Subclinical Versus Clinical Assessment in the Workplace: Evidence Against Equating Performance Risks With Abnormal Personality

ABSTRACT Distinguishing between subclinical and clinical personality assessments is essential for their appropriate use across organizational, research, and clinical contexts. Although some workplace measures assess maladaptive tendencies, the extent to which they overlap with clinical instruments remains unclear. Misinterpreting this overlap can result in the inappropriate clinicalization of workplace measures and the misuse of clinical instruments in personnel selection. This study compared a workplace measure, the Hogan Development Survey (HDS), with a clinical instrument, the Personality Inventory for DSM‐5 (PID‐5). Across multiple psychometric criteria, the two measures showed meaningful but nonredundant overlap. The HDS provided limited information at extreme trait levels and more strongly predicted work outcomes, whereas the PID‐5 was more informative at the pathological end of the continuum and more strongly associated with mental health indicators. These findings clarify the boundaries between subclinical and clinical personality assessment and inform evaluations of measures with overlapping content but different applications.