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Warning Against Faking on a Personality Test: Effects on Applicant Reactions and Personality Test Scores
Author(s) -
Mcfarland Lynn A.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
international journal of selection and assessment
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.812
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1468-2389
pISSN - 0965-075X
DOI - 10.1111/j.0965-075x.2003.00250.x
Subject(s) - psychology , personality , social psychology , test (biology) , personality test , affect (linguistics) , economic justice , procedural justice , organizational justice , perception , psychometrics , clinical psychology , test validity , organizational commitment , neoclassical economics , communication , neuroscience , economics , biology , paleontology
To reduce faking on personality tests, applicants may be warned that a social desirability scale is embedded in the test. Although this procedure has been shown to substantially reduce faking, there is no data that addresses how such a warning may influence applicant reactions toward the selection procedure or the relationships among personality constructs. Using an organizational justice framework, this study examines the effect of warning on procedural justice perceptions. Additionally, the extent to which warning changes the relationships among personality variables, socially desirable responding, and organizational justice variables, was explored. The results suggest that warning did not negatively affect test‐taker reactions. However, the relationships among the justice measures and the personality variables and socially desirable responding differed across the warned and unwarned groups. The organizational justice model fit best and there was less multicollinearity among the personality variables in the warned condition, compared to the unwarned condition. Thus, providing a warning appears to have positive consequences when using personality measures.