Core negative self-evaluations discriminating accepted and rejected candidates to main aviation specializations

Abstract

The aim of this study was the preliminary validation of a new questionnaire set, which is planned to measure coherently negative aspects of individual‘s personality. The core negative self-evaluations questionnaire set is comprised of five different types of questionnaires with 16 subscales of measures of Attention (internal and external hindrances of attention and attention control), Control (external control and planning-type of control), Self-esteem (negative self-esteem, responsibility, psychopathy and narcissism), a longer measure of Narcissism (in 4 subscales), visual analogue scale for anxiety and state-trait anxiety questionnaires. To estimate the validity and usefulness of the core negative self evaluations measures we attempted to differentiate between accepted and rejected applicants to the Estonian Aviation Academy using the scales and subscales described. These categories of applicants could be differentiated by their score on all three attention scales, external locus of control, negative self-esteem, responsibility, psychopathy, three narcissism subscales and state- trait anxiety scales. The proposed core negative self-evaluations construct showed higher potential in differentiating between accepted and rejected candidates than all cognitive tests and had comparable differentiation power of a five factor personality trait questionnaire.