Robert Hogan (psychologist)

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Robert Hogan is an American psychologist known for his innovations in personality testing, and is an international authority on personality assessment, leadership, and organizational effectiveness.

Hogan earned a Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley. He was McFarlin Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at The University of Tulsa for 17 years. Prior to that, Dr. Hogan was Professor of Psychology and Social Relations at Johns Hopkins University. He has received a number of research and teaching awards, and is president of Hogan Assessment Systems based in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Hogan's work in personality measurement is distinctive as it is theory based. He has contributed to the development of socioanalytic theory, which maintains that the core of personality is based on evolutionary adaptations. Humans, in this view, always live in groups and groups always demonstrate status hierarchies. This in turn leads to two further generalizations: people are motivated to get along with other group members but also to get ahead (to enjoy the perquisites of status). Hogan, an iconoclastic observer of American psychology, maintains that personality is best examined from the perspective of the observer (reputation) rather than the actor (a person's identity). As a consequence, Hogan has insisted that personality tools should be evaluated in terms of how well reputations (defined on personality tests) predict behavior on the job and in relationships.

Hogan is the author of more than 300 journal articles, chapters and books. His book, "Personality and the Fate of Organizations," was published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates in June 2006. The 167-page book offers a systematic account of the nature of personality, showing how to use personality to understand organizations, to staff teams, and to evaluate, select, deselect and train people. He is the co-editor of the Handbook of Personality Psychology, and has published the Hogan Personality Inventory [1], the Hogan Development Survey [2],the Motives Values and Preferences Inventory [3] and the Hogan Business Reasoning Inventory [4], as well as the Hogan Guide (2007).

In 1994 he was one of 52 signatories on "Mainstream Science on Intelligence," an editorial written by Linda Gottfredson and published in the Wall Street Journal, which defended the findings on race and intelligence in The Bell Curve. ^[1]

Hogan is widely credited with demonstrating how personality factors influence organizational effectiveness in a variety of areas - ranging from organizational climate and leadership to selection and effective team performance. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Society for Industrial/Organizational Psychology.