Favoriser l’appropriation comportementale de la rétroaction en évaluation du potentiel : le rôle du soutien social, du contenu de la rétroaction et des techniques du conseiller axées sur le développement

The psychological characteristics that predict behavior and job performance, as assessed by an individual psychological assessment (IPA), have been the subject of a large number of studies. These studies have influenced the importance given to certain characteristics by I/O psychologists qualified to conduct this type of assessment (Morris, Daisley, Wheeler, & Boyer, 2015). However, little is known about the psychologists’ practices when providing feedback following an IPA and the behavioural effects of feedback on the participants returning to work. According to Plunier (2012), only 20% of the latter modify their behaviour and undertake developmental actions in the direction of the feedback received, regardless of the assessment context and the recommendation that results (Boudrias, Bernaud, & Plunier, 2014). A question arises: under what conditions does IPA feedback promote behavioural integration among participants? This dissertation aims to document certain conditions that maximize the behavioural integration of feedback, operationalized by behavioural changes and engagement in developmental activities. A set of conditions and variables is added to the feedback integration model proposed by Boudrias et al. (2014). Theses variables, discussed in two empirical articles, are the psychologists’ techniques focused on the development, the social support for development from a significant individual (e.g. supervisor, colleague, family member) perceived by the participants as well as the number and difficulty of the competencies to be improved. In the first article, relying in particular on the theory of goal setting (Locke & Latham, 1990), we postulate that the psychologists’ techniques focused on the development (Lessard, 2019) will predict the participants’ motivational intention to change. It is expected that the intention will in turn predict behavioural integration (Boudrias et al., 2014), but that this relationship will be moderated by social support for development. Theses hypotheses were verified with 240 participants in a real IPA context using structural equation modeling. The results show that the motivational intention to change mediates the relationship between the psychologists’ techniques and social support, while social support mediates the relationship between motivational intention and developmental activities. One possible explanation is that seeking social support is a learning strategy used by participants who want to change (Haemer, Borges-Andrade, & Cassiano, 2017). The goal setting theory (Locke & Latham, 2015) suggests that there will be an interaction between the difficulty of the competencies to be improved and the number of competencies targeted during the feedback. In the second article, we test the hypothesis that this interaction will predict the motivational intention to change in the direction of feedback and the behavioural integration of feedback. To do this, we performed moderated hierarchical regression analyses on a sample of 65 participants for which we analyzed IPA reports specifying the targeted competencies in the feedback. The results show that the relationship between developmental difficulty and intention is positive when the feedback provider addresses three deficient competencies or fewer. The relationship between developmental difficulty and developmental activities is positive when the feedback provider presents only one deficient competency while it is negative when the provider presents nine deficient competencies. The theoretical contribution of each of the articles as well as the practical avenues for intervention arising therefrom are discussed separately and taken up in an overall conclusion. Limits and proposals for future research are also discussed in this last section.

Keyphrases: behavioural integration, feedback, motivational intention, social support, feedback techniques, developmental difficulty, number of competencies, professional development, behavioural change, individual psychological assessment