Behavioral compliance is an overarching dimension that includes five dimensions of personality after Model of the Big Five (McCrae & Costa, 1987) summarizes. Behavioral conformity is therefore a general factor of personality (Musek, 2007). It describes a person's tendency to be more likely Socially compliant and to behave in accordance with a social ideal instead of unconventional and to react inappropriately and swim against the tide (Van Der Linden et al., 2010).

Whereas it was previously assumed that the unconventional versus socially compliant forms of behavioral conformity Create a pair of opposites and a person can be clearly assigned to one of the two categories, is what you can see today unconventional and Socially compliant than two poles of a continuum the behavioral compliance dimension. The value of each person can therefore be located at one point on the following scale:

Unconventional

For people who rather unconventional Behavior and even deviate in their behavior from the socially defined standard image, the following characteristics, for example, are characteristic:

• skeptical
• sorrowful
• based on facts

More unconventional people can, due to their tendency to Challenge conventions once in a while and to cross borders, bring in a new perspective. They can do this in particular in activities in which many different perspectives are beneficial and can therefore avoid problems such as groupthink, for example in science.

Socially compliant

People who more socially compliant Behavior and almost always conform to the socially defined standard image can be described with the following characteristics:

• open-minded
• Not to disturb
• sympathetic

People who are more socially compliant are very good at to behave in accordance with social ideals. Especially for jobs involving customer contact or representing the company to the outside world, such as in Sales or as Press spokesperson This is desirable, as they give a good impression and will only rarely be annoying.

Benefits in a professional context

Die best cast For a vacancy depends not only on a person's conduct compliance, but also on the Characteristics of the vacancy. However, applicants who are more socially compliant often have an advantage in traditional testing methods. Due to their adaptability, they are particularly effective in social interactions (e.g. Dunkel & Van Der Linden, 2014). This can lead to incorrect adjustments in jobs for which a more unconventional person with their unique perspectives would be far more suitable. With personality diagnostics, you can therefore Reduce the risk of misstaffing and at the same time achieve a higher diversity Worry at work!

How do you record behavioral compliance?

Do you want to record the conduct of your applicants? Aivy We are happy to help you with this!

Our mini game “Self-knowledge” offers users the opportunity to brief self-assessment find out their individual value. This not only covers behavioral compliance, but also the five dimensions of the Big Five:

• Extraversion
• Openness to experience
• Emotion control
• conscientiousness
• tolerability

Sources

• Dunkel, C.S., & Van Der Linden, D. (2014). Evidence for the general factor of personality as social effectiveness. Personality and Individual Differences, 64, 147—151.
• McCrae, R.R., & Costa, P.T. (1987). Validation of the five-factor model of personality across instruments and observers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52 (1), 81.
• Musek, J. (2007). A general factor of personality: Evidence for the big one in the five-factor model. Journal of Research in Personality, 41 (6), 1213—1233.
• Van Der Linden, D., Te Nijenhuis, J., & Bakker, A.B. (2010). The General Factor of Personality: A Meta-Analysis of Big Five Intercorrelations and a Criterion-Related Validity Study. Journal of Research in Personality, 44 (3), 315—327.

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