Proactive Personality and the Expanded Criterion Domain of Performance: Predicting Academic Citizenship and Counterproductive Behaviors

We examined proactive personality as a noncognitive predictor of outcomes in an expanded criterion domain that included in-role performance, citizenship behaviors, and counterproductive behaviors. Our findings indicate that proactive personality predicts both citizenship and counterproductive behaviors in an academic setting. Importantly, these results were observed after accounting for the effects of traditional cognitive predictors of student performance (i.e., high school grades and standardized test scores). These findings have implications for institutions that define "success" beyond grades and are looking to improve their selection process while avoiding some of the pitfalls of cognitive ability testing.