Key digested message This article briefly summarises the results of a study into the relationship between an individual’s perception of their own levels of psychological safety and workplace factors (work-related stress, role clarity, autonomy, job satisfaction, intention to leave one’s job, perceived organisational performance) and personality type. The study looked at psychological safety not only as one overall factor, but also at perceived psychological safety in relation to different sources (co-workers, manager, the organisation as a whole) and different constructs (e.g. feeling valued and respected, and interpersonal trust).
Key digested message The first instalment of the ADM series ‘Heroes, landmarks and blind alleys in personality assessment’ appeared in the Summer edition 2014 (Vol. 6, 2, pp.16–18) and ended in 2016 with Vol. 8, 3, pp.24–29 followed by a postscript Vol. 8, 4, pp.16–20. A digest of the series is ‘A history of personality assessment’ (McCredie. 2024). Ten years on from the original series, the author explores whether any developments of significance have occurred. The current article explores a keynote theme of the decade, personality and social media, while a second will explore a range of other emergent connections with personality psychometrics.
Key digested message The prevalence of misogynistic narratives on digital platforms has become a significant issue, raising concerns about online safety, gender equality, and the role of social media in shaping societal attitudes. This article explores the various manifestations of online misogyny, its impact on women and society, the role of social media platforms and strategies to combat it.
Key digested message False information is one of the greatest challenges of our time: affecting public health, political processes, and societal trust. With the shift from traditional media to online platforms, individuals are increasingly responsible for discerning truth from misinformation. While technological and regulatory measures help, empowering people with critical digital literacy may be the most effective defence against the rapid spread of false content.
Key digested message Trad wife is shorthand for traditional wife, which is a lifestyle that has gained online traction over the last decade through different social media platforms. Trad wives differ from housewives through their ideology. Trad wives hold strict archetypal gender roles, they support the patriarchy and submit to their husbands. They commodify far-right politics and disseminate sexist and racist rhetoric veiled by images of romantic domestic life. Furthermore, trad wives encourage the inequalities and behaviours which can lead to gender-based violence (GBV), such as condoning the punishment of wives by their husbands and encouraging wives to be subservient to their husbands. They do this through biblical justification. The trad wife movement works against women’s equality and safety and puts women at risk from harm.
Key digested message Having only ever known a digitally connected world, emerging adults have differing perceptions of online communication compared to adults. With the majority of university students worldwide being aged 18–24 years, they are categorised as emerging adults and are dealing with the transition to university within a developmentally sensitive stage of life. How effectively students self-disclose to staff online can shape the response from staff (Hayes et al., 2024) and this may impact their mental health and wellbeing. Current research considering university students’ online self-disclosure behaviours is limited, but that which does exist predominantly utilises measures that are not accurately operationalised. The OSDEP Scale (Hayes & Murniece, 2024) is the first quantitative measure operationalised specifically to explore university students’ online self-disclosure behaviours within an online educational context. Findings from future research that use the OSDEP Scale (Hayes & Murniece, 2024) will be more accurate and applicable to the university experience.
Key digested message This article draws on a number of research studies to understand the links between social media use and Myers-Briggs (MBTI) personality type.
Key digested message Knife crime in the UK has risen by 80% in the last ten years. There has also been a huge increase in knife-related media and social media coverage. The media often promotes knife-related violence to try and deter young people from carrying a knife. Studies have shown that social media platforms that show knife imagery in their ‘anti-knife campaigns’ do not always stop young people from carrying them. It captures their attention, and they often become de-sensitised to violence involving knives and sharp instruments. Small disputes can turn into real-world violent acts, as seen in real-life cases such as the murder of 13-year-old Olly Stephens in 2021, which was orchestrated by three teenagers via social media. Research suggests that social media platforms may facilitate the spread of violent content, often without regulation. Social media algorithms amplify engagement with knife-related content, which then causes harmful exposure to knife-related violence online for young people. There is an urgent need for better social media regulations to moderate online violence and stop young people from engaging and becoming de-sensitized to violence. Addressing this issue is detrimental in reducing the normalisation of knife crime.
Key digested message Group ‘764’ targets minors to extort them into creating child sexual abuse material, self-harming, and other nefarious activities. This article utilises seven posts from open-source Reddit data, to examine children’s and young peoples’ experiences of 764. The harm posed has been labelled as sadistic, involving blackmail and stalking. The comments revealed that perpetrators specifically target vulnerable minors, who are witnesses to and forced to engage in animal torture, self-harm, and child sexual abuse material, to name a few. These groups operate across servers and platforms designed for children, including Discord, Minecraft and Roblox, and social media sites such as Telegram. Research and action are vital to understand the risks posed to children on these platforms and prevent harm.
Key digested message The internet affords individuals the opportunity to engage in conversation with others from vastly different and distant cultures via countless social media sites. While this serves as one of the major positives of the internet, it can also facilitate discussions and behaviours that are harmful. Specifically, there exist corners of the social media site Instagram where harmful suicide-based content is posted, featuring images pertaining to non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) that receive substantial traction in the form of likes and comments. Additionally, social media sites have also been a host to suicide ‘challenges’ where victims are instructed to harm themselves in specific ways before ultimately taking their own lives. Researchers have found that content supportive of the ‘Blue Whale Challenge’ (BWC), the most prominent example of an online suicide challenge, has spread to a substantial number of countries. While research has suggested that there is a vast amount of harmful suicide-based content hosted on social media sites, there is contrasting evidence that highlights the positive resources on various social media sites, such as support forums for those struggling with suicidal ideations. The role that social media plays in suicide-based content is not black-and-white and should be expanded upon through future research.
Discussions and statistics on stalking perpetration and victimisation indicate that most stalking victims are female, while most perpetrators are male. Research on the influence of gender in perceptions of stalking suggests that males are typically less sympathetic towards victims than females. Specifically, studies show that males experience less subjective fear for stalking victims and are more likely to attribute blame to the victim compared to females. This may be explained by the different roles with which each gender tends to identify. Research suggests that males are more likely to identify with perpetrators of stalking, whereas females are more likely to identify with victims. These patterns are largely consistent with findings on juror decisions in mock trials involving stalking cases, where female participants are more likely to deliver guilty verdicts than male participants. However, some studies challenge these generalisations, suggesting that our understanding of gendered perceptions and juror decision-making in stalking cases is more nuanced. This literature review will briefly explore both areas: how males and females perceive stalking offences, and how these perceptions influence their decisions in mock jury trials.
This article explores the personality traits that can potentially derail public sector Chief Executives (CEOs), using data from the Hogan Development Survey (HDS). It aims to understand which behaviours correlate with leadership success or failure in the public sector. Notably, nearly half of the CEOs assessed exhibited no high-risk derailers, indicating a high degree of stability and consistency in their leadership profiles. When compared to global and private sector benchmarks, public sector CEOs appear to be less susceptible to derailment. Among those who did present high-risk derailers, the most common was imaginative, highlighting a tendency toward curiosity and agility – qualities that, while valuable, may lead to impracticality if not well-managed. Additionally, high bold emerged as significantly more prevalent among unsuccessful candidates, suggesting that overconfidence and resistance to feedback may be detrimental to securing public sector CEO appointments.
This paper explores the relationship between the Dark Triad (DT) and emotional intelligence (EI). DT represents a cluster of socially aversive personality traits that have profound implications for organisational behaviour and interpersonal dynamics. The paper reveals a nuanced and counterintuitive relationship between the Dark Triad and EI, with both conflict and strategic alignment depending on context. We cover recent research on a meta-analysis on the links between DT and EI and on EI as an important moderator of DT behaviour. We finally recommend that those with high DT scores should develop their EI.
Key digested message This special issue of Assessment and Development Matters considers the ways in which social media technology is relevant to the use of applied psychological tests and assessments. This article looks specifically at ways in which social media technology may influence practices in the area of organisational assessment. It addresses personnel selection and looks at the implications of social media on test use more widely, with five key issues explored: the widespread use of social media by applicants and recruiters in early-stage selection; the evidence around the reliability and validity of organisational assessments of social media information in selection; practices that add structure to the assessment of social media information, and the central role of psychometrics; ethical concerns and applicant reactions to use of social media in selection; and the future role of machine learning.
Research has highlighted the importance of early numeracy for later academic achievement. Understanding the role of early numeracy requires reliable measures that are appropriate for the age group. However, there is inconsistency in assessing early numerical skills, and many studies fail to report measurement reliability. In the current study, we designed a battery of measures to assess multiple numerical skills and tested 84 children aged 3 to 4 years twice, to establish test-retest reliability. Overall, we found these tasks were quick to administer and highly reliable, except for the non-symbolic comparison task, suggesting that they could be used to reliably assess children’s early numerical skills.
The fascination with sex offenders and paedophiles is not new, nor is the widespread concern about potential threats lurking in parks or online chatrooms. The phenomenon of ‘paedophile hunters’ is well known in the UK, Europe, and the US. These groups use tactics to publicly expose online groomers and sex offenders. While research has explored the impact of such groups on the criminal justice system and its practitioners, little attention has been paid to public perceptions of paedophile hunters and the potential effects of dehumanisation associated with their actions. This exploratory study used an online quantitative design involving the D3-Short, Basic Empathy Scale, Moral Disengagement Measure, vignettes, and related questions. Spearman’s rho correlations and Kruskal-Wallis H tests were performed. Several significant correlations were found between scale scores and vignette responses. These findings suggest important avenues for further investigation into the psychological and societal impacts of this controversial phenomenon.
The true power of a diagnostic report lies not in identifying needs, but in crafting clear, personalised, and actionable recommendations that respond to the child’s full context (child, classroom, and community). These recommendations should be specific, realistic, and rooted in both assessed need and practical understanding, serving as a catalyst for meaningful change. In a time-poor system, the assessor’s responsibility is to make every word count.
This is the second instalment updating the original series which appeared in ADM between 2014-2016 (later digested in McCredie, 2024a). The first instalment covered the interface between personality measures and social media. This article looks at inferencing of psychological dispositions from behaviours, personality beyond self-report questionnaires and the issues of brain biology, mental health and neurocognition, and volitional personality change.
