Faking in personnel selection: Does it matter and can we do anything about it?

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Faking in personnel selectionDoes it matter and
can we do anything about it?

• Eric D. Heggestad
• University of North Carolina - Charlotte

Education Testing Service Mini-Conference Oct
13th 14th 2006
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Four Questions About Faking in Personnel
Selection Contexts

• Can people fake?
• Do applicants fake?
• Does faking matter?
• I will talk about one project
• What do we do about it?
• I will talk about one project

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Does faking matter?
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Effects on Validity and SelectionMueller-Hanson,
Heggestad, Thornton (2003)

• Ss completed personality and criterion measures
  in lab setting
• Personality measure
• Achievement Motivation Inventory
• Criterion measure
• A speeded ability test with no time limit
• Could leave when they wanted, opportunity for
  normative feedback
• Groups
• Honest (n 240) vs. faking (n 204)

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Means Standard Deviations
Faking Group
Honest Group
Effect Size
Predictor
Criterion
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Criterion-Related Validity
Faking Group
Honest Group
.17
.05
Full Groups
p lt .05
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But Validity is Only Skin Deep

• Important to look at selection
• Groups were combined and various selection ratios
  examined
• Variables examined
• Percent of selectees from each group
• Performance of those selected

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Effects on SelectionPercent hired at various
selection ratios
Percent of Selectees
Selection Ratio ()
Note Honest made up 54 of sample
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Effects on SelectionGroup performance at various
selection ratios
Performance
Selection Ratio ()
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Conclusions

• Faking appears to have
• An impact on the criterion-related validity of
  our predictor
• Most noticeably at the high end of the
  distribution
• An impact on the quality of decisions
• Low performing fakers more likely to be selected
  in top-down contexts

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What do we do about faking?
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What Do We Do About Faking?

• Approach 1 Detection and Correction
• Tries to correct faking that has already occurred
• Score corrections
• Not successful (Ellingson, Sackett Hough, 1999
  Schmitt Oswald, 2006)
• IRT work
• Retesting

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What Do We Do About Faking?

• Approach 2 Prevention
• Many prevention strategies
• Warnings
• Subtle items
• Multidimensional forced-choice (MFC) response
  formats

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What is an MFC Format?

• Dichotomous quartet format
• Item contains four statements
• Each statement represents a different trait
• 2 statements positively worded, 2
  statements negatively worded
• Indicate Most Like Me and Least Like Me

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Example MFC Item
Avoid difficult reading material (-) Only feel
comfortable with friends (-) Believe that others
have good intentions () Make lists of things to
do ()
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MFC Formats

• Appears to be faking resistant
  (Christiansen et al., 1998 Jackson et al., 2000)
• Example from Jackson et al. (2000)
• Likert-type format effect size .95
• MFC format effect size .32

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However.

• Normative vs. Ipsative
• MFC measures typically provide partially ipsative
  measurement
• Selection settings require normative assessment
• Also, evaluations have focused on group level
  analyses

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Forced-Choice as Prevention? Heggestad,
Morrison, Reeve McCloy (2006)

• Two studies
• Study 1 Do MFC measures provide normative trait
  information?
• Study 2 Are MFC measures resistant to faking at
  individual level?

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Study 1 Do
MFC measures provide normative information?

• Participants (n 307) completed three measures
  under honest instructions
• NEO-FFI
• IPIP Likert measure
• IPIP MFC measure
• Conducted three data collections to create this
  measure

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Study 1 Do
MFC measures provide normative information?

• Logic If MFC provides normative information,
  then correspondence between
• IPIP-Likert and IPIP-MFC scales should be quite
  good
• Each IPIP measure and the NEO-FFI should be
  similar

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Study 1 Do
MFC measures provide normative information?
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Study 1 Do
MFC measures provide normative information?

• We also defined correspondence as mean percentile
  differences across the measures

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Study 1 Do
MFC measures provide normative information?
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Study 1 Do
MFC measures provide normative information?

• Conclusions
• MFC seems to do a reasonable job of capturing
  normative trait information
• People can be compared directly!

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Study 2
Are MFC measures resistant to faking at
individual level?

• Participants (n 282) completed three measures
• NEO-FFI ? Honest instructions
• IPIP Likert ? Faking instructions
• IPIP MFC ? Faking instructions

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Replication of Previous Findings
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Study 2
Are MFC measures resistant to faking at
individual level?

• Logic If MFC is resistant to faking at the
  individual level, then
• NEO-FFI (honest) ? IPIP-MFC (like honest)
• and
• NEO-FFI (honest) ? IPIP-Likert (fakeable)
• IPIP-MFC ? IPIP-Likert

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Study 2
Are MFC measures resistant to faking at
individual level?
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Study 2
Are MFC measures resistant to faking at
individual level?
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Study 2
Are MFC measures resistant to faking at
individual level?

• Conclusion
• MFC not a solution to faking
• Can fake specific scales
• Not faking resistant at individual level

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Summary and Conclusion

• Faking does impact scores
• Changes the nature of the score
• Not likely to have a big effect on CRV
• Could have notable implications for selection
• Dichotomous quartet response format does not
  offer a viable remedy