Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

8-2000

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Psychology

Major Professor

John W. Lounsbury

Committee Members

Michael G. Johnson, John Peters, Eric Sundstrom

Abstract

Self-report personality inventories are widely used for psychological assessment purposes. However, a common objection to their use. particularly in employment selection, is thai individuals may deliberately distort or fake their responses, and research has demonstrated that the results of many psychological instruments are vulnerable to faking. Researchers, though, disagree on how best to operationalize the construct, and results are inconclusive regarding whether faking attenuates the validity of personality measures. The present study provides empirical support that fake good may not just reflect artifact and contamination but individual differences in personality and impression management motivation.The current study investigated the relationship between fake good, job performance, and personality variables, using a work-based measure of personality, thePersonal Style Inventory (PSl). Examining populations of production workers, restaurant and sales representatives (N = 503) in four different organizations using correlation and multiple regression analyses, fake good was positively related to job performance in one population.The tendency to respond to fake good items was consistently related to emotional stability, and conscientiousness across all job-types and organizations included in this study. Results also indicate that the relationship between fake good and other work-based measures of personality (i.e., work drive, customer service orientation, orderliness, and selling enthusiasm) appeared dependent on job type or perceived job demands. Removing the effects of fake good from personality measures did not enhance criterion-related validity of personality constructs for predicting jobperformance.Study results provide further evidence that fake good reflects individual differences in personality. Results also suggest that the role of fake good in the prediction of job performance may be dependent on organizational culture and job type.Results confirm previous research in which correction procedures have failed to enhance validity. As an individual differences variable, correcting for fake good may partial out meaningful trait variance—fake good reflects overlap in variance with personality predictors.

Download
Files over 3MB may be slow to open. For best results, right-click and select "save as..."

Share

COinS