In this scenario, your supervisor asked you to conduct an appropriate analysis to see if the relationship between conscientiousness and performance best described as a linear or curvilinear function. You collected data from 300 incumbents from the technology design company. The data includes the conscientiousness responses from the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and supervisory ratings of overall job performance.

How would you conduct an analysis to answer your supervisor’s question? Please describe the statistical steps.
If you find that a linear assumption is wrong, what would be an implication of the result to validity evidence and selection decision-making for your organization?