Definition/Introduction
In recent years, researchers have been paying more attention to defining faking as well as to understanding its antecedents and its effects in psychological measurement. This chapter presents an overview of the key features of faking, its antecedents and effects, models of faking, as well as approaches for detecting, correcting, or preventing it.
What Is Faking?
Faking is part of the broader phenomenon of response distortion in psychological assessment. There are various definitions of faking. Still, across all these definitions, there are some key features, even though different definitions emphasize the various features to different degrees:
First, faking is associated with some degree of deception (i.e., not being honest in a given situation). Second, faking is a...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Bensch, D., Maaß, U., Greiff, S., Horstmann, K. T., & Ziegler, M. (2019, March 14). The nature of faking: A homogeneous and predictable construct? Psychological Assessment. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/pas0000619.
Burns, G. N., Fillipowski, J. N., Morris, M. B., & Shoda, E. A. (2015). Impact of electronic warnings on online personality scores and test-taker reactions in an applicant simulation. Computers in Human Behavior, 48, 163–172. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.01.051.
Dilchert, S., & Ones, D. S. (2012). Application of preventive strategies. In M. Ziegler, C. MacCann, & R. D. Roberts (Eds.), New perspectives on faking in personality assessment (pp. 177–200). New York: Oxford University Press.
Geiger, M., Olderbak, S., Sauter, R., & Wilhelm, O. (2018). The “g” in faking: Doublethink the validity of personality self-report measures for applicant selection. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 2153. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02153.
Goffin, R. D., & Boyd, A. C. (2009). Faking and personality assessment in personnel selection: Advancing models of faking. Canadian Psychology, 50, 151–160. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015946.
Griffith, R. L., Malm, T., English, A., Yoshita, Y., & Gujar, A. (2006). Applicant faking behavior: Teasing apart the influence of situational variance, cognitive biases, and individual differences. In R. L. Griffith & M. H. Peterson (Eds.), A closer examination of applicant faking behavior (pp. 151–178). Greenwich: Information Age.
Heggestad, E. D. (2012). A conceptual representation of faking. In M. Ziegler, C. MacCann, & R. D. Roberts (Eds.), New perspectives on faking in personality assessment (pp. 87–101). Oxford: University Press.
Holden, R. R., & Lambert, C. E. (2015). Response latencies are alive and well for identifying fakers on a self-report personality inventory: A reconsideration of van Hooft and Born (2012). Behavior Research Methods, 47, 1436–1442. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-014-0524-5.
Law, S. J., Bourdage, J., & O’Neill, T. A. (2016). To fake or not to fake: Antecedents to interview faking, warning instructions, and its impact on applicant reactions. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1771. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01771.
Levashina, J., & Campion, M. A. (2006). A model of faking likelihood in the employment interview. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 14, 299–316. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2389.2006.00353.x.
MacCann, C. (2013). Instructed faking of the HEXACO reduces facet reliability and involves more Gc than Gf. Personality and Individual Differences, 55, 828–833. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2013.07.007.
Marcus, B. (2009). ‘Faking’ from the applicant’s perspective: A theory of self-presentation in personnel selection settings. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 7, 417–430.
Musch, J., Brockhaus, R., & Bröder, A. (2002). Ein Inventar zur Erfassung von zwei Faktoren sozialer Erwünschtheit [An inventory for measuring two components of socially desirable responding]. Diagnostica, 48, 121–129. https://doi.org/10.1026//0012-1924.48.3.121.
Paulhus, D. L. (1994). Balanced inventory of desirable responding: Reference manual for BIDR version 6. Unpublished manuscript, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
Röhner, J. (2014). Faking the Implicit Association Test (IAT): Predictors, processes, and detection (Doctoral dissertation, Chemnitz University of Technology, Chemnitz, Germany). Retrieved from: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:ch1-qucosa-133049
Röhner, J., & Ewers, T. (2016). Trying to separate the wheat from the chaff: Construct- and faking-related variance on the implicit association test (IAT). Behavior Research Methods, 48, 243–258. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-015-0568-1.
Röhner, J., & Thoss, P. J. (2018). EZ: An easy way to conduct a more fine-grained analysis of faked and nonfaked implicit association test (IAT) data. The Quantitative Methods for Psychology, 14, 17–35. https://doi.org/10.20982/tqmp.14.1.p017.
Röhner, J., Schröder-Abé, M., & Schütz, A. (2011). Exaggeration is harder than understatement, but practice makes perfect! Faking success in the IAT. Experimental Psychology, 58, 464–472. https://doi.org/10.1027/1618-3169.
Röhner, J., Schröder-Abé, M., & Schütz, A. (2013). What do fakers actually do to fake the IAT? An investigation of faking strategies under different faking conditions. Journal of Research in Personality, 47, 330–338. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2013.02.009.
Salgado, J. F. (2016). A theoretical model of psychometric effects of faking on assessment procedures: Empirical findings and implications for personality at work. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 24, 209–228.
Tett, R. P., & Simonet, D. V. (2011). Faking in personality assessment: A “multisaturation” perspective on faking as performance. Human Performance, 24, 302–321. https://doi.org/10.1080/08959285.2011.597472.
Viswesvaran, C., & Ones, D. S. (1999). Meta-analyses of fakability estimates: Implications for personality measurement. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 59, 197–210. https://doi.org/10.1177/00131649921969802.
Youngjohn, J. R., Lees-Haley, P. R., & Binder, L. M. (1999). Comment: Warning malingerers produces more sophisticated malingering. Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, 14, 511–515. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0887-6177(98)00049-3.
Ziegler, M., MacCann, C., & Roberts, R. D. (2012). Faking: Knowns, unknowns, and points of contention. In M. Ziegler, C. MacCann, & R. D. Roberts (Eds.), New perspectives on faking in personality assessment (pp. 3–16). Oxford: University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Röhner, J., Schütz, A. (2020). Faking Behavior. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24612-3_2341
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24612-3_2341
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-24610-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-24612-3
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences