Faking personality questionnaires: Fabricating different profiles for different purposes

Over fifty subjects completed four personality measures used in personnel selection. Based on a latin-square design they were asked to fill them in as they would if they were trying to present themselves as ideal candidates for the job of librarian, advertising executive or banker, while on one questionnaire they gave “honest,” actual responses. The results indicated, as previous research in this area has shown, that the questionnaires are all highly susceptible to faking, and that a quite different prototypic profile arose for each of the three different jobs. The results are discussed in terms of the templates of fakers for specific jobs; the methods of detecting fakers, and what dissimulation studies tell us about theories of both occupations and personality.     

A Cross-Cultural Content Analysis of Children's Television Advertisements

Two sets of television advertisements were video-recorded from weekend children's television in London and New York and were coded by two white women in terms of their gender-role portrayals. The advertised products covered by this analysis included snack and fast food, toys and breakfast cereal. Each advertisement was coded according to nine criteria including the ethnicity and gender of the people appearing, gender of central figure and of any voice over in the commercial, presence or absence of music, and other sales-related content. In general, males were more numerous than females in both American and British advertisements. There were more similarities than differences between the two national markets in terms of the nature of gender-role portrayals, with males generally occupying more central and authoritative positions. Only two analyses yielded significant differences. Girls outnumbered boys in American commercials, but the opposite was true of British commercials. Hispanic males were present in American commercials but not in British commercials.     

Television distraction and the performance of introverts and extroverts

An experiment was run to test the effect on reading comprehension of distraction by a television programme, which was presented while reading took place. Respondents, classified in terms of extroversion or introversion, carried out two reading comprehension tests in silence and in the presence of a television drama programme. As predicted, extroverts and introverts both performed better in silence, but there was a significant interaction that showed that extroverts performed better than introverts in the presence of television distraction. The findings are discussed in relation to previous research on this subject.     

The Validity of the SHL Customer Service Questionnaire (CSQ)

This study set out to validate the Saville and Holdsworth (SHL) Customer Services Questionnaire (CSQ) by relating test scores to ‘objective measures’ like absenteeism, punctuality, and letters of compliment and complaint, as well as subjective supervisor rating measures. Over 170 airport staff served as subjects. The dependent measures were logically related one to another and there were a few sex and rank differences on them. A number of significant correlations between CSQ subscales and the dependent measures showed two subscales (TC4) Approach to Organizing and (EC2) Need for Results the best correlates of the dependent variable. Of the subscales scores within the three factor scores Relations with People showed fewest significant correlations, and Emotions and Energy most. Results were discussed in terms of the limited research in this field.     

Lay theories of delinquency

This paper is concerned with the range, structure and determinants of lay people's implicit theories of delinquency. The different explicit psychological and sociological theories were reviewed as were studies on lay beliefs about crime and delinquency. After pilot interviews in which people were asked to list what they believed to be the major causes of delinquency, over 350 people completed a questionnaire in which they rated 30 explanations for their importance in explaining delinquency. The results showed numerous sex, age and voting differences. Conservatives tended to blame a person's poor education for his or her delinquency, while Labour voters tended to explain delinquency in terms of societal factors. A factor analysis revealed six clear explanation types for delinquency some of which were clearly related to explicit theories. Results were discussed in terms of the psychology of explanations and the relationship between explicit and implicit theories. Implications of this research were also noted.     

Consequences of person-environment incongruence: absenteeism, frustration, and stress

Two correlational studies using English nurses and working adults are reported that examined the relationship between the three measures of person-environment (P-E) fit as derived from Holland's (1973) theory and three dependent work-related variables. In the first study, the P-E fit measures of congruence, consistency, and differentiation were correlated with two measures of absenteeism, frustration, and various demographic variables. Contrary to predictions, two measures of absenteeism were positively correlated with congruence and consistency. In accordance with the hypothesis, however, frustration was highly negatively correlated with congruence and consistency. In the second study, consistency, but not congruence or differentiation, was significantly negatively correlated with stress, as predicted. These studies provide some support for Holland's theses, although not all hypotheses were supported, both for methodological and theoretical reasons. It is argued that P-E fit measures are useful predictors of occupational behavior in conjunction with other major determinants.     

Favouritism,fairness and joint profit in long-term relationships

This study was designed to test a number of hypotheses about the use of FAV and other strategies as measured by the intergroup ‘matrices’ in four long-term relationships-with spouse, child, friend and workmate. Forty subjects filled in matrices giving three measures of self-favouritism (FAV), and one each of fairness (F) and maximum joint profit (MJP), in relation to the allocation of money and time. It was found that FAV was not used for spouse, and was used less for child than for the non-family relationships (p < 0.01, p < 0.05). There was also an influence of altruism (A) against FAV, when time was distributed between spouse (p < 0.01) or child (p < 0.001) and the self. F was used most for spouse, followed by child, friend and workmate (p < 0.001), and was used more by females in distributing money (p < 0.01). MJP was not used at all for money, but was used to some extent for time.     

The good,the bad and the mad: Response bias in self-report measures

This study set out to examine the susceptibility of five extensively used, self-report measures to response set bias. Subjects were requested either to fake good, (give a good impression), fake bad, (give a bad impression), fake mad, (give an impression of mental instability) or respond honestly. Subjects who faked good had significantly higher Extraversion, Lie and Social Desirability scores but lowest Neuroticism, Psychoticism and Social Anxiety scores. Subjects who faked bad had significantly lower Extraversion and higher Psychoticism and Social Anxiety scores. Fake mad subjects scored higher on Self-Monitoring and Locus of Control. Four of the eight scales showed significant differences between subjects faking bad and those faking mad. The results are discussed in terms of questionnaire design and respondent's motivation.     

Psychoticism,social desirability and situation selection

Previous research on personality and activity preference has shown that extraverts have a significantly and meaningfully different pattern of activity preference from introverts. This finding was also true of high and low neurotics but not to the same extent. This study was designed to see whether the traits of psychoticism and social desirability are also related to situational selection. Subjects from a large group were divided first into high P and low P scorers, and then high L and low L scorers. They indicated how much time they had spent in leisure situations over the past week; rank ordered their preferences for activities related to some of Murray's major needs and presses; rated their choice or avoidance of other abstractly described situations; and then stressful, anxiety-provoking, social situations. It was shown that both psychoticism and social desirability are related to situation selection in meaningful and predictable ways. The implications for personality assessment are considered.