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.