Rater Personality, Rating Format, and Social Context : Implications for Performance Appraisal Ratings

This study investigates the effects of rater personality (Conscientiousness and Agreeableness), rating format (graphic rating scale vs. behavioral checklist), and the rating social context (face-to-face feedback vs. no face-to-face feedback) on rating elevation of performance ratings. As predicted, raters high on Agreeableness showed more elevated ratings than those low on Agreeableness when they expected to have the face-to-face feedback meeting. Furthermore, rating format moderated the relationship between Agreeableness and rating elevation, such that raters high on Agreeableness provided less elevated ratings when using the behavioral checklist than the graphic rating scale, whereas raters low on Agreeableness showed little difference in elevation across different rating formats. Results also suggest that the interactive effects of rater personality, rating format, and social context may depend on the performance level of the ratee. The implications of these findings will be discussed