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Correction for faking in self-report personality tests.

Lennart Sjöberg1

  • 1Center for Media and Economic Psychology and Center for Risk Research, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden.

Scandinavian Journal of Psychology
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PubMed
Summary

Faking in personality tests can be corrected using social desirability scales, removing approximately 90% of its effects. This method is crucial for accurate self-report personality assessments in high-stakes situations.

Keywords:
Self-report personality testcorrection for fakingfakinghigh-stakes testing

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Area of Science:

  • Psychological Assessment
  • Personality Psychology
  • Measurement Theory

Background:

  • Faking, or response distortion, is a significant issue in self-report personality testing, particularly in high-stakes contexts.
  • Social desirability scales offer a potential method for statistically controlling faking.
  • Existing statistical models for faking require adaptation based on the specific properties of personality scales and their correlation with faking.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To develop and apply social desirability scales for correcting faking in self-report personality tests.
  • To investigate the effectiveness of statistical correction methods for faking across various testing scenarios.
  • To examine the relationship between the stakes of testing and the prevalence of faking.

Main Methods:

  • Development and application of two novel social desirability scales.
  • Conducting four empirical studies, including one experimental study with instructed faking and honest responding.
  • Investigating self-report personality test data from job and school applicants.

Main Results:

  • The proposed statistical approach effectively corrected for faking, removing approximately 90% of its effects.
  • Faking behavior was found to increase in situations with higher perceived consequences of test results.
  • The variability of faking with stakes challenges the notion of social desirability scales measuring a universal personality trait.

Conclusions:

  • Faking in self-report personality tests is measurable and can be effectively corrected.
  • Statistical correction based on social desirability measures can mitigate the impact of faking by about 90%.
  • The situational nature of faking, influenced by test stakes, has implications for the interpretation of social desirability scales.