trigger several biased, incorrect attitudes in the perceiver. This phenomenon is called ‘prejudice’ which is a negative evaluation of an individual or a negative appraisal of a community which is, to a large extent, founded on the person’s relationship with a group (Crandall and Eshleman, 2003). For example, weight stigma that involves discrimination or stereotyping regarding people’s weight. Roehling (1999) found that people who are overweight are assumed to be sluggish, clumsy, think slower, are less intelligent and less skilled compared to people with a healthy weight. Stigmatization is context-specific, which means that a trait could be stigmatized in one condition, but considered a positive characteristic in another condition (Paetzold et al. 2008). Stereotypes can occur when perceivers believe that some traits are very characteristic for a specific group and the members of that group. Most stereotypes are negative, improper and overgeneralized (Stangor, 2009). Stereotypes and prejudice can eventually lead to discrimination (Stangor, 2009).

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mean that the introverted employee never wants to work with others. Introverts are perfectly capable of working with others, but will need some time to ‘reset’ themselves after intensive contact with others (Cain, 2012). Socially preferred behavior may not match with typical introvert behavior, but this does not mean that someone with an introverted personality can’t acquire the competencies in order to become a successful employee or even a successful leader (Kello, 2012).

So how does extraversion relate to performance appraisal? When someone is very outgoing and conversational, this is often associated with positive emotional states which are related to a fortunate evaluation by the employer (Caldwell & Burger, 1998). Tziner, Meir, & Segal (2002) conducted research on military jobs and found that personality is connected to the performance as assessed by supervisors. Tziner et al. (2002) suggest that extroverts receive a better performance evaluation, because they are better able to ‘show’ their achievements to their supervisors and possess more skills in generating a favorable impression. As will be stated later on in the hypothesis, extraversion is expected to be better reviewed on performance appraisal as a result of positive stigma towards extraversion. The subject of stigma against introversion will be discussed below.

According to Kello (2012) introversion is often confused with social phobia and shyness. Introversion and extraversion are often overgeneralized (Kello, 2012). Introversion is often only associated with negative characteristics such as shyness, while the strong competencies like analytical thinking are neglected. Extraversion, on the other hand is solely associated with positive properties such as assertiveness and being outgoing (Turban, Stevens, & Lee, 2009). According to Goffman (1963) the negative evaluation of introversion can be described as prejudice, because people make a negative judgment about introversion without taking all the facts into consideration. Prejudice eventually leads to stigmatization, which is the discrepancy between a person’s actual identity and the expectation from others of what this person in situations should be like (Goffman, 1963). The negative stigma against introversion can mean that introverted people are viewed unsuited for certain job positions.

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(2012) illustrates this with studies that have shown that “positioning introverts in leading positions may be particularly effective for activities such as brainstorming, because the introverted leader have more tendency to step aside to enable the good ideas to come through” (Morrish. 2012, p. 46). Nevertheless most job descriptions for these kinds of leadership positions do request extroverted employees, even though research shows that introverts may be equally qualified for doing the job. According to Susan Cain, this request for extroverted leaders proves that there is a subtle bias against people with an introvert personality, which causes a waste of talented employees (Cain, 2012).

Within a performance appraisal, the actual performance of an employee has to be interpreted by someone who has to rate the performance. When two people act the same, this can be interpreted in a different ways when one of the two individuals is part of a stigmatized minority. (Dovidio, Gaertner, Anastasio, & Sanitioso 1992). According to Weiner (1995) behavior and performance of people who are part of a stigmatized minority can be attributed to other causes and positive outcomes have a tendency to be reduced. Bento et al. (2012) claimed that assessors will appraise in favor of non-stigmatized workers. According to this literature the following hypotheses are formulated:

Hypothesis 1. Someone with an extrovert personality will receive a better review on performance appraisal compared to someone with an introvert personality.

Hypothesis 2. This effect only occurs when there is a negative stigma against introversion.

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METHODOLOGY Participants and recruitment

80 participants (mean age = 23,7 years, standard deviation of age = 6,9 years, 35 female and 45 males) were recruited to participate in this experiment. Participants were recruited at the Rijksuniversteit Groningen between 5 April 2013 and 20 April 2013. Dutch speaking students and staff members of the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen were randomly selected and asked to voluntary participate in an experiment lasting 10 minutes on a laptop.

Before the experiment started, the participants were informed about the procedure. Participants were told that the aim of this study was to investigate whether performance can be evaluated based on watching a short movie. First, participants read a description about a hypothetical person and after that, participants watched a short movie. Subsequently, each participant had to answer a series of questions about the performance of this hypothetical person. After completing the questionnaire, participants were asked to answer a manipulation check. Participants who failed to pass the manipulation check were excluded from further analyses.

Research design

This study was cross sectional and used a between subjects design. In order to test the hypotheses, an online experimental design with two groups (introvert vs. extrovert) as the ‘between subject variables’ was executed. The experimental setting allowed us to keep the hypothetical person’s performance (dependent variable) constant while manipulating the personality traits (independent variable) of the hypothetical person.

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Table 1 Overview of the Composition of the Data Sets in the introvert and extrovert group

Group N Gender Mean age

Standard Deviation age

Introvert 40 20 males / 20 females 22,13 2,0

Extrovert 40 25 males /15 females 25,2 9,3

Procedure

The experiment consisted of two parts and was conducted on a computer. First, the participants were required to enter an identification code (ID). This ID consisted of the first letter of the participants’ first name, the first letter of the participants’ surname and the year of birth of the participants’ mother. An introductory text explicitly guaranteed the privacy of the participants’ answers and explained that their ID’s would only be used to combine the individual results from the two different parts of the experiment.

Participants were asked to read some background information about a hypothetical person (in the experiment this person was called person “X”). One half of the participants read about person “X”, described according to Eysenck’s (1947) characteristics of an introvert personality. The other half of the participants read some background information about person “X” described as an extrovert according to Eysenck’s (1947) characteristics of an extrovert. Subsequently the participants were asked to evaluate the performance of the person based on a 90 seconds movie1 where person X performs an anagram task on a tablet computer. In the literature anagrams (the rearrangement of a mixed up group of letters into new words) are considered as a gender-neutral task (Gilbert & Thompson, 1999). Therefore, an anagram task was chosen for this study, because it was important that the task executed in the movie was not typically associated with introverts or extroverts.

In order to evaluate the performance of person X, participants were asked to respond to three questions using a 9-point Likert scale. Questions assessing the performance appraisal of person X were as followed: (1) The overall performance in solving this anagram is very good. (1= completely disagree; 9 is completely agree); (2) Person X found a lot of words during this short period of time. (1= completely disagree; 9 is completely agree); (3) Person X is very good in solving word anagrams. (1= completely disagree; 9 is completely agree).

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Cronbach’s Alpha was used to test the internal consistency. The variables are reliable when Cronbach’s Alpha is 0.70 or higher. Cronbach’s alpha for the dependent measures assessing the performance appraisal of person X was 0.892.

The second part of the experiment was a ‘poststimulus experiment’. To test whether the participants are biased towards extraversion, an implicit association test (IAT) was developed. The IAT is an instrument that is often used to investigate bias, prejudice and implicit preferences (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998). “IAT is used to indirectly measure the attitudes and associations between attitude objects and positive or negative valence”. (Franziska Meissner & Klaus Rothermund, 2013, p. 45)

The IAT consisted of a total of five rounds. These five rounds are summarized in table 2.

Table 2 Sequence of trial block in extraversion IAT

Block

No. of

trials Function Items assigned to left key response

Items assigned to right key response

1 20 Practice Pleasant words Unpleasant words

2 20 Practice Extrovert words Introvert words

3 20 Test Extrovert words + pleasant words Introvert words + unpleasant words 4 20 Practice Unpleasant words Pleasant words

5 20 Test Extrovert words + unpleasant words

Introvert words + pleasant words

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“good/extrovert” or “bad/introvert”. The fourth round was the same as the first round but “good” now appeared in the right edge of the screen and “bad” on the left edge of the screen. The fifth round was the same as the third round, only the combinations of the two categories were different.

If a person for example is prejudiced towards extraversion, this participant is likely to categorize the words faster when extrovert and good are combined (Fazio, Sanbonmatsu, Powell, Kardes, 1986).

The IAT scores range between -2 and +2. The cutoff points of this scale are based on the scale of Greenwald, Nosek & Banaji (2003) and are .15 for a slight preference, .35 for moderate preference and .65 for strong preference.

Control variables

For this study the control variables age, gender and educational background were included. After completing the actual experiment, participants were asked to enter their age and gender and educational background. The scale for educational background consisted of: 1=High school; 2=MBO; 3=HBO; 4=WO Bachelor; 5=WO Master and 6=PhD

RESULTS

In this chapter the results of the experiment will be described. First the manipulation check will be discussed in order to check whether the manipulation was successful. Respondents who failed to pass the manipulation check were excluded from the experiment/study. Subsequently the IAT scores, assessing the possession of a positive stigma towards extraversion, will be discussed. Finally, the statistical results of the data will be presented to test the hypothesis.

Manipulation check

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respondents were excluded from further analyses. 89 participants were recruited to participate in this experiment. After the exclusion of the 9 respondents, the results of the 80 remaining respondents were used for further analyses. Thus, 90% of the respondents answered the manipulation check correctly. Although the manipulation check did not have a 100% score, the constructs of introversion and extraversion seem to be correctly described.

Stigma

An interaction effect was expected between personality and a positive stigma towards extraversion on performance appraisal, as was formulated in hypothesis 2. To test this hypothesis, the scores on the IAT test were analyzed. The IAT scores are visualized in table 3. Results from the IAT showed that 58.8 percent of the respondents were at least slightly biased towards extraversion and 45% of the respondents were moderately or strongly biased towards extroverts. Only 7.5% of the respondents had moderate or strong a preference towards introverts.

Table 3 IAT scores

Bias Percentage

Strong preference towards introverts 2.5% Moderate preference towards introverts 5% Slight preference towards introverts 12.5%

No preference 21.2%

Slight preference towards extroverts 13.8% Moderate preference towards extroverts 25%

Strong preference towards extroverts 20%

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equally sized groups. The weaknesses of using a median split procedure in this research are the fact that the median score (.33) is above the half of the original IAT scale. Consequently the terms ‘high’ and ‘low’ are not the correct representations for both categories. Due to the median split procedure, the category ‘high’ extraversion consisted respondents who were moderately or strongly preferred towards extroverts. Subsequently respondents who have a slight preference towards extroverts are labeled as ‘low extraversion’, even though they are slightly biased towards extraversion.

A median split procedure was favored for this study because in this case the groups were large enough to give enough statistical power. A last weakness of median split procedures is the loss of variance which subsequently reduces the statistical power and squared correlations (Cohen, 1983).

Statistical analyses

To test whether the variance was normally distributed and homogeneous in both groups, the skeweness and kurtosis were calculated. The skewness and kurtosis values for the variable which represent the performance appraisal score were: skewness= -0.103 and kurtosis= -0.975. The normal distribution assumption becomes unreliable when these values exceed either -1 or 1. Because the skewness and kurtosis values are within this range, it is assumed that data is normally distributed.

In table 4 descriptive statistics (means and standard deviations) and correlations of the variables (including control variables) are visualized. There is a positive significant correlation between personality (introversion and extraversion) and performance appraisal (table 4: r=.34, p<.01). This result indicates that there is a main effect for personality (independent variable) on performance appraisal (dependent variable).

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Finally there is a positive significant correlation between educational background and gender (table 4: r=.27, p<.05) and a negative significant correlation between educational background and age (table 4: r=-.23, p<.05). However, these results are not relevant for this study and therefore not taken into account for further analysis.

Table 4 Descriptive statistics and correlations

Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 1. Performance appraisal 5.20 1.65 1.00 2. Stigma 1.50 .50 -.04 1.00 3. Gender 1.44 .50 .04 -.18 1.00 4. Personality 1,50 .50 .34** .10 -.13 1.00 5. Age 23.66 6.86 .271* .00 .04 .225* 1.00 6. Educational background 3.54 1.33 -.121 .10 .27* -.18 -.23* 1.00 **=p<.01; *=p<.05

An analysis of variance (ANOVA) with personality and stigma as factors and performance appraisal as dependent variable was conducted to test the hypotheses. The results of the ANOVA on performance appraisal are visualized in table 5.

A main effect was expected of personality (independent variable) on performance appraisal (dependent variable) such that the introvert personality is rated lower than the extrovert personality. Although this main effect is expected, it is hypothesized that the different scores in performance appraisal will be moderated by an interaction of a stigma (the moderator).

First the mean scores between the introvert group and extrovert will be compared. The performance appraisal score is the dependent variable and personality is the independent variable. The results were tested by comparing the means using a significance level of α=0.05. A significance level of .05 percent was chosen as a being an acceptable chance. This implies that the finding has a five percent (.05) of being false, which is the opposite of a 95% chance of being correct.

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means between the respondents with a high and low stigma, within the introvert and extrovert group, using a α=0.05 significance level.

Table 5 Results of analysis of variance of performance appraisal

Source SS df F p

Main effect of personality 26,140 1 10,495 0,00*

Main effect of Stigma

Two way interaction between personality x stigma

1,140 0,192 1 1 0,458 0,077 0,50 0,78 *p<.05 Test of hypothesis

First, hypothesis 1 “Someone with an extrovert personality will receive a better review on performance appraisal compared to someone with an introvert personality” was analyzed. In order to test Hypothesis 1, we examined the main effect for personality (independent variable) on performance appraisal (dependent variable). People who read an extrovert profile reviewed the performance markedly better (Table 6: M=5.76, SD= 1,54) compared with people who read an introvert profile (Table 6: M= 4,63, SD = 1,58; Table 5: F(1,76= 10,495, p<0,05).

These mean scores are results from a 9-point Likert scale whereas a higher mean score indicates a better review.

Levene’s test for equality of error variances gave a p-value of 0.587. This insignificant p-value indicates that the variance is equal (homogeneous).

The difference between the mean scores of the manipulation groups (whether person “X” is introvert or extrovert) is significant (R2=.12, p<.05). These results indicate that introverts are more negatively evaluated than extroverts. An R square value of .12 indicates that 12% of the variance in mean scores is explained by the difference between extraversion and introversion. This result confirms that there is relationship between extraversion and performance appraisal. Hypothesis 1 is accepted because within this experiment, someone with an extrovert personality receives a better review on performance appraisal compared to someone with an introvert personality.

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Therefore it is tested whether there is an interaction effect of stigma moderating the relationship between personality and performance appraisal.

The mean scores for low and high stigmas within the introvert and extrovert group are presented in Table 6. The interaction between personality and stigma was not statistically significant (Table 5: F(1,76)= 0,077, p>0,05). Therefore, Hypothesis 2 was not supported.

Table 6 Means within manipulation group of people with a high or low stigma

Manipulation group Stigma H/L n Mean s.d.

Introvert Low Stigma 22 4,70 1,69

High Stigma Total 18 40 4,56 4,63 1,49 1,58

Extrovert Low Stigma 22 5,94 1,35

High Stigma Total 18 40 5,61 5,76 1,70 1,54

Results of control variables

The regression analyses shows that there is a positive significant relationship between age and performance appraisal (table 7: β=.27, p<.05) indicating that an older appraiser is more likely to give a higher performance appraisal score.

Table 7 Regression analyses of control variables with performance appraisal as dependent variable

Control variable Beta R square

Age .27* .07

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DISCCUSSION

The aim of this section is to provide an answer to the research question; “Is performance appraisal positively biased towards employees with an extrovert personality due to a positive stigma towards extroverts?” In this chapter the findings from the experiment will be discussed. A comparison will be made between the practical and theoretical implications of this study and other studies in this field. Subsequently the limitations of this research will be examined as well as unanswered questions by means of directions for future research.

Findings

The aim of this study was to check whether personality affects performance appraisal scores, and to test whether differences in performance appraisal scores could be explained by the interaction effect between personality and a positive stigma towards extraversion.

As predicted the performance of the extrovert (Table 6: M=5,94, SD=1,35) was significantly better evaluated compared with the introvert’s performance (Table 6: M=4,70, SD = 1,58, Table 5, F(1,76= 10,495, p<0,05). This result supports the claim of Susan Cain (2012) that within performance appraisal extroverted employees are evaluated more positively compared to introverted employees. These finding also support the first hypothesis; “Someone with an extrovert personality will receive a better review on performance appraisal compared to someone with an introvert personality”. Thus the outcomes of the experiment point out that personality can be a source of bias in performance appraisal.

In this study an interaction effect between personality and the possession of a positive stigma towards extraversion was expected. In contrast to the expectations, the second hypothesis “This effect only occurs when there is a negative stigma against introversion” did not reach the significance level (Table 5: F(1,76)=0,077, p>.05). Therefore hypothesis two was rejected based on the findings of this study. Even though the results from our measurement of stigma (table 3) indicate that 45% percent of the respondents are moderately or even strongly biased towards extroverts, we did not find significant evidence that differences in performance appraisal can be explained by the interaction effect between personality and stigma.

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‘introvert’ and ‘extrovert’ were self-constructed based on Eysenck’s (1947) description of introversion and extraversion. Therefore further research is needed in order to create a more valid and reliable instrument to measure stigma towards extraversion. Further limitations of the IAT will be discussed in the ‘study limitations and strengths’ paragraph.

Theoretical implications

This study about the effects of personality on performance appraisal combines both the existing literature about appraisal systems and the current knowledge about stigmatization and biases. Knowledge was available about biases in performance appraisal in the field of stigmas towards obesity (Bento et al. 2012), race (Hamner, Kim, Baird and Bigones, 1974) and pregnancy (Halpert et al. (1993). Turban et al. (2009) studied the effects of extraversion in job interviews. The effect of personality stigmas within performance appraisal processes was an underexplored area of research. This study supports the study of Tziner et al. (2002) who already found evidence that extroverts receive higher performance evaluation compared to their introvert coworker in the military. The present study is also consistent with meta-analystic research of Hurtz and Donovan (2000) who also discovered a difference in performance appraisal between introverts and extroverts.

The present study expanded upon the results of Tziner et al. (2002) by adding stigma as a moderator in order to explain the difference in performance appraisal between introverts and extrovert. This study however failed to support the hypothesis that these differences are due to a stigma ((Table 5: F(1,76)=0,077, p>.05). Therefore, further research in order to explain the differences in performance appraisal between introverts and extroverts is necessary.

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are associated with extraversion like sociability and openness to experience may also be determinants for the difference in performance appraisal. Therefore further research it is suggested to study the effects of other personality characteristics, or the interaction between different personality characteristics on performance appraisal.

Practical implications

This research did not find a moderation effect of stigma on the relationship between personality and performance appraisal. However, extroverts were significantly better evaluated than extroverts. A study of Caldwell and Burger (1998) shows that personality and especially extraversion plays a decisive role within the hiring decision making process, so this may also be the case in performance appraisal processes. If the person who is charged with the development and appraising of employees appraises the performance of introverts significantly lower compared to extroverts, this can eventually lead to lower promotion changes, pay increases and reduced incentives for introverted employees (Polinko and Popovich, 2001). Incorrect and unfair performance appraisal systems are perceived as frustrating for employees (Mulvaney, McKinney & Grodsky, 2012). On the other hand, a performance appraisal system which is perceived as fair eventually leads to acceptance and understanding of the evaluation which subsequently leads to higher motivation and performance (Mulvaney et al. 2012).

Therefore, organizations that execute performance appraisals should be aware that personality traits may influence the objectivity of performance evaluations. In addition, it is recommended that people who are charged with the appraising, development and hiring process of employees are trained to reduce stereotyping against certain personality traits. According to Bell, McLaughlin and Sequirea, (2002) organizations already provide diversity training to their decision makers, but these trainings are solely targeted for traits like gender and race, and disregard personality traits.

Appraisers can be trained in order to improve absolute and relative judgments (so called ‘reference trainings’) (Bento et al. 2012).

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variety of situations which makes it possible to observe more authentic behavior; (2) because peer ratings are conducted by multiple people the reliability and validity of the performance evaluation is enhanced; (3) If some individuals possesses a stigma which influences the objectivity of the performance appraisal, this may be cancelled out due to the number of appraisers participating in the performance appraisal process.

A third interventions to reduce errors in performance appraisal systems are written evaluations whereas the attainment of predetermined goals determines the height of the rewards and the performance appraisal score (Bento et al. 2012).

All three types of interventions would make the appraisal process more objective and reduces the negative effects of personality stigmas and other forms of stigma and stereotyping (Bento et al. 2012). Studies and solutions targeting sources of stereotyping, bias and prejudice in the process of performance appraisal would eventually improve organizational performance.

Study limitation and strengths

This study gives insight into the influence of personality on performance appraisal and the interaction effect of personality and stigma towards extraversion. This experiment is probably one of the first experiments in which the possible moderation effect of stigma on the relationship between personality and performance appraisal was tested. It is however important to acknowledge the limitations of this research. First, one should be cautious when generalizing the results to a naturalistic environment. In this research, the participants only read a hypothetical profile and were only asked to evaluate a single performance. The naturalistic environment could be a performance appraisal of an employee within an organization. An experimental design was chosen to enhance the internal validity. The experimental design allowed us to change the personality of the person (independent variable) while we were able to keep the performance (dependent variable) of the hypothetical person constant. As a consequence, as much as possible extraneous variables were excluded. In order to expand the external validity, a direction for further research would be to conduct the same sort of experiment, but instead of appraising a hypothetical person a real life person could be evaluated.

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is arguable that the type of participants could be adjusted from a population with a majority of students towards a population with respondents who are more familiar with evaluating and appraising others. Age had a significant effect on performance appraisal score (table 7: β=.27, p<.05), meaning that the older the appraiser, the higher the performance appraisal score. Therefore it is possible that a sample of older and more experienced appraisers may lead to different results. Also, there was an unequal distribution of age between the introvert and extrovert group (table 4: r= -.225, p<.05). If older appraisers give higher performance appraisal scores, these unequal distribution of age may have affected the outcomes.

A last point of interest is the possible lack of reliability concerning the IAT. Some researchers tout the practical usefulness of the implicit association test which was used to determine whether respondents are biased towards extraversion. Researchers have different opinions about the validity and reliability of the IAT. One of the most important critiques on IAT is that it is claimed that persons who retake the test end up with different scores each time they take the test. This would imply a low test-retest reliability. Additionally some researchers stated that the scores of the IAT are mainly the result of the participant’s lack of cognitive capability to notice that the categories changed in the fifth round of the experiment. This eventually leads to incorrect scores, because these differences in scores are not due to the possession of a stigma.

Destinations for further research

Although present study was not able to find an interaction effect between stigma and personality on performance appraisal, literature suggests that extraversion is a powerful predictor for the success in job interviews (Dunn et al., 1995; Turban et al., 2009 & Donovan and Hurtz, 2002). In this experiment, the objective performance of both the introvert and the extrovert person was equal. However, the performance of the extrovert person was significantly better evaluated. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct further research in this area in order to explain the differences in performance appraisal between introverts and extroverts. According to research of Turban et al. (2009), Tziner et al. (2002) & Kanfer et al. (2011) there are still reasons to believe that the objectivity of performance appraisal is biased due to a stigma on personality. Therefore it is recommended to study the moderating effect of stigma in another setting.

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introvert profile triggered negative emotions towards the person they had to evaluate. Vice versa, respondents who viewed an extrovert profile possibly triggered positive emotions towards the person they had to evaluate. Subsequently there is a chance that these negative emotions biased the performance appraisal process. This theory implies that the differences in performance appraisal caused by emotions of the appraiser which causes the appraiser to form certain expectations and impressions of extroverted and introverted people, causing possible prejudice and stigma. Forgas (1992) hypothesizes that the relationship between personality traits and performance appraisal is moderated by the emotions of the appraiser. Research of Forgas (1992) indicates that emotions are an important determinant in the creation of impressions. Emotions sometimes even overrule the role of cognitions within the process of impression formation. Once a particular person noticed a characteristic (e.g. extraversion) of another person, emotions towards this person will be created.

Another possible explanation for the difference in performance appraisal scores between the extrovert and the introvert group can be found in research of Hamner et al. (1974). Their study about race and sex as determinants for performance appraisal indicated that black supervisors are more likely to appraise black subordinates better than white subordinates do and vice versa. To study whether the personality of the appraiser moderates the relationship between personality of the person who is being evaluated and performance appraisal scores, it is recommended to extend future studies by adding the personality of the appraiser as a variable. Thus letting introvert and extrovert appraisers rate the performance of introverted and extroverted employees.

Conclusion

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27 APPENDIX A

DESCRIPTION OF SUBJECTS IAT TEST

Introvert words Extrovert words

Weloverwogen

Prefereerd om alleen te werken Risicomijdend

Krijgt energie van alleen zijn Sensitief

Bedachtzaam Beschouwend

Energie naar binnen gericht

Spraakzaam Assertief Expressief

Energie naar buiten gericht Prefereerd werken in groepen Risconememd

Impulsief Actie-gericht

Good Words Bad words

28 APPENDIX B

DESCRIPTION OF INTROVERT AND EXTROVERT PERSON

B1 Description of extrovert person Persoon "X"

Dit is persoon "X". Persoon X is expressief, spraakzaam en erg assertief. Verder is deze persoon actie gericht en op zoek naar gezelschap en heeft de voorkeur om in een groep te werken in plaats van alleen. Tenslotte is de energie van deze persoon naar buiten gericht, neemt hij/zij veel risico's en is impulsief in het maken van beslissingen.

B2 Description of introvert person Persoon "X"