The Truth is Out There:
The Problems of 'Faking' Personality Inventories
As with all kinds of psychological measures, personality inventories need to satisfy a number of well-established criteria before they can be considered to be effective. These criteria include the degree to which the user can be sure that the inventory is measuring what it is meant to measure (known as validity), the degree to which it is precise and offers consistent results (known as reliability) and the degree to which it offers a financial benefit over an above alternative methods of selection (known as utility).
Human Assets are a firm of trained business psychologists with a wealth of expertise in the area of psychometric assessment. We are not aligned with any particular personality inventory and can offer independent advice on the most valid, reliable and cost-effective personality inventory for your needs. Most recently, we advised a leading financial information technology consultancy, RiskCare, in the City on the ideal psychometric tools to use for the appointment of several roles and conducted a key appointment assessment to ensure confidence in their selection decisions
This month's Human Assets Newsletter addresses research into the vital issue of social desirability - or the degree to which responses on a personality inventory can be distorted by the candidate's desire to present a more favourable image.
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"Human Assets used their specialist knowledge to provide tailored psychometric assessments for key positions at RiskCare. This provided us with additional information that we would not have obtained from our standard selection processes, helping us to make more informed selection decisions" |
The Research...
In order for a personality inventory to present an accurate depiction of a person's personality traits and a valid prediction of future job performance, it must be designed so as to not be influenced by external factors such as intellectual capability. A recent article by Nicholas Vasilopoulos and colleagues at the George Washington University, Washington, highlights how something as innocuous as the test instructions can have a significant impact on this validity.
The phenomenon of social desirability, or 'faking', has long been of concern to psychometric test publishers and they have developed a wide number of techniques to tackle biases in the results caused by respondents 'making the most of themselves'. One such technique is, during the administration of the test, to warn candidates that their responses may be verified at some later point (e.g. asking the candidate to justify his/her response to a particular question). Evidence to date suggests that this method of reducing faking is both an effective and simple solution. However, Vasilopoulos suggests otherwise.
Using information from a laboratory study and field-based research, Vasilopoulos and his team demonstrated that warning candidates of response verification would, as predicted, avoid socially desirable answers in candidates with lower intellectual capability. However, for those respondents with elevated intellectual capability, the number of 'faked' answers (i.e. those answers that were significantly and consistently at the extremes of the personality scale) remained high. It appears as though candidates with higher intellectual capability are better equipped to, firstly, present a tactical image of their personality and, secondly, to formulate strategies to tackle any challenges made towards his/her responses.
The Practical Implications...
Many organisations use personality inventories in selection and development. Making a selection decision based on inaccurate information can be costly, resource-intensive and time-consuming so choosing the most valid, reliable and cost-effective tool for your needs is paramount to your success. As this article shows, even the administration instructions can have significant impact.
But that choice is only the start. All aspects of testing, including administration instructions, need to be informed by research.
How Human Assets can help...
Human Assets' trained business psychology consultants can draw upon a wealth of current theoretical understanding and commercial knowledge in order to recommend the ideal selection tool and advise on the best way to prevent faking - a simple 'lie scale' or verification warning may not be the best approach.
We are an independent consultancy and source the best tool for your needs from the entire spectrum of personality inventories available. All psychometric tools used by Human Assets are thoroughly reviewed prior to offering them as part of our selection, development or retention services. We can ensure that you can be confident in knowing that your selection decisions will be based on accurate and unbiased depictions of personality preferences.
If you would like any further information regarding psychometric assessment, please contact our consultants on +44(0)20 7434 2122 or by email enquiries@humanassets.co.uk
Further Reading
Vasilopoulos, N.L., Cucina, J.M. & McElreath, J.M. (2005). Do Warnings of Response Verification Moderate the Relationship Between Personality and Cognitive Ability? Journal of Applied Psychology 90 (2), 306-322.
Rust, J. & Golombok (2000). Modern Psychometrics: The Science of Psychological Assessment. Routledge: London.
Newsletter: June 2005