Editorial summary. This is our text summary of an article published by frontiers. Charts, figures, and the author’s full voice are at the original — read it there .
Licence. The original is licensed under CC BY 4.0. This page adapts it: the summary and analysis are ours, not the authors’.
Editorial verdict
Methodologically ambitious but limited in scope — the distinction between faking ability and faking extent is conceptually valuable, the psychometric model is sound, but small samples, low reliabilities on faking factors, and an untested core hypothesis about incremental validity confounding mean the conclusions should be treated as exploratory rather than definitive.
Executive summary
This article addresses the measurement of faking ability in personality self-report assessments used in applicant selection. The authors argue that prior research conflates 'faking extent' (how much responses are distorted) with 'faking ability' (how successfully an applicant fakes toward an optimal profile), and that this distinction has important consequences for interpreting the criterion validity of personality measures. Across two studies (Study 1: n=151; Study 2: n=210), the authors develop six faking ability tasks using the Work Style Questionnaire (WSQ) and the NEO-PI-R, scored against expert-derived optimal personality profiles from the O*NET database using profile similarity metrics (elevation and shape). Using structural equation modeling, they find that crystallized intelligence is the strongest predictor of faking ability (specifically the shape dimension), with general mental ability and emotion perception ability contributing more modestly. The authors conclude that because cognitive abilities predict both faking ability and job performance, the incremental predictive validity commonly attributed to personality questionnaires in selection contexts may be confounded by cognitive abilities. This hypothesis is explicitly flagged as untested within the studies and proposed as a direction for future research.
Key insights
- 1The authors distinguish 'faking extent' (degree of response distortion) from 'faking ability' (accuracy in matching an optimal profile), arguing that most prior research measures the former rather than the latter, which has methodological and validity implications.
- 2Crystallized intelligence is the strongest cognitive predictor of faking ability (specifically the shape dimension), with general mental ability and emotion perception ability showing weaker but positive effects; no cognitive ability significantly predicted the elevation dimension of faking.
- 3The authors hypothesize — but do not empirically test — that the incremental predictive validity of personality assessments over cognitive ability tests may be an artifact of cognitive abilities enabling successful faking, suggesting personality scores in high-stakes settings may partly reflect cognitive rather than personality variance.
Practical takeaways
- Organizations using self-report personality questionnaires in high-stakes selection contexts may be capturing variance in cognitive abilities (particularly crystallized intelligence) rather than honest personality traits, given the cognitive demands of successful faking.
- Researchers studying personality in applicant selection contexts are advised by the authors to include assessments of faking ability or broader cognitive ability measures beyond general mental ability to better disentangle the sources of predictive validity.
Frameworks mentioned
Big Five
A lexically derived model organizing personality into five broad factors: neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, used as the taxonomic framework for personality assessment in this study.
Management by Objectives (MBO)
Not applicable — this framework is not mentioned in the article.
References
- Barrick et al. (2001).Meta-analysis of personality and job performance.
- Hurtz and Donovan (2000).Personality and job performance: Big Five revisited.
- Salgado (1997).Big Five personality dimensions and job performance: A meta-analysis.
- Schmidt and Hunter (1998).Validity and utility of alternative predictors of job performance.
- Birkeland et al. (2006).A meta-analysis of faking on personality measures.
- Viswesvaran and Ones (1999).Faking on personality tests: A meta-analysis.
- Pauls and Crost (2005).Personality and faking ability.
- Borman et al. (1999).Work Style Questionnaire (WSQ).
- Costa and McCrae (2008).NEO Personality Inventory Revised (NEO-PI-R).
- Wilhelm et al. (2014).Berliner Test for Fluid and Crystallized Intelligence (BEFKI).
- Tett and Simonet (2011).Tett and Simonet performance model of faking.
- König et al. (2006).Ability to Identify Criteria (ATIC) in job interviews.
- MacCann (2013).MacCann faking and intelligence correlations.
- Schipolowski et al. (2014).General factor of knowledge across domains.
Source & Provenance
frontiers
Mattis Geiger, Sally Olderbak, Ramona Sauter, Oliver Wilhelm
November 13, 2018
Research Study
Global
Original source metadata is preserved. AI analysis is generated separately.
Like this? Get the Monday Decision Brief — free, every week.
No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Rate this article
Want the full article? Read it at the original source — free, no paywall.
Read original article