Putting situations into personality assessments: Problems and potential

Contextualizing personality assessments to involve observing behaviour within situations where specific behaviours and outcomes are to be observed has been shown to enhance validity. We therefore agree with Lievens’s endeavour to demonstrate how contextualizing assessments in personality psychology can be expanded outside the workplace. However, this can also limit predictions when there are even small differences in situational demands or inaccuracies in specifying those demands. Additional methods of assessing personality through observer ratings at work and biographical questionnaires are discussed in terms of advantages for explaining behaviour.