Simon M Breil

• Dr.
• University of Münster

Social skills (e.g., persuading others, showing compassion, staying calm) are of key importance in work and education settings. Accordingly, the goal of many selection processes is to identify candidates who excel in desired skills. For this, high-fidelity simulations such as assessment centers (ACs) are regarded as ideal procedures because they ca...

States refer to our momentary thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Average states (aggregates across multiple time points) are discussed as a more accurate and objective measure of personality compared to global self-reports since they do not only rely on people’s general beliefs about themselves. Specifically, Finnigan and Vazire (2018) argued that,...

Although the behaviors displayed by assessees are the currency of assessment centers (ACs), they have remained largely unexplored. This is surprising because a better understanding of assessees’ behaviors may provide the missing link between research on the determinants of assessee performance and research on the validity of performance ratings. Th...

Social skills are of key importance in everyday and work life. However, the way in which they are typically assessed via self-report questionnaires has one potential downside; self-reports assess individuals’ global self-concepts, which do not necessarily reflect individuals’ actual social behaviors. In this research, we aimed to investigate how se...

Social skills (e.g., assertiveness, empathy, ability to accept criticism) are essential for the medical profession and therefore also for the selection and development of medical students. However, the term “social skills” is understood differently in different contexts. There is no agreed upon taxonomy for classifying physicians’ social skills, an...

Although Assessment Center (AC) role‐play assessments have received ample attention in past research, their reliance on actual behavioral information is still unclear. Uncovering the behavioral basis of AC role‐play assessments is, however, a prerequisite for the optimization of existing and the development of novel automated AC procedures. This wo...

Although Assessment Center (AC) role-play assessments have received ample attention in past research, their reliance on actual behavioral information is still unclear. Uncovering the behavioral basis of AC role-play assessments is, however, a prerequisite for the optimization of existing and the development of novel automated AC procedures. This wo...

Situational Judgement Tests (SJTs) are popular to screen for social skills during undergraduate medical admission as they have been shown to predict relevant study outcomes. Two different types of SJTs can be distinguished: Traditional SJTs, which measure general effective behavior, and construct-driven SJTs which are designed to measure specific c...

Objectives: Situational Judgement Tests (SJT) are a cost-efficient method for the assessment of personal characteristics (e.g., empathy, professionalism, ethical thinking) in medical school admission. Recently, complex open-ended response format SJTs have become more feasible to conduct. However, research on their applicability to a German context...

Background The qualities of trainees play a key role in entrustment decisions by clinical supervisors for the assignments of professional tasks and levels of supervision. A recent body of qualitative research has shown that in addition to knowledge and skills, a number of personality traits are relevant in the workplace; however, the relevance of t...

This study generates new insights on the role of initial impressions in assessment centers. Drawing from the “thin slices” of behavior paradigm in personality and social psychology, we investigate to what extent initial impressions of assessees—based on different slices of assessment center exercises (i.e., two minutes at the beginning, middle, and...

Human resource (HR) professionals regularly draw personality inferences from applicants' resumés. Building on the lens model, we illuminate resumés' potential for accurately inferring personality by examining valid resumé cues indicating personality. We assessed self-reported big five traits and narcissism of 141 business students at career start a...

To what extent do individuals differ in understanding how others see them and who is particularly good at it? Answering these questions about the “good metaperceiver” is relevant given the beneficial outcomes of meta-accuracy. However, there likely is more than one type of the good metaperceiver: One who knows the specific impressions they make mor...

A large body of research suggests that extraversion is positively related to well-being. However, it is unclear whether this association can be explained by social participation (i.e., more extraverted individuals engage in social interactions more frequently) or social reactivity (i.e., more extraverted individuals profit more from social interact...

To what extent do individuals differ in understanding how others see them and who is particularly good at it? Answering these questions about the “good meta-perceiver” is relevant given the beneficial outcomes of meta-accuracy. However, there likely is more than one type of the good meta-perceiver: one who knows the specific impressions they make m...

A large body of research suggests that extraversion is positively related to well-being. However, it is unclear whether this association can be explained by social participation (i.e., more extraverted individuals engage in social interactions more frequently) or social reactivity (i.e., more extraverted individuals profit more from social interact...

Contingencies between situational variables and psychological states have been proposed as key individual difference variables by many theoretical approaches to personality. Despite their relevance, the basic properties, nomological correlates, and factor structure of individual differences in contingencies have not been examined so far. We address...

Social skills are of key importance in everyday and work life. However, the way in which they are typically assessed via self-report questionnaires has one potential downside; self-reports assess individuals’ global self-concepts, which do not necessarily reflect individuals’ actual social behaviors. In this research, we aimed to investigate how se...

Background Social skills are important for future physicians and are therefore increasingly considered in selection processes. One economic assessment method from which different social skills can be inferred are Situational Judgment Tests (SJTs) in which applicants are asked to rate behavioral responses in context-relevant situations. However, tra...

Social skills are important for future physicians and are therefore increasingly considered in selection processes. One economic assessment method from which different social skills can be inferred are Situational Judgment Tests (SJT) in which applicants are asked to rate behavioral responses in context-relevant situations. However, traditional SJT...

Although the behaviors displayed by assessees are considered to be the currency of assessment centers (ACs), they have remained largely unexplored. This is surprising because a better understanding of assessees’ behaviors may provide the missing link between research on the determinants of assessee performance and research on the validity of perfor...

States refer to our momentary thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Average states (aggregates across multiple time points) are discussed as a more accurate and objective measure of personality compared to global self-reports since they do not only rely on people’s general beliefs about themselves. Specifically, Finnigan and Vazire (2018) argued that,...

In press: Technology, Mind, and Behavior: Our first impressions of the people we meet are the subject of considerable interest, academic and non-academic. Such initial estimates of another’s personality (e.g., their sociality or agreeableness) are vital, since they enable us to predict the outcomes of interactions (e.g., can we trust them?). Nonve...

Our first impressions of the people we meet are the subject of considerable interest, academic and non-academic. Such initial estimates of another’s personality (e.g., their sociality or agreeableness) are vital, since they enable us to predict the outcomes of interactions (e.g., can we trust them?). Nonverbal behaviors are a key medium through whi...

In this chapter, we present variants of Brunswik’s lens model aimed to understand whether, when, and why trait judgments are more or less accurate. After outlining the basic concepts of lens models, we describe exemplary studies which have applied the lens model to unravel personality expression and impression formation processes that lead to more...

In this chapter, we summarize research on nonverbal expressions of behavior (nonverbal cues) and how they contribute to the accuracy of personality judgments. First, we present a conceptual overview of relevant nonverbal cues in the domains of facial expressions, body language, paralanguage, and appearance as well as approaches to assess these cues...

Social skills (e.g., persuading others, showing compassion, staying calm) are of key importance in work and education settings. Accordingly, the goal of many selection processes is to identify candidates who excel in desired skills. For this, high-fidelity simulations such as assessment centers (ACs) are regarded as ideal procedures because they ca...

People’s general tendencies to view others as cold-hearted and manipulative (rather than affectionate and trustworthy) may explain defection in social dilemma situations. To capture idiosyncratic tendencies in other-perceptions, we collected mutual judgments in groups of unacquainted individuals in two studies (N1 = 83, N2 = 413) and extracted perc...

Background: One popular procedure in the medical student selection process are multiple mini-interviews (MMIs), which are designed to assess social skills (e.g., empathy) by means of brief interview and role-play stations. However, it remains unclear whether MMIs reliably measure desired social skills or rather general performance differences that...

One popular procedure in the medical student selection process are multiple mini-interviews (MMIs), which are designed to assess social skills (e.g., empathy) by means of brief interview and role-play stations. However, it remains unclear whether MMIs reliably measure desired social skills or rather general performance differences that do not depen...

In this chapter, we summarize research on nonverbal expressions of behavior (nonverbal cues) and how they contribute to the accuracy of personality judgments. First, we present a conceptual overview of relevant nonverbal cues in the domains of facial expressions, body language, paralanguage, and appearance as well as approaches to assess these cues...

Who experiences certain life events and how are these life events perceived by the people experiencing them? According to previous research, there is a reciprocal influence between life events and the Big Five personality traits. The present study aims to explore the effects of personality on the occurrence and perception of life events during youn...

Our personalities (who we are) influence our social relationships (how we relate to people around us), and our social relationships influence our personalities. However, little is known about the specific processes underlying the complex interplay of personality and social relationships. According to the PERSOC framework, the identification of unde...

Sources and domains of multimethodological assessments in PILS and CONNECT. (DOCX)

Overview of assessed variables in PILS and CONNECT. (DOCX)

Overview of assessed life events in CONNECT. (DOCX)

What predicts sociable behavior? While main effects of personality and situation characteristics on sociability are well established, there is little evidence for the existence of person-situation interaction effects within real-life social interactions. Moreover, previous research has focused on self-reported behavior ratings, and less is known ab...

Here, we provide you with the preprint and with supplemental material (R-Codes) to the manuscript "Explaining the Longitudinal Interplay of Personality and Social Relationships in the Laboratory and in the Field: The PILS and the CONNECT Study" by Geukes, Breil, Küfner, Hutteman, Nestler, & Back (under Review). If you like to get in contact with us...

Lievens calls for more integration of behavioral assessment procedures developed in selection research, Situational Judgment tests and Assessment Centers, into contemporary personality psychology. We agree and describe three exemplary fields of application: the better understanding of behavioral preferences and expectancies, the investigation of si...

Here, we provide you with supplemental material (additional tables, data, R-Codes) and a Preprint to the manuscript "Zooming into Real-Life Extraversion - How Personality and Context Shape Sociability in Social Interactions" by Breil et al. (under review). Abstract:What predicts sociable behavior? While main effects of personality and situation cha...