Brian Connelly is a tenured Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resources Management in the Department of Management at the University of Toronto Scarborough. He holds a cross-appointment to the Organization Behavior and HR area at the Rotman School of Management.

Prof. Connelly's research examines how organizations can best use personality measures to solve workplace challenges, particularly in employee selection and development. In current and on-going research, he has used personality ratings from others (e.g., one’s peers, friends, or family) to study the limitations of self-knowledge, how first impressions are formed, the way people “fake” personality measures and the structure of personality.

Prior to coming to the University of Toronto, he was an assistant professor in the University of Connecticut's psychology department, in the industrial/organizational psychology area (2008-2010).
 

PhD, University of Minnesota

BA, Emory University

Prof. Connelly teaches courses in managing groups and managing individuals. In class, he pairs classic lecture approaches with opportunities for students to apply that knowledge to real-life organizational problems through projects, activities and class discussions. His favorite aspect of his discipline is that it draws on intriguing theories about what drives human behavior, but at the end of the day, research in his field has an important take-home message for what organizations should do.

Prof. Connelly's research focuses on the theory, measurement and application of personality within an organizational context. He draws on and applies personality theory to improve functioning in the workplace, recognizing that findings from this research are equally relevant for informing personality theory. His main research goals are to refine existing taxonomies of personality traits, to study who is the best judge of personality – oneself or others – and to understand how, when and why people fake when they answer personality inventories.

Early Researcher Award, Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation (2015)

Joyce and Robert Hogan Award for the Best Paper on Personality and Work Performance; Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (2011)

S. Rains Wallace Dissertation Award; Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (2010)

J. S. Tanaka Personality Dissertation Award; Association for Research in Personality (2009)

Selected Publications – Papers

• Introducing the special issue on Openness to Experience: Review of Openness taxonomies, measurement, and nomological net; Connelly, B. S., Ones, D. S., & Chernyshenko, O.; Journal of Personality Assessment; Issue: 96 (1); 2014; Pages: 1-16
• Balancing treatment and control groups in quasi-experiments: An introduction to propensity scoring; Connelly, B. S., Sackett, P. R., & Waters, S.; Personnel Psychology; Issue: 66 (2); 2013; Pages: 407-442
• A Narrower Scope or a Clearer Lens for Personality? Examining Sources of Observers' Advantages over Self-Reports for Predicting Performance; Connelly, B. S. & Hülsheger, U. R.; Journal of Personality; Issue: 80; 2012; Pages: 603-631
• Separating Method Factors and Higher Order Traits of the Big Five: A Meta-Analytic Multitrait-Multimethod Approach; Chang, L., Connelly, B. S., & Geeza, A. A.; Journal of Personality and Social Psychology; Issue: 102 (2); 2012; Pages: 408-426
• Mechanical versus clinical data combination in selection and admissions decisions; Lievens, F., Buyse, T., Sackett, P. R., & Connelly, B. S.; Journal of Applied Psychology; Issue: 98 (6); 2012; Pages: 1060-1072
• An other perspective on personality: Meta-analytic integration of observers' accuracy and predictive validity; Connelly, B. S., & Ones, D. S.; Psychological Bulletin; Issue: 136; 2010; Pages: 1092-1122
• High stakes testing in higher education and employment: Appraising the evidence for validity and fairness; Sackett, P. R., Borneman, M. J., & Connelly, B. S.; American Psychologist; Issue: 63; 2008; Pages: 215 - 227
• Do applicants distort their responses? Personality assessment across selection and development contexts; Ellingson, J. E., Sackett, P. R., & Connelly, B. S.; Journal of Applied Psychology; Issue: 92; 2007; Pages: 386-395