Aaron Hernandez and NFL personality assessment.

TL: DR- Aaron Hernandez was an NFL player with a troubled past. He was convicted of murdering his future brother-in-law. He eventually died by suicide. So, needless to say, this is a multifaceted story to use in class. But I do think that it is appropriate to use in an I/O psychology class because it highlights all of the pre-recruitment assessment that potential NFL players completed.

Longer version:

Hernandez is in news again due to the Netflix series about Hernandez, so it might be worth using in class as it is current (again).

Here is the overtly dramatic trailer for the new film about Hernandez:

This is a multi-faceted situation, but it does have an I/O angle. When Hernandez was initially recruited to play professional football, he, as well as all of the other recruits, completed a number of workplace assessment measures (very common with NFL recruits). See this summary of part of the assessment here (source: WSJ):

Here is the whole WSJ article, and here is a PDF version of the same article. Do note: These received a fair amount of media coverage at the time and I'm sure you could find more documentation.


HOW TO USE IN CLASS:

1) The WSJ article references a consulting firm performing the personality assessment. This allows an instructor to remind their students about the different environments in which I/O psychologists work.
2) The NFL uses I/O psychology measures to assess players prior to making very important (for the team), very expensive recruiting decisions. There is even a conference about NFL assessment. CAN YOU IMAGINE THE SWAG?
3) They also mention the Wunderlic. Which is a very respected inventory being used in real life.
4) Criteria: What were the specific personality qualities that the I/O psychologists measure?
5) Criteria: What are the objective criteria that NFL teams are interested in measuring in a recruit?
6) Assessment: Setting a minimum score for a given assessment measure (like the Wonderlic).