Identifying Socially Desirable Responses in Personality Inventory
Keywords:
personality test, socially desirable responses, honest responsesAbstract
The application of self-reported personality test in a competitive environmentis found to be susceptible to biased responding. This biased response causes difficulty in assessing an applicant’s true scores ina standard selection process. Therefore,this study aimed to detect the socially desirable responses from artificially differential response condition using a personality inventory. An experimentalrepeated measure design involved 521 students responding twice to the shortened International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) under honest and socially desirable instructions. The analysis of mean, score distribution and Rasch model’s outfit indices were examined in differentiating the socially desirable responses from the honest responses. The socially desirable condition was found to have a higher mean compared to the honest condition. The percentage of respondents in the socially desirable condition obtaining scores with two standard deviations (2SD) above the mean was two times the honest condition. Additionally, two-third of the respondents with outfit values greater than 2.0 logits were from the socially desirable condition. Based on the findings in this study, it can be concluded that the score deviation greater than 2SD above the mean and the outfit values exceeding 2.0 logit are indications of high possibility of socially desirable responses. Therefore, test users for high-stake decisions can examine extreme high scores and an individual’s inconsistent response as an initial detection of the socially desirable responses. This would help to minimize the issue of social desirability in high-stake testing.
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References
Aiken, L.R. (1999). Personality assessment methods and practices.Third Edition. United States of America: Hografe and Huber Publishers.
Aiken, L. R., & Marnat, G. G. (2006).Psychological testing and assessment. United States of America: Pearson.
Bell, R. C. (1982). Person fit and person reliability. Retrieved from http://www.rasch.org/erp8. html. Birkeland, S. A., Manson, T. M., Kisamore, J. L., Brannick, M. T., & Smith, M. A. (2006). A meta-analytic investigation of job applicant faking on personality measures. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 14(4), 317-335. Retrieved from http://www.olwnet.rice.edu/Birkeland.pdf
Burkevich, S. M., Jenkins, M., & Griffith, R. L. (2007). Lying down on the job: Applicant faking and dependability. Retrieved from http://www.cpla.fit.edu/io/documents/ Burkevichetal2007.pdf
Carrigan, M. (2007). Pre-employment testing-prediction of employee success and legal issues: A revisitation of Griggs v. Duke Power. Journal of Business and Economic Research, 5(8), 35-44. Retrieved from http://www.cluteinstitute-onlinejournals.com/pdfs /172. pdf
Cervellione, K. L., Lee, Y. S., & Bonanno, G. A. (2009). Rasch modelling of the Self-Deception Scale of the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR). Educational and Psychological Measurement, 69 (3), 438-458.
doi: 10.1177/001316440
Crowne, D. P., & Marlowe, D. (1960). A new scale of social desirability independent of psychopathology. Citation classic, 24(18), 349 ‒ 354.
Cruz, P., & Dipboye, R. L. (2003, April).Justice in personality testing: Influence of outcome, modality and elaboration. Poster presented at the 18th Annual Conference of the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Orlando, FL. Retrieved from http://rcoes. rice.edu/docs.cruz&dipoye2003.pdf
Day, N. T. (2008). Item and person characteristics as predictors of faking (Unpublished master’s thesis). Wright State University, Ohio. Retrieved from http://etd.ohiolink. edu/send-pdf.
Dilchert, S., Ones, D. S., Viswesvaran, C., & Deller, J. (2006). Response distortion in personality measurement: born to deceive, yet capable of providing valid self-assessment. Psychology Science, 48(3), 209 ‒ 225. Retrieved from http://www.moityca. com.br/pdfs/ Response.pdf
Dunn, D. S. (2009).Research methods for social psychology. United Kingdom: Wiley Blackwell.
Ellingson, J. E., Sackett, P. R., & Hough, L. M. (1999). Social desirability correction in personality measurement: Issues of applicant comparison and construct validity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 84(2), 155‒166.
Ferrando, P. J., & Chico, E. (2001). Detecting dissimulation in personality test scores: A comparison between person fit indices and detection scales. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 61(6), 997 ‒ 1012.
Doi: 10.1177/00131640121971617
Fox, J. P., & Meijer, R. R. (2008). Using item response theory to obtain individual information from randomized response data: An application using cheating data. Applied Psychological Measurement, 32(8), 595-610.
doi:10.1177/0146621607312277
George, D., & Mallery, P. (1995). SPSS/PC+ step by step: A simple guide and reference. United States of America: Wedsworth Publishing Company.
Goldberg, L. R. (1999). A broad-bandwidth, public domain, personality inventory measuring the lower-level facets of several Five-Factor Model. Personality Psychology in Europe, 7, 7 ‒ 28.
Graham, K. E., McDaniel, M. A., Douglas, E. F., & Snell, A. F. (2002). Biodata validity decay and scores inflation with faking: Do items attributes explain variances across items? Journal of Business and Psychology, 16(4), 573-592. Retrieved from http:// www.jstor.org/stable/250092794
Green, K., & Frantom, K. G. (2002, November).Survey development and validation with the Rasch model. Paper presented at International Conference on Questionnaire Development, Evaluation and Testing: Charleston, SC. Retrieved from http://www. jpsm.umd.edu/qdet/final_pdf_papers/green.pdf
Griffith, R. L., Chmielowski, T., & Yoshita, Y. (2007). Do applicants fake? An examination of the frequency of applicant faking behavior. Personnel Review, 36(3), 341 ‒ 355. doi:10.1108/00483480710731310
Griffith, R. L., Peterson, M. H., Quist, J., Benda, A., & Evans, A. L. (2008). Faking the personality profile: Easier said than done. Paper presented at the 23rd Annual conference for the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology: San Francisco, California Retrieved from http://cpla.fit.edu/ Griffth_Peterson_QuistBenda_Evan_ 2008_Final.pdf
Hakstian, A. R., & Ng, E. L. (2005). Employment-related motivational distortions: Its nature, measurement and prediction. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 65(3), 405–441. doi: 10.1177/0012164404267293
Harvey, R. J., Wilson, M. A., & Hansen, R. L. (2005).Detecting CPI faking in police sample: A cautionary note. Paper presented at the 20th Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Los Angles, CA. Retrieved from http://www.harvey. psyc.vt.edu/ SIOP2005.handout. Harvey_Wilson_Hansen.pdf
Hirsh, J. B., & Peterson, J. B. (2008). Predicting creativity and academic success with a “FakeProof” measure of the Big Five. Journal of Research in Personality, 42, 1323-1333. doi:10.1016/j-jrp.2008.04.006
Holtgraves, T. (2004). Social desirability and self-reports: Testing models of socially desirable responding. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30(2), 161-172. doi:10.1177/0146167203259930
Issacson, J. A., Griffith, R. L., Kung, M. C., Lawrance, A., & Wilson, K. A. (2008).Liar, liar: Examining background checks and applicants who fail them. Paper presented at the 23rd annual conference for the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, San Francisco, CA.
Jackson, D. N., Wroblewski, V. R., & Asthon, M. C. (2000). The impact of faking on employment tests: Does forced choice offer a solution. Human Performance, 13(4), 371 ‒ 388.
Kirkcaldy, B. (2001). Individuals’ ability to predict their own personality test scores. Evaluation Journal of Australia, 1(2), 63-65.
Kroner, D. G., Mills.J. F., Yessine, A. K., & Hemmati, T. (2004). The generalized instructional set of Criminal Attribution Inventory (CRAI): Socially desirable responding and faking. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 48(3), 360-372. doi: 10.1177/0306624X04263452
Lanyon, R. L., & Goodstein, L. D. (1982). Personality Assessment . Second Edition. United States of America: Wiley-Interscience Publication.
Li, A., & Bagger, J. (2007). The Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR): A reliability generalization study. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 67(3), 525‒544. doi: 10.1177/0013164406292087
Linacre, J. M. (2006). Winsteps (Version 3.65.0) [computer software]. Chicago: Winsteps.com
Lonnqvist, J. E. (2008). Issues in socially desirable responding and personality research. Helsinki: Helsinki University Printing House.
Magnus, J. M., Viswesvaran, C., Deshpande, S., & Joseph, J. (2006). Social desirability: the role of over-claiming, self-esteem and emotional intelligence. Psychology Science, 48(3),336‒356.
Morgeson, F. R., Campion, M. A., Diboye, R. L., Holleabach, J. R., & Schmitt, N. (2007). Reconsidering the use of personality tests in personnel selection context. Personnel Psychology, 683‒729.
Mueller, C. E., Bullock, E. E., & Leierer, S. J. (2010). Examining psychometric and measurement properties of the Career Thought Inventory: Demonstration and use of the Rasch measurement model in career assessment research. Retrieved from http://www.career.fsu/techcentre/TR51.pdf
Richman, W. L., Kiesler, S., Weisband, S., Drasgow, F. (1999). A Meta-analytic study of social desirability distortions in Computer-Administered Questionnaire, traditional questionnaire and interviews. Journal of Applied Psychology, 84(5), 754‒775.
Robie, C., Schmit, M. J., Ryan, A. M., & Zickar, M. J. (2000). Effects of item context specificity on the measurement equivalence of a personality inventory. Organizational Research Methods, 3(4), 348‒365.
doi: 10.1177/109442810034003
Rosse, J. G., Stecher, M. D., Miller, J. L., & Levin, R. A. (1998). The impact of response distortion in pre-employment personality testing and hiring decisions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83(4), 634‒644.
Salgado, J. F. (2005). Personality and social desirability in organizational settings: Practical implications for work and organizational psychology. Papeles del Psicologo, 26, 115‒128. Retrieved from http://www.papelesdelpsicologo.es/emgish/1252.pdf
Smith, A. B., Rush, R., Fallowfield, L. J., Velikova, G., & Sharpe, M. (2008). Rasch fit statistics and sample size considerations for polytomous data. Retrieved from http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2288/8/33/prepub.
Stocke, V., & Hunkler, C. (2007). Measures of desirability beliefs and their validity as indicators for socially desirable responding. Field Methods, 19, 313‒336. doi:10.1177/1525822X07302102
Underhill, C. M., & Lords, A. O. (2002). Fake resistance of forced-choice paired comparison personality measure. Retrieved from http://www.internationalmta.org
Viswesvaran, C., & Ones, D. S. (1999). Meta-analysis on fakability estimates: Implications for personality measurement. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 59(2), 197‒210.
Aiken, L. R., & Marnat, G. G. (2006).Psychological testing and assessment. United States of America: Pearson.
Bell, R. C. (1982). Person fit and person reliability. Retrieved from http://www.rasch.org/erp8. html. Birkeland, S. A., Manson, T. M., Kisamore, J. L., Brannick, M. T., & Smith, M. A. (2006). A meta-analytic investigation of job applicant faking on personality measures. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 14(4), 317-335. Retrieved from http://www.olwnet.rice.edu/Birkeland.pdf
Burkevich, S. M., Jenkins, M., & Griffith, R. L. (2007). Lying down on the job: Applicant faking and dependability. Retrieved from http://www.cpla.fit.edu/io/documents/ Burkevichetal2007.pdf
Carrigan, M. (2007). Pre-employment testing-prediction of employee success and legal issues: A revisitation of Griggs v. Duke Power. Journal of Business and Economic Research, 5(8), 35-44. Retrieved from http://www.cluteinstitute-onlinejournals.com/pdfs /172. pdf
Cervellione, K. L., Lee, Y. S., & Bonanno, G. A. (2009). Rasch modelling of the Self-Deception Scale of the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR). Educational and Psychological Measurement, 69 (3), 438-458.
doi: 10.1177/001316440
Crowne, D. P., & Marlowe, D. (1960). A new scale of social desirability independent of psychopathology. Citation classic, 24(18), 349 ‒ 354.
Cruz, P., & Dipboye, R. L. (2003, April).Justice in personality testing: Influence of outcome, modality and elaboration. Poster presented at the 18th Annual Conference of the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Orlando, FL. Retrieved from http://rcoes. rice.edu/docs.cruz&dipoye2003.pdf
Day, N. T. (2008). Item and person characteristics as predictors of faking (Unpublished master’s thesis). Wright State University, Ohio. Retrieved from http://etd.ohiolink. edu/send-pdf.
Dilchert, S., Ones, D. S., Viswesvaran, C., & Deller, J. (2006). Response distortion in personality measurement: born to deceive, yet capable of providing valid self-assessment. Psychology Science, 48(3), 209 ‒ 225. Retrieved from http://www.moityca. com.br/pdfs/ Response.pdf
Dunn, D. S. (2009).Research methods for social psychology. United Kingdom: Wiley Blackwell.
Ellingson, J. E., Sackett, P. R., & Hough, L. M. (1999). Social desirability correction in personality measurement: Issues of applicant comparison and construct validity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 84(2), 155‒166.
Ferrando, P. J., & Chico, E. (2001). Detecting dissimulation in personality test scores: A comparison between person fit indices and detection scales. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 61(6), 997 ‒ 1012.
Doi: 10.1177/00131640121971617
Fox, J. P., & Meijer, R. R. (2008). Using item response theory to obtain individual information from randomized response data: An application using cheating data. Applied Psychological Measurement, 32(8), 595-610.
doi:10.1177/0146621607312277
George, D., & Mallery, P. (1995). SPSS/PC+ step by step: A simple guide and reference. United States of America: Wedsworth Publishing Company.
Goldberg, L. R. (1999). A broad-bandwidth, public domain, personality inventory measuring the lower-level facets of several Five-Factor Model. Personality Psychology in Europe, 7, 7 ‒ 28.
Graham, K. E., McDaniel, M. A., Douglas, E. F., & Snell, A. F. (2002). Biodata validity decay and scores inflation with faking: Do items attributes explain variances across items? Journal of Business and Psychology, 16(4), 573-592. Retrieved from http:// www.jstor.org/stable/250092794
Green, K., & Frantom, K. G. (2002, November).Survey development and validation with the Rasch model. Paper presented at International Conference on Questionnaire Development, Evaluation and Testing: Charleston, SC. Retrieved from http://www. jpsm.umd.edu/qdet/final_pdf_papers/green.pdf
Griffith, R. L., Chmielowski, T., & Yoshita, Y. (2007). Do applicants fake? An examination of the frequency of applicant faking behavior. Personnel Review, 36(3), 341 ‒ 355. doi:10.1108/00483480710731310
Griffith, R. L., Peterson, M. H., Quist, J., Benda, A., & Evans, A. L. (2008). Faking the personality profile: Easier said than done. Paper presented at the 23rd Annual conference for the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology: San Francisco, California Retrieved from http://cpla.fit.edu/ Griffth_Peterson_QuistBenda_Evan_ 2008_Final.pdf
Hakstian, A. R., & Ng, E. L. (2005). Employment-related motivational distortions: Its nature, measurement and prediction. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 65(3), 405–441. doi: 10.1177/0012164404267293
Harvey, R. J., Wilson, M. A., & Hansen, R. L. (2005).Detecting CPI faking in police sample: A cautionary note. Paper presented at the 20th Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Los Angles, CA. Retrieved from http://www.harvey. psyc.vt.edu/ SIOP2005.handout. Harvey_Wilson_Hansen.pdf
Hirsh, J. B., & Peterson, J. B. (2008). Predicting creativity and academic success with a “FakeProof” measure of the Big Five. Journal of Research in Personality, 42, 1323-1333. doi:10.1016/j-jrp.2008.04.006
Holtgraves, T. (2004). Social desirability and self-reports: Testing models of socially desirable responding. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30(2), 161-172. doi:10.1177/0146167203259930
Issacson, J. A., Griffith, R. L., Kung, M. C., Lawrance, A., & Wilson, K. A. (2008).Liar, liar: Examining background checks and applicants who fail them. Paper presented at the 23rd annual conference for the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, San Francisco, CA.
Jackson, D. N., Wroblewski, V. R., & Asthon, M. C. (2000). The impact of faking on employment tests: Does forced choice offer a solution. Human Performance, 13(4), 371 ‒ 388.
Kirkcaldy, B. (2001). Individuals’ ability to predict their own personality test scores. Evaluation Journal of Australia, 1(2), 63-65.
Kroner, D. G., Mills.J. F., Yessine, A. K., & Hemmati, T. (2004). The generalized instructional set of Criminal Attribution Inventory (CRAI): Socially desirable responding and faking. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 48(3), 360-372. doi: 10.1177/0306624X04263452
Lanyon, R. L., & Goodstein, L. D. (1982). Personality Assessment . Second Edition. United States of America: Wiley-Interscience Publication.
Li, A., & Bagger, J. (2007). The Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR): A reliability generalization study. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 67(3), 525‒544. doi: 10.1177/0013164406292087
Linacre, J. M. (2006). Winsteps (Version 3.65.0) [computer software]. Chicago: Winsteps.com
Lonnqvist, J. E. (2008). Issues in socially desirable responding and personality research. Helsinki: Helsinki University Printing House.
Magnus, J. M., Viswesvaran, C., Deshpande, S., & Joseph, J. (2006). Social desirability: the role of over-claiming, self-esteem and emotional intelligence. Psychology Science, 48(3),336‒356.
Morgeson, F. R., Campion, M. A., Diboye, R. L., Holleabach, J. R., & Schmitt, N. (2007). Reconsidering the use of personality tests in personnel selection context. Personnel Psychology, 683‒729.
Mueller, C. E., Bullock, E. E., & Leierer, S. J. (2010). Examining psychometric and measurement properties of the Career Thought Inventory: Demonstration and use of the Rasch measurement model in career assessment research. Retrieved from http://www.career.fsu/techcentre/TR51.pdf
Richman, W. L., Kiesler, S., Weisband, S., Drasgow, F. (1999). A Meta-analytic study of social desirability distortions in Computer-Administered Questionnaire, traditional questionnaire and interviews. Journal of Applied Psychology, 84(5), 754‒775.
Robie, C., Schmit, M. J., Ryan, A. M., & Zickar, M. J. (2000). Effects of item context specificity on the measurement equivalence of a personality inventory. Organizational Research Methods, 3(4), 348‒365.
doi: 10.1177/109442810034003
Rosse, J. G., Stecher, M. D., Miller, J. L., & Levin, R. A. (1998). The impact of response distortion in pre-employment personality testing and hiring decisions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83(4), 634‒644.
Salgado, J. F. (2005). Personality and social desirability in organizational settings: Practical implications for work and organizational psychology. Papeles del Psicologo, 26, 115‒128. Retrieved from http://www.papelesdelpsicologo.es/emgish/1252.pdf
Smith, A. B., Rush, R., Fallowfield, L. J., Velikova, G., & Sharpe, M. (2008). Rasch fit statistics and sample size considerations for polytomous data. Retrieved from http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2288/8/33/prepub.
Stocke, V., & Hunkler, C. (2007). Measures of desirability beliefs and their validity as indicators for socially desirable responding. Field Methods, 19, 313‒336. doi:10.1177/1525822X07302102
Underhill, C. M., & Lords, A. O. (2002). Fake resistance of forced-choice paired comparison personality measure. Retrieved from http://www.internationalmta.org
Viswesvaran, C., & Ones, D. S. (1999). Meta-analysis on fakability estimates: Implications for personality measurement. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 59(2), 197‒210.
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Published
2011-12-15
How to Cite
Govindasamy, P., & Lan, O. S. (2011). Identifying Socially Desirable Responses in Personality Inventory. Asian Journal of Assessment in Teaching and Learning, 1, 65–76. Retrieved from https://ojs.upsi.edu.my/index.php/AJATeL/article/view/1916
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