Abstract: Quadratic polynomial regression with response surface analysis is a methodology and statistical approach that has become increasingly popular in Industrial and Organizational Psychology, and it originated in the person-environment fit research. The approach is an indirect measurement of person- environment fit, it allows researchers to study the best match between person and environment and the relations with outcomes, and further examination and interpretation in the three-dimensional space. First of all, this article presented the numerous substantive and methodological problems of traditional methods (i.e., difference scores); secondly, we elaborated the emergence and development, logical thinking, methods and process of statistical analysis, and also gave an example to show how to conduct this approach and analyzed the results; Finally, we summarized the advantages and disadvantages of quadratic polynomial regression with response surface analysis.

Key words: quadratic polynomial regression, response surface analysis, person-environment fit, difference scores