The Effects of Faking on the Construct Validity of Personality Questionnaires: A Direct Faking Measure Approach

Abstract

Some authors clearly showed that faking reduces the construct validity of personality questionnaires, whilst many others found no such effect. A possible explanation for mixed results could be searched for in a variety of methodological strategies in forming comparison groups supposed to differ in the level of faking: candidates vs. non-candidates; groups of individuals with "high" vs. "low" social desirability score; and groups given instructions to respond honestly vs. instructions to "fake good". All three strategies may be criticized for addressing the faking problem indirectly – assuming that comparison groups really differ in the level of response distortion, which might not be true. Therefore, in a within-subject design study we examined how faking affects the construct validity of personality inventories using a direct measure of faking. The results suggest that faking reduces the construct validity of personality questionnaires gradually – the effect was stronger in the subsample of participants who distorted their responses to a greater extent.