Development of Indirect Measures of Conscientiousness: Combining a Facets Approach and Network Analysis

Because indirect measures of personality self-concepts such as the Implicit Association Test (IAT) allow tapping into automatic processes, they can offer advantages over self-report measures. However, prior investigations have led to mixed results regarding the validity of indirect measures of conscientiousness. We suggest that these results might be due to a failure to consider the different facets of conscientiousness. These facets are of crucial importance because they are associated differentially with other psychobiological constructs and they are also characterized by different mechanisms. Therefore, focusing on facets while developing indirect measures of conscientiousness may improve the validity of such measures. In Study 1, we conducted a psycholexical investigation to develop one IAT for each conscientiousness facet. In Study 2, we examined the convergent and discriminant validities of each facet IAT in relation to self-report measures, peer-report measures and self-report behavioural indicators, and we investigated differential associations of the conscientiousness facets with working memory capacity and self-control. We employed network analysis as a novel approach to elucidate differential relationships involving personality facets. The results corroborated the convergent and discriminant validity of the conscientiousness facet IATs with self-reports and showed that the conscientiousness facets were differentially associated with working memory capacity and with self-control.