Commentary on ‘Does rater personality matter? A meta‐analysis of rater Big Five‐performance rating relationships’

In this reflective commentary, we revisit Harari et al.'s article ‘Does rater personality matter? A meta‐analysis of rater Big Five‐performance rating relationships’, published in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology . The original study advanced a person‐by‐situation view on performance appraisal, demonstrating that rater personality traits—particularly agreeableness—influence performance rating scores, and that these effects vary across rating contexts. In this commentary, we reflect on the motivations underlying the original study and its contributions to scholarship on performance appraisal and person‐by‐situation interactions at work. We then discuss theoretical and methodological developments that create new opportunities for understanding why, when and how rater personality influences performance appraisal processes. In particular, we highlight how Trait Activation Theory, the Theory of Purposeful Work Behaviour and person‐centred methodologies can help to advance this line of inquiry. We conclude by arguing that understanding raters as people embedded in social contexts remains essential for explaining rating behaviour and for designing appraisal systems that are fair and accurate.