Compass Consulting

23rd Annual SIOP

Peter attended the 23rd Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) in San Francisco in  April 2008. The four days of intensive workshop and symposia activities, as well as numerous individual presentations and papers, provided a great opportunity to keep abreast of trends as well as develop professional networks. This annual conference attracted 3,000 attendees, confirming its status as the pre-eminent I/O conference globally.

Highlights included the following:

• Invited address by Dr Paul Eckman: Emotional skills. An interesting presentation on micro facial expressions and how we can be trained to recognise and interpret these in others . Dr Eckman indicated that he has refused to conduct work for the Chinese government and some influential American politicians who were seeking guidance in masking such expressions! Instead, Dr Eckman tends to work for law enforcement agencies (eg FBI).
• Panel discussion: International perspectives on the legal environment for selection. At least 12 countries were covered, including Australia.
• The opportunity to attend several presentations discussing personality assessment and the ongoing debate regarding the extent and impact of 'faking' on questionnaires. This is a topic that does not go away - see the White Paper, Personality at Work , on the Compass Consulting website.
• Participation in two workshops: Doing competencies well in applied settings (Dr Michel Campion and two practitioners) and The impending workforce crisis (Dr. Wayne Cascio).
• Viewing and discussing some interesting posters presented by both young and experienced academics. It was good to see some practical studies using 'real world' data. One interesting paper (Personality and CWB: narrowing the profile of deviant employees by Lisa Penney of University of Houston) demonstrated that 'Consientiousness' is not always good. Individuals high on this construct, but low on Emotional stability and Agreeablenes, were more likely to display 'interpersonal deviance'. Whilst intuitively many practitioners have been  aware of this phenomenon (that rule bound and inflexible work colleagues who are lacking in emotional control and concern for others are abrasive, intolerant and unreasonable), it is good to see research confirming our thoughts. For further information on the Big 5 constructs, please see the White Paper, Personality at Work , on the Compass Consulting website.
  
  

There were also many opportunities to attend evening social functions and to participate in the annual SIOP fun run over 3 miles. Peter intends to train before next year's run in New Orleans!

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