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Predictors of faking behavior on personality inventories in selection

Holtrop, Djurre; Oostrom, Janneke K.; Dunlop, Patrick D.; Runneboom, Cecilia

Published in:International Journal of Selection and Assessment

DOI:10.1111/ijsa.12322

Publication date:2021

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Link to publication in Tilburg University Research Portal

Citation for published version (APA):Holtrop, D., Oostrom, J. K., Dunlop, P. D., & Runneboom, C. (2021). Predictors of faking behavior on personalityinventories in selection: Do indicators of the ability and motivation to fake predict faking? International Journal ofSelection and Assessment, 29(2), 185-202. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijsa.12322

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Int J Select Assess. 2021;29:185–202.  |  185wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ijsa

1  | INTRODUC TION

Despite being one of the most often- used instruments for personnel selection (e.g., Kantrowitz et al., 2018; König et al., 2010), person-ality inventories are often criticized because of their susceptibility to ‘faking’ (Morgeson et al., 2007). That is, because personality as-sessments rely on self- report, some respondents may adopt a re-sponse set that does not accurately describe their personality, but instead serves the goal of standing out among an applicant pool (e.g., portraying themselves as harder working than they truly are; Ziegler et al., 2012a,b). While many researchers and applied users of personality assessments have spent time contemplating the ‘faking’ problem (e.g., Griffith & McDaniel, 2006; Ziegler et al., 2012b), it remains a vexing phenomenon to study in applied settings. Indeed, multiple theoretical perspectives have been proposed regarding (a) who is most likely to fake and (b) the situational factors that will

promote or reduce faking, but field examinations of these causal factors have been relatively scarce. Instead, much of the research into the antecedents of faking behavior has relied on experimental studies with hypothetical job applications or ‘fake- good’ instructions (e.g., MacCann, 2013); we term these types of studies collectively as ‘experimental faking studies’. While experimental faking studies do show how much faking could occur in principle, they are unable to provide an accurate test of the theorized antecedents of faking behavior in the field. Furthermore, the few field studies that have been conducted examined isolated antecedents of faking and not a combination of theorized predictors of faking. Hence, there is a clear need for field studies on the behavioral and motivational an-tecedents of faking behavior. In this study, we investigate the faking behavior observed among a sample of applicants to firefighter posi-tions, who completed a personality inventory both under application settings and, 3 months later, research settings. In doing so, this is the

Received: 1 August 2020  |  Accepted: 22 April 2021

DOI: 10.1111/ijsa.12322

R E S E A R C H A R T I C L E

Predictors of faking behavior on personality inventories in selection: Do indicators of the ability and motivation to fake predict faking?

Djurre Holtrop1,2  | Janneke K. Oostrom3  | Patrick D. Dunlop1  | Cecilia Runneboom1

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.© 2021 The Authors. International Journal of Selection and Assessment published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

1Future of Work Institute, Faculty of Business and Law, Curtin University, Bentley, WA, Australia2Department of Social Psychology, Tilburg School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands3Department of Management and Organization, School of Business and Economics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

CorrespondenceDjurre Holtrop, Tilburg University, Department of Social Psychology, Warandelaan 2, 5037 AB, The Netherlands.Email: d.j.holtrop@tilburguniversity.edu

AbstractThis study investigated whether faking behavior on a personality inventory can be predicted by two indicators of the ability to fake (cognitive ability and the ability to identify criteria; ATIC) and two indicators of the motivation to fake (perceived faking norms and honesty– humility). Firefighter applicants first completed a personality in-ventory under high- stakes conditions and, three months later, under low- stakes con-ditions (n = 128). Analyses revealed very little faking behavior on average. Cognitive ability and ATIC were both negatively related to personality score elevation, but only cognitive ability exhibited a statistically significant association. Neither perceived faking norms nor honesty– humility were significantly related to personality score elevation and only perceived competition was positively related to overclaiming (a proxy of faking).

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first known field study that examines how indicators of the ability and motivation to fake drive faking behavior among job applicants on personality inventories.

1.1 | Faking on personality inventories

Faking behavior was defined by Ziegler et al. (2012a; p. 8) as ‘… a re-sponse set aimed at providing a portrayal of the self that helps a per-son to achieve personal goals’ and added that ‘faking occurs when this response set is activated by situational demands and person characteristics to produce systematic differences in test scores that are not due to the attribute of interest’. To obtain accurate assess-ments of the extent to which a personnel selection context triggers a systematic change in response sets among applicants requires both low- stakes and high- stakes scores from the same applicants (Tett & Simonet, 2011). However, because it is extremely challenging to col-lect such data (see Donovan et al., 2014 for an excellent summary of these challenges), much of the faking research has relied on experi-mental faking studies (e.g., MacCann, 2013), or comparisons of data collected from applicants to those collected from non- applicants (e.g., Birkeland et al., 2006).

Viswesvaran and Ones (1999) meta- analyzed studies that com-pared honest and faked personality scores under ‘fake- good’ in-structions and found that Likert- based measures of all Big Five personality domains are quite easily fakable. Similar results have been found for the HEXACO personality model, which captures an additional honesty– humility dimension beyond the Big Five (Grieve & De Groot, 2011; MacCann, 2013). For example, when instructed to fake good, MacCann (2013) showed that participants are able to increase their HEXACO domain scores by 0.49 (honesty– humility) to 1.08 of a standard deviation (conscientiousness). Research in which applicant scores are compared to those of non- applicants (e.g., em-ployees or research participants) shows smaller effect sizes and more nuanced findings. In a meta- analysis, Birkeland et al. (2006) observed small to moderate group differences on the Big Five do-mains (d = 0.11– 0.45). Furthermore, Anglim et al. (2017), comparing job applicants to age- and gender- matched non applicants, found differences ranging from d = 0.09 (openness to experience) to 1.06 (agreeableness) on the HEXACO domains. Of note, Birkeland et al. also found that larger differences emerged on specific job- relevant domains (e.g., extraversion for sales) and, indeed, other research has confirmed that applicants fake according to the cognitive schema of a job (Geiger et al., 2018).

The above findings, however, merely provide proof- of- concept: They do not answer the question whether people actually fake when in real selection contexts (Smith & Ellingson, 2002; Snell & McDaniel, 1998). Within- subjects studies among actual applicants are very scarce. However, the few studies that exists suggest that faking is a pervasive problem. Indeed, Griffith et al. (2007) estimated that 30%– 50% of job applicants fake on personality inventories (an estimate that is similar to other studies: Arthur et al., 2010; Donovan et al., 2014; Peterson et al., 2011).

1.2 | Individual differences as determinants of faking

Why, when, and in what form faking behavior emerges has been the topic of considerable theoretical discussion (Goffin & Boyd, 2009; Griffith & Peterson, 2006; Roulin et al., 2016; Tett & Simonet, 2011; Ziegler et al., 2012b). From these discussions, a range of dispositional and situational factors have been identified as potential drivers of faking. Three recurring factors that drive applicants’ decision to fake are: (a) their ability to fake, (b) their motivation to fake, and (c) the op-portunity to fake (e.g., Goffin & Boyd, 2009; Roulin et al., 2016; Tett & Simonet, 2011). Whereas the ability and motivation to fake repre-sent manifestations of various individual differences, the opportu-nity to fake is most often conceived through contextual factors (such as designing faking detection warnings: Fan et al., 2012; or having hard- to- fake tests; e.g., Roulin & Krings, 2016). In this research, we focus on a set of individual differences that are hypothesized to be predictive of applicant faking. In contrast, the contextual factors were held constant in our study because the applicants in our sam-ple were exposed to the same procedures and were applying for the same, highly competitive, role. So far, to the best of our knowledge, few of these predictors have been investigated in the field (Roulin et al., 2016). By investigating the relevance of hypothesized predic-tors of faking behavior in a real applicant sample, this study contrib-utes to sharpen existing theories of faking behavior.

1.2.1 | Ability to fake

Meta- analytic evidence revealed that nearly every individual pos-sesses some ability to inflate their test scores, if instructed to make a good impression (Viswesvaran & Ones, 1999). However, as noted above, depending on the job context, faking requires some nuance, and research has found that individuals do differ from one another in their ability to fake in an effective way (i.e., to appear highly desir-able among an applicant pool). In particular, the ability to fake has often been considered in relation to aspects of cognitive ability (e.g., Roulin et al., 2016; Tett & Simonet, 2011) and the Ability to Identify Criteria (ATIC; Klehe et al., 2012; Roulin et al., 2016).

Cognitive abilityAlthough theoretical models of faking often cite cognitive abil-ity as a candidate predictor of faking, laboratory studies and field studies seem to yield quite varied results as to its role. On the one hand, faking experiments found that participants with higher cognitive abilities are better able to fake than those with lower cognitive abilities. For example, MacCann (2013) found that trait score elevation on the HEXACO- PI- R– – a sign of ‘effective’ faking– – was mostly (positively) related to crystalized intelligence and to a lesser degree to fluid intelligence. Geiger et al. (2018) found that faking more closely to a cognitive schema of a job was positively related to applicants’ crystalized intelligence, general cognitive ability, and interpersonal abilities. On the other hand, few field

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studies that investigated the effect of cognitive abilities on fak-ing found non- significant or mixed effects of it. Moreover, all these field studies used proxy measures of faking, such as Social Desirability (SD) scores, to estimate faking behavior. For example, De Fruyt et al. (2006) found that, in a large sample of applicants, SD scores (Paulhus, 2002) were unassociated with intelligence, and Levashina et al. (2014) found that applicants with higher cog-nitive abilities scored higher on an SD scale and lower on extreme responding frequency (i.e., choosing the most extreme response options on a Likert scale). Finally, while investigating faking on a biodata questionnaire (which also relies on accurate self- reporting and thus can be faked), Levashina et al. (2009) found that appli-cants with higher cognitive ability engaged less in faking behav-iors, but among those applicants that chose to fake, those with higher cognitive ability faked more than those with lower ability. Together, previous research suggests that applicants with higher cognitive abilities may employ more strategic or subtle responding strategies when faking than those with lower cognitive abilities and— as a result— are better able to fake.

Ability to identify criteriaAs a precondition for effective faking, a respondent must also pos-sess some understanding about the construct(s) on which to fake (e.g., Roulin et al., 2016). Such an understanding has been concep-tualized in past research as ATIC. Specifically, ATIC is defined as ‘… a person's ability to correctly perceive performance criteria when participating in an evaluative situation … Thus, the concept of ATIC is based on capturing the correctness of candidates’ perceptions of the performance criteria (i.e., candidates’ assumptions regarding what is being measured) in an actual evaluative situation’ (Kleinmann et al., 2011; p. 129). Confirming that ATIC is indeed a form of abil-ity, previous research found that ATIC is moderately and positively related to cognitive ability (Melchers et al., 2009). Although ATIC is often proposed as a precursor of faking, to the best of our knowl-edge, only two studies– – both of them using instructed ‘fake- good’ designs– – have directly investigated the relationship between ATIC and faking, and both involved interviews rather than personality inventories (Buehl et al., 2019; Dürr & Klehe, 2017). Furthermore, together, these findings provide conflicting evidence for ATIC’s theo-rized relation with faking; Buehl et al. (2019) discovered a significant positive relation between interview ATIC and regression- adjusted difference scores on structured interviews (i.e., a direct measure of faking), whereas Dürr and Klehe (2017) did not find a significant rela-tion between interview ATIC and self- reported faking.

Considering that personality inventories are the second most widely used psychometric assessment, surpassing even the popular-ity of cognitive ability tests (Kantrowitz et al., 2018), we argue that it is especially prudent to also investigate the principles of ATIC in relation to personality inventories and its potential to predict per-sonality inventory faking behavior. Indeed, much like interviews, which typically comprise several questions, probes, and prompts, personality inventories contain a wide variety of stimuli, in the form of items. Furthermore, and again like interviews, responses to the

multiple stimuli are aggregated to assess several higher- level charac-teristics (traits). The information regarding what traits are assessed, which traits are job- relevant, and how the items relate to these traits is rarely provided to applicants. Thus, applicants very likely vary in their understanding of (a) how personality inventories are structured (i.e., both first, that and second, how items are aggregated into trait estimates), and (b) which of the measured traits will be considered. Thus, we construed this variability as ‘Personality Inventory ATIC’, that is defined as an individual's ability to identify which job- relevant personality traits are being assessed by a personality inventory. In other words, personality ATIC pertains to a person's ability to cor-rectly perceive the traits that are used to assess the suitability of indi-viduals for the job.

Altogether, we expect that personality inventory ATIC will be an antecedent of faking behavior on personality inventories. Therefore, we developed and tested a novel method for personality inventory ATIC and examined its association with faking.

Hypothesis 1 a) Cognitive ability and b) personality inventory ATIC will be positively associated with faking.

1.2.2 | Motivation to fake

Although nearly all applicants are motivated to obtain job offers, the motivation to fake to receive a job offer might still differ between individuals. Indeed, Roulin et al. (2016) hypothesized that individu-als’ motivation to fake depends on two individual differences: (1) the perceived competition and (2) their disposition toward deviant behavior.

Perceived competitionIn a highly competitive selection situation, the extent to which an ap-plicant believes that other applicants are likely to fake might trigger a stronger perceived need to fake, because not faking ‘may leave them at a competitive disadvantage’ (Griffith & McDaniel, 2006, p. 7). Thus far, the evidence for the effects of the perceived competition, which we term ‘faking norms’, is scarce, and the operationalization of this variable varies across studies. For example, Roulin and Krings (2016) asked people to retrospectively self- report about their most recent job application and found that people with competitive world views were more likely to report that they faked in job interviews. The effect of perceived competition for a job, operationalized as the selection ratio, on faking has also been investigated in a few studies. Ho et al. (2019) recently used a vignette study and showed that the perceived competition for a job affects how much applicants intend to fake. Similarly, Buehl and Melchers (2018) used vignettes to in-vestigate the effect of competition but instead found no increase in faking intentions when perceived competition was high. In short, the emerging research on the effect of perceived faking norms and com-petition shows mixed results and none of this research used real ap-plicants nor directly measured faking. In the present study, we build on this emerging stream of research and, to estimate their perceived

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faking norms, asked applicants directly how much they believe that other applicants are willing to fake.

Hypothesis 2 Perceived faking norms are positively associated with faking.

Disposition toward deviant behaviorSome studies indicated that a person's stable attitudes toward devi-ant behaviors, such as Machiavellianism (MacNeil & Holden, 2006) or integrity (Wrensen & Biderman, 2005), are likely to affect their faking behavior. Ashton et al. (2004) introduced honesty– humility as a sixth major personality dimension, which describes a person's tendency to be sincere, modest, fair, and avoid greed. Honesty– humility strongly and negatively correlates with ‘dark’ traits, such as Machiavellianism (Hodson et al., 2018; Muris et al., 2017), posi-tively with integrity (Lee et al., 2008), and negatively with deviant behaviors (Pletzer et al., 2019). So far, however, only a few experi-mental studies have examined honesty– humility as a predictor of faking, and these either showed null- results or a negative relation. For example, Ho et al. (2019) showed that honesty– humility was negatively related to self- reported faking intentions, based on job interview vignettes. However, another study found no relation be-tween honesty– humility and regression- adjusted difference scores (i.e., a direct measure of faking) on structured interviews (Buehl et al., 2019). Furthermore, among a sample of firefighter applicants, Dunlop et al. (2020) recently found no relation of honesty– humility with overclaiming knowledge of firefighting concepts in their

applications. In short, although theoretical models of faking have in-cluded honesty– humility or similar ‘moral’ constructs in their model (Roulin et al., 2016; Snell et al., 1999), the evidence is not yet entirely conclusive that (low) honesty– humility is predictive of faking on personality inventories. In the present study, we will build on these previous studies by testing (low) honesty– humility as a predictor of faking among actual applicants.

Hypothesis 3 Honesty– humility, as assessed in the low- stakes con-ditions, will be negatively related to faking on other personality dimensions and overclaiming.

All predictors are summarized in Figure 1. After testing the hy-potheses, we will explore to what extent this study's hypothesized predictors of faking overlap in terms of their relations with faking.

Research Question 1: To what extent do (a) cognitive ability, (b) ATIC, (c) perceived faking norms, and (d) honesty– humility overlap in their prediction of faking?

Other personality traits, in addition to honesty– humility, are known to affect faking behavior (e.g., McFarland & Ryan, 2000). Generally, these are measured with Big Five personality invento-ries, of which some dimensions somewhat overlap with honesty– humility. To further contribute the existing body of knowledge, we will explore which personality dimensions (as measured with the HEXACO personality inventory) are predictive of faking.

Research Question 2: To what extent do personality dimensions, other than honesty– humility, predict faking?

F I G U R E 1   Summary of hypotheses and theoretical model of this research

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1.3 | Measuring faking

Accurate assessments of faking among applicants are extremely challenging to collect. In a relatively ideal scenario, regression- adjusted difference scores (RADS) are used to empirically estimate faking (Burns & Christiansen, 2011). RADS are the standardized re-siduals that emerge when high- stakes trait scores are regressed onto their low- stakes trait counterparts. These residuals, therefore, con-tain faking and error because they capture the part of high- stakes personality that cannot be explained by low- stakes (i.e., ‘honest’) personality.

In the absence of a repeated- measures design, however, re-searchers do not have access to both low- and high- stakes person-ality scores. Hence, considerable effort has been spent to devise alternative proxy measures of faking. SD scales (Paulhus, 2002), perhaps the most well- known proxy of faking, have received much criticism for this purported goal: SD scales are not very effective in identifying fakers (Tett & Christiansen, 2007); ‘correcting’ person-ality scores with SD scales adversely affects the quality of hiring decisions (Christiansen et al., 1994); and SD scales are confounded with meaningful variance of desirable personality traits (De Vries et al., 2014).

1.3.1 | Overclaiming as a proxy for faking

In response to the above- mentioned concerns about SD scales, Paulhus and colleagues proposed an alternative indicator of fak-ing, which they termed the overclaiming technique (Paulhus, 2011; Paulhus & Harms, 2004; Paulhus et al., 2003). When applying the overclaiming technique, participants are asked to indicate their knowledge of items within themed sets. While most items in a set are legitimate (targets), bogus items (foils) are also included. Because it is not possible for participants to be truly knowledgeable of a foil (Dunlop et al., 2017), endorsement of these items is thought to be indicative of faking. Accordingly, if participants claim knowledge of the foils, they are considered to be overclaiming, and thus may also have distorted (overclaimed on) their personality inventory responses (Burns & Christiansen, 2011). Studies on the effective-ness of the overclaiming technique to identify faking behavior have provided mixed evidence (Bing et al., 2011; Feeney & Goffin, 2015; Ludeke & Makransky, 2016; Müller & Moshagen, 2018; O'Connell et al., 2011). Recently, however, Dunlop et al. (2020) showed that the overclaiming technique is most likely to indicate faking if the fol-lowing two conditions are met: (a) the assessment context includes a high valence outcome (e.g., a desired job) and (b) the overclaiming measure contains relevant content such that participants perceive claiming knowledge as instrumental to attaining that outcome. To further research on overclaiming as a potential proxy for applicant faking, we (a) investigated the extent to which overclaiming relevant job knowledge is related to actual faking behavior and (b) tested the hypotheses and research questions with overclaiming as a depend-ent variable too.

1.4 | The present study

In the present study, we investigated the prevalence and predic-tors of faking on personality inventories among a substantial sam-ple of applicants for firefighter positions. In this study, we measured HEXACO personality (Ashton et al., 2004) both during the selection process (high- stakes) and 3 months later (low- stakes), allowing us to measure actual faking behavior (through regression- adjusted differ-ence scores; Burns & Christiansen, 2011). We also collected infor-mation on the hypothesized predictors of faking: cognitive ability, ATIC, and perceived faking norms. Finally, we measured overclaim-ing (Paulhus et al., 2003) as an emerging proxy of faking that is meth-odologically independent of our main conceptualization of faking.

Because the present study includes low- and high- stakes per-sonality scores of real job applicants, we believe its methodology meets the ‘gold standard’ of faking research. The present study's within- subjects design allows the strongest conclusions compared to other designs, such as controlled experiments with ‘fake- good’ instructions, applicant versus non- applicant sample comparisons, or within- subjects studies among repeat- applicants.

2  | METHOD

Although data were collected in 2016, hypotheses and analyses for an earlier version of this manuscript were preregistered prior to any hypothesis testing. For the full preregistration document, please refer to this study's open science framework (OSF) webpage (https://osf.io/wg39h/).

2.1 | Sample and procedure

In 2016, 572 people were assessed in relation to their applications for a firefighter position in Western Australia. These ‘high- stakes’ assessments (to contrast with the ‘low- stakes’ follow- up assessment described below) were conducted online and included a personality inventory, an overclaiming questionnaire, and two cognitive ability tests. Following the assessments, 379 (67%) of the applicants pro-vided permission to the researchers to be contacted for a follow- up survey. Analyses revealed no evidence of differences in demographic composition, personality, or cognitive ability between those who gave permission and those who did not.

Three months after the selection assessments, the 379 appli-cants were approached via email to complete a follow- up online questionnaire. The applicants were clearly informed that this fol-low- up survey had no bearing on their current or future job applica-tions with the hiring organization, creating a ‘low- stakes’ assessment condition. Additionally, the applicants were informed that they had a chance of being randomly selected to receive one out of ten $50 gift vouchers from a retailer of their choice. The follow- up survey con-tained a personality inventory, the personality inventory ATIC mea-sure, and a perceived faking norms measure. Finally, the survey also

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included some applicant reaction measures that are not relevant to the research questions of this study. A total of 168 applicants com-menced the follow- up survey, however, complete responses were only received from 130 applicants (35.2%). Of these, 41 indicated their application was still under consideration, 10 had been formally offered a position in the firefighter academy, 77 had been rejected, and 2 had withdrawn.

Following a preregistered protocol, the high- stakes and the low- stakes data sets were both inspected for careless responding. Based on the low- stakes questionnaire, two participants were iden-tified with very low variability in item responses between scales (SD < 0.70) and high variability in item responses within scales (SD > 1.60; Barends & De Vries, 2019; Lee & Ashton, 2018) and sub-sequently excluded from further analyses. The final sample of 128 participants was 85% male (a significantly lower proportion of males than the non- participant group) and was of a mean age of 30.5 years (SD = 5.62, slightly but significantly older than the non- participants, d = 0.24, p = .017). There was no evidence of differences between the sample and non- participant group in any of the personality traits, however, the participants tended to perform better than non- participants on the two cognitive tests (d = 0.36 for the compre-hension test, and 0.27 for the technical test, p < .001 and =0.01, respectively).

2.2 | Identification of job- relevant personality traits for firefighters

Because we know that the manifestation of faking depends on the occupational context (i.e., people tend to fake on measures of job- relevant traits rather than indiscriminately), and ATIC is also context- dependent, we need to reach an understanding of how the firefighter job context maps onto personality. In many countries, firefighting is a prestigious occupation. In Australia, obtaining a role as a career firefighter is so highly coveted that there are organiza-tions and podcasts dedicated to coaching applicants on firefighter selection processes (Clayton, 2020). Generally, firefighter personnel selection is a rigorous process that involves physical testing, psycho-metric testing, and interviews. Therefore, it is somewhat surprising that, unlike for other emergency responders such as police offic-ers, there is limited research on which personality traits are most predictive of firefighter performance (exceptions include Kwaske & Morris, 2015; Meronek & Tan, 2004). Considering this lack of information, we combined information from a number of sources to determine which personality traits are most relevant for a fire-fighter position: (a) the job description and selection criteria from the Australian firefighter agency the participants had applied to, (b) the firefighter job description on O*Net, (c) an unpublished data set containing ratings of the perceived social desirability of the items in the HEXACO- Personality- Inventory Revised in relation to two oc-cupation types: emergency responders and other professionals (e.g., a typical office job), (d) the results from research that investigated the personality– performance relationship for firefighters (Kwaske &

Morris, 2015; Meronek & Tan, 2004), and (e) general meta- analytic evidence about the personality– performance relationship (e.g., Barrick & Mount, 1991; Zettler et al., 2020).1

Consulting the evidence above, the author team independently, but unanimously, identified the three most job- relevant traits for firefighters from the HEXACO model of personality: conscientious-ness, (low) emotionality, and honesty– humility. In contrast, the traits agreeableness, extraversion, and openness to experience were viewed as being ambiguously job- relevant for firefighters. The au-thors, therefore, believe that firefighter applicants should expect the hiring organization to use conscientiousness, (low) emotionality, and honesty– humility as selection criteria, therefore, our measurement of ATIC solely focused on the identification of these job- relevant traits. Faking was only measured as the increase in these three traits.

2.3 | Measures and operationalization of variables

2.3.1 | Cognitive ability

Two cognitive ability tests were administered online, unproctored. The tests were developed by Saville Assessments (Willis Towers Watson). One test was the ‘Swift Comprehension’, and it comprised three short sub- tests that assessed verbal, numerical, and checking ability. The second was the ‘Swift Technical’ test, which assesses, via three short sub- tests, diagrammatic, spatial, and mechanical reason-ing. Cognitive ability was operationalized by the first retained factor scores, resulting from factor analyzing all six sub- tests (maximum likelihood EFA).

2.3.2 | Ability to identify criteria (ATIC)

For this study, we designed a novel method to measure ATIC in re-lation to a personality inventory. Typically, ATIC is measured in re-lation to an assessment that captures a single or small number of construct(s). In these cases, ATIC is measured by asking candidates what they believed was being assessed, after responding to, for example, a question or an assessment center exercise (e.g., Klehe et al., 2012; König et al., 2007). In contrast, personality inventories typically combine the assessment of multiple broad traits (describing broad behavioral tendencies), that consist of a set of underlying fac-ets (which describe narrower behavioral tendencies). Accordingly, to allow the participants to describe all the criteria they thought were being measured with the HEXACO- 60, we designed a two- step ATIC measure that was administered directly after the personality inven-tory in the low- stakes assessment.

First, ATIC was assessed immediately after participants completed the HEXACO- 60 by asking them to ‘indicate the skills/characteristics— you think— were being measured with the previous inventory’? Participants were provided with up to six text boxes, across two pages, to speculate which skills/characteristics had been measured (exam-ple responses include ‘integrity’, ‘honesty’, and ‘leadership’). These

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responses were coded independently by two raters who were blind to the hypotheses. These raters compared the provided skills/character-istics to the six domains of the HEXACO and rated these on accuracy on a scale from 0 to 3, where 0 = Wrong, the entry did not match part of any HEXACO dimension, 1 = Entry resembles one facet of a dimension, 2 = Entry matches most of the same dimension, and 3 = Entry comes very close to the same dimension. Negatively keyed entries (e.g., introversion) were considered equally correct as positively keyed entries. In case the same dimension was described more than once by a participant, the description that was rated as most accurate was retained.

Second, for each time that participants provided a characteristic, they were asked to elaborate in a follow- up text box, by providing ‘examples of behavior for the skill/characteristic’. Each HEXACO personality dimension consists of four facets, and this follow- up question served to assess to what extent participants were able to identify all facets of the provided personality dimensions, also for participants who had initially provided an incorrect label. For example, one participant mistakenly labeled a skill/characteristic ‘Courage’ instead of (low) emotionality, evidenced by the description ‘Being able to stay calm and think clearly in dangerous, scary or high- pressure situations’, which relates to some facets of emotionality, es-pecially fearfulness. The same two raters independently compared the provided example behaviors to the facets of the domains, to as-sess to which level of detail an applicant had correctly understood a dimension. Again, the accuracy of the examples was rated on a scale from 0 to 3, ranging from 0 = Wrong, no facets correctly identified to 3 = Almost entirely right– – 3 to 4 facets of the same dimension correctly identified. When different examples of behavior described the same facet, the facet was only counted once. If aspects of multiple dimen-sions were described simultaneously, the raters only counted the facet(s) that matched the dimension provided in the first response.

In short, all participants obtained two scores, per rater, for the six HEXACO traits (i.e., the three clearly job- relevant and three ambigu-ously relevant traits), indicating (a) to what extent they had identified the dimension correctly and (b) to what extent they identified the un-derlying facets correctly. The interrater agreement, computed as per the recommendation of Landers (2015), of the ATIC scores for the job- relevant traits showed high consistency, ICC(2, 2) = 0.93, as did the ATIC scores on all six HEXACO dimensions: ICC(2, 2) = 0.89. To calculate applicants’ final ATIC score, we only examined the ratings in relation to the job- relevant traits (McDonald's ω = 0.66). Therefore, an ATIC score was computed separately for each of honesty– humility, emotionality, and conscientiousness (each ranging from 0 to 6) to form an ATIC score for each job- relevant trait; additionally, an average score for all three job- relevant traits was computed to form an overall per-sonality ATIC score that could range from 0 to 6.2

2.3.3 | Perceived faking norms

To assess the extent to which applicants thought other applicants would fake, they were asked to ‘Indicate how many other ap-plicants to the Firefighter position - you believe- would take the

three approaches described below when completing a personality inventory as part of their application: (a) Be as honest as possible throughout the personality questionnaire, admitting both flaws and strengths, (b) Be honest about some aspects of their personality but try to make a good impression on others, or (c) Focus only on making a good impression, even if it meant completely ignoring their true flaws and strengths’. Participants then assigned 100 points across all options, showing the % of the applicants that they thought would behave in each way. Response 1 describes honest responding, re-sponse 2 describes behavior that is more- or- less expected of job applicants, and response 3 can be considered deception or faking. Therefore, the percentage assigned to option 3 was taken as an es-timate of the applicants’ perceived faking norms. On average, par-ticipants estimated that 20% of all applicants would only focus on making a good impression (min = 0% and max = 80%).

2.3.4 | HEXACO personality inventory

High- stakes personality was measured with the full- length HEXACO- PI- R (Lee & Ashton, 2004) and low- stakes personality was measured via the HEXACO- 60 (Ashton & Lee, 2009). When drawing compari-sons between low- and high- stakes scores, we only used the subset of items from the HEXACO- 60, which measures six personality di-mensions with 10 items each: Honesty– Humility (H), Emotionality (E), Extraversion (X), Agreeableness (A), Conscientiousness (C), and Openness to experience (O). All items were rated on a 5- point scale ranging from 1 = Strongly disagree to 5 = Strongly agree. Among the 128 retained participants, the McDonald's ω for the high- stakes scales ranged from 0.72 to 0.83 and for the low- stakes scales from 0.69 to 0.81.

2.3.5 | Faking estimated with RADS

Faking was estimated empirically via RADS as described in Burns and Christiansen (2011), by regressing the high- stakes trait scores onto the low- stakes trait scores for each of the three traits identified as job- relevant (e.g., high- stakes conscientiousness onto low- stakes conscientiousness) and saving the standardized residuals. Next, the average RADS of all three job- relevant traits was computed. This average RADS served as an ‘omnibus’ measure of faking. When test-ing the correlations with specific personality dimensions (i.e., for Hypothesis 2 and Research Question 2), if the personality dimen-sion was also a job- relevant trait, we recalculated the average RADS without the criterion that was used to predict faking to eliminate circularity.

2.3.6 | Overclaiming

Overclaiming was measured with an overclaiming questionnaire that was tailored for firefighter selection, as described in Dunlop

192  |     HOLTROP eT aL.

TAB

LE 1

 M

eans

, sta

ndar

d de

viat

ion,

and

mea

n sc

ore

diff

eren

ces

of th

e H

EXAC

O tr

aits

Curr

ent s

tudy

Com

paris

on s

tudi

es

Low

- sta

kes,

N

= 1

28H

igh-

stak

es, N

= 1

28

Lee

and

Ash

ton

(201

8)Lo

w- s

take

s, a

ll m

ale

Aus

tral

ian

subs

ampl

e,

N =

10,

326

Fran

cis e

t al.

(201

8)Fi

refig

hter

incu

mbe

nts,

N =

20

MSD

MSD

tp

rd

MSD

t (df

)p

dM

SDt (

df)

pd

Sele

ctio

n cr

iteria

Con

scie

ntio

usne

ss4.

070.

414.

110.

431.

54.1

30.

740.

133.

540.

6314

.42

(134

).0

0−0

.85

3.78

0.49

2.51

(23)

.02

−0.6

9

Emot

iona

lity

2.46

0.45

2.48

0.46

0.57

.57

0.74

0.06

2.74

0.64

6.95

(133

).0

00.

452.

640.

611.

27 (2

2).2

20.

38

Hon

esty

– hum

ility

4.03

0.44

4.10

0.46

2.13

.04

0.67

0.19

3.22

0.77

20.4

4 (1

36)

.00

−1.0

63.

730.

393.

14 (2

7).0

0−0

.69

Oth

er p

erso

nalit

y tr

aits

Agr

eeab

lene

ss3.

730.

453.

750.

450.

80.4

20.

730.

063.

140.

6814

.63

(134

).0

0−0

.86

3.16

0.56

4.34

(22)

.00

−1.2

2

Extr

aver

sion

3.95

0.41

3.99

0.40

1.96

.05

0.79

0.19

3.28

0.74

18.1

3 (1

37)

.00

−0.9

1—

—

—

—

—

Ope

nnes

s to

ex

perie

nce

3.37

0.58

3.38

0.61

0.28

.78

0.83

0.03

3.71

0.65

6.58

(130

).0

00.

52—

—

—

—

—

Not

e: F

or d

ata

colle

cted

in th

e cu

rren

t stu

dy, h

igh-

stak

es p

erso

nalit

y w

as m

easu

red

with

the

full-

leng

th H

EXAC

O- P

I- R

(Lee

& A

shto

n, 2

004)

and

low

- sta

kes

pers

onal

ity w

as m

easu

red

via

the

abbr

evia

ted

HEX

ACO

- 60

(Ash

ton

& L

ee, 2

009)

. To

ensu

re e

quiv

alen

ce b

etw

een

the

two

mea

sure

s, w

hen

draw

ing

com

paris

ons

betw

een

low

- and

hig

h- st

akes

sco

res,

we

only

use

and

pre

sent

sco

res

on th

e ite

ms

from

the

HEX

ACO

- 60.

All

trai

ts a

re m

easu

red

on a

sca

le fr

om 1

to 5

. The

Ms

and

SDs

of th

e lo

w- s

take

s H

EXAC

O d

ata

wer

e al

so c

ompa

red

to th

e H

EXAC

O- 6

0 sc

ores

of a

n A

ustr

alia

n m

ale

subs

ampl

e (L

ee &

Ash

ton,

201

8) a

nd to

a s

mal

l sam

ple

of U

.K. f

irefig

hter

incu

mbe

nts

(Fra

ncis

et a

l., 2

018)

. The

t va

lues

repr

esen

t the

resu

lts o

f pai

red

t- tes

ts fo

r the

hig

h- st

akes

con

ditio

n an

d W

elch

's t- t

ests

for t

he

com

paris

on s

tudi

es. T

he c

orre

latio

n (r)

is th

e te

st– r

etes

t cor

rela

tion

betw

een

low

- and

hig

h- st

akes

. The

eff

ect s

izes

(d) f

or th

e lo

w- v

ersu

s hi

gh- s

take

s ar

e ba

sed

on th

e po

oled

sta

ndar

d de

viat

ion

and

take

in

to a

ccou

nt th

e co

rrel

atio

n be

twee

n th

e tw

o te

st s

core

s (M

orris

, 200

8).

     |  193HOLTROP eT aL.

TAB

LE 2

 M

eans

, sta

ndar

d de

viat

ions

, and

cor

rela

tions

bet

wee

n st

udy

varia

bles

MSD

12

34

56

78

910

1112

13

1. A

ge30

.51

5.62

—

2. G

ende

r1.

150.

360.

02—

3. C

urre

nt s

tatu

s1.

400.

490.

06−0

.12

—

4. C

ogni

tive

abili

ty0.

000.

81−0

.06

−0.2

0*0.

46**

—

5. A

TIC

1.32

0.84

0.02

−0.0

5−0

.05

0.16

0.66

6. P

erce

ived

faki

ng

norm

s19

.95

16.7

20.

04−0

.18*

−0.0

70.

02−0

.09

—

7. H

ones

ty– H

umili

ty4.

030.

440.

020.

110.

04−0

.01

0.14

0.02

0.75

8. E

mot

iona

lity

2.46

0.45

−0.0

30.

21*

−0.1

7−0

.06

−0.0

9−0

.06

−0.1

40.

72

9. E

xtra

vers

ion

3.95

0.41

0.02

−0.1

20.

22*

0.07

0.14

0.17

0.12

−0.3

0**

0.77

10. A

gree

able

ness

3.73

0.45

−0.0

10.

020.

090.

030.

000.

160.

27**

−0.2

4**

0.39

**0.

77

11. C

onsc

ient

ious

ness

4.07

0.41

0.20

*0.

070.

05−0

.02

0.16

0.00

0.25

**−0

.11

0.41

**0.

23**

0.82

12. O

penn

ess

to

expe

rienc

e3.

370.

580.

060.

09−0

.01

0.05

−0.0

40.

07−0

.01

0.19

*0.

110.

160.

100.

83

13. F

akin

g0.

000.

710.

160.

030.

08−0

.19*

−0.1

1−0

.09

0.04

1−0

.031

0.11

0.10

0.17

1−0

.07

—

14. O

verc

laim

ing

−0.3

70.

410.

09−0

.18*

0.01

−0.0

10.

090.

19*

0.08

−0.2

2*0.

29**

0.18

*0.

17−0

.05

0.12

Not

e: N

= 1

28. G

ende

r is

code

d as

1 =

mal

e an

d 2

= fe

mal

e. C

urre

nt s

tatu

s is

cod

ed a

s 1

= o

ut o

f the

sel

ectio

n pr

oces

s (w

ithdr

ew o

r rej

ecte

d) a

nd 2

= s

till i

n th

e se

lect

ion

proc

ess

(und

er c

onsi

dera

tion

or

hire

d). C

ogni

tive

abili

ty a

nd fa

king

are

sta

ndar

dize

d re

sidu

al s

core

s. A

TIC

is m

easu

red

on s

cale

from

0 to

6. P

erce

ived

nor

m to

fake

is in

dica

ted

by a

per

cent

age.

The

HEX

ACO

per

sona

lity

trai

ts a

re th

ose

mea

sure

d in

the

low

- sta

kes

cond

ition

, on

a sc

ale

from

1 to

5. O

verc

laim

ing

is o

pera

tiona

lized

as

the

mea

n c

scor

e. 1 Fo

r the

cor

rela

tions

with

the

pers

onal

ity d

imen

sion

s, fa

king

was

adj

uste

d to

not

incl

ude

the

regr

essi

on- a

djus

ted

diff

eren

ce s

core

of t

he p

erso

nalit

y di

men

sion

s be

ing

corr

elat

ed to

faki

ng. M

cDon

ald'

s ω

coef

ficie

nts

are

italic

ized

on th

e di

agon

al.

**p

< .0

1.; *

p <

.05

(two-

taile

d).

194  |     HOLTROP eT aL.

et al. (2020). Applicants were asked to report their knowledge of sets of items, ostensibly describing: firefighting techniques, pieces of firefighting equipment, and household hardware and tools, using the following options: 0 (I have never heard of this item), (1) (I can un-derstand what/who this item is when it is discussed), and (2) (I can talk intelligently about this item). In total, the questionnaire contained 36 real items (12 per item set) and 9 bogus items (3 per item set). The criterion location (c) index, representing the overclaiming bias (Paulhus & Harms, 2004), was calculated using the signal detection theory formula (Macmillan, 1993), essentially averaging the z- score that corresponds to the hit rate (the proportion of real items that the participants ‘knew’) and the z- score that corresponds to the false alarm rate (the proportion of bogus items that the participants ‘knew’), then multiplying that result by negative one (Stanislaw & Todorov, 1999). The mean c scores on the firefighting techniques, firefighting equipment, and household items were then averaged as the final measure of overclaiming.

3  | RESULTS

3.1 | Preliminary analyses

We first examined the degree to which faking occurred on aver-age among the applicants for the firefighter position. As an om-nibus test of the effect of the assessment stakes, we conducted two ANOVAs, one for the means of the job- relevant traits and one for the means of all personality traits. The first 2 (stakes) × 3 (job- relevant traits) ANOVA found that the main effect of assess-ment stakes was negligible and non- significant, F(1,762) = 1.31, p = .25, partial η2 = 0.002. The second 2 (stakes) × 6 (person-ality traits) ANOVA found a similar negligible effect of stakes, F(1,1524) = 1.72, p = .19, partial η2 = 0.001. For the individual HEXACO traits, Table 1 presents the means, standard deviations, and score differences in the high- stakes versus the low- stakes testing condition. The sizes of the differences between low- and high- stakes, expressed via Cohen's d, were very small, ranging from 0.03 to 0.19. In regards to the job- relevant traits, we found the largest difference between high- and low- stakes scores for honesty– humility, t(127) = 2.13, p = .04, d = 0.19. The other two job- relevant traits, conscientiousness (d = 0.13) and emotionality (d = 0.06) showed very small differences, and indeed the direction of the difference for emotionality was opposite to what one would expect given the trait's relevance for a firefighter role. For extra-version, which was not a job- relevant trait, we found elevation comparable to honesty– humility, t(127) = 1.96, p = .052, d = 0.19. Altogether, the amount of response elevation (i.e., faking) that oc-curred from low- to high- stakes appeared to be low, and in one instance was it opposite to what is expected (i.e., emotionality).

The participants displayed an unexpected lack of response elevation from low- to high- stakes. Potentially, this could mean that the low- stakes personality scores were somehow capturing response elevation, although there is no obvious reason why. To

further investigate this issue, we compared the low- stakes scores of our sample to the average HEXACO- 60 scores of the male sub-sample in the original validation study of the personality inventory (Lee & Ashton, 2018) and to a small sample of U.K. firefighters (Francis et al., 2018) (see details in Table 1). This comparison showed that the average low- stakes scores of our sample were significantly higher than the average scores of the comparison samples.

Table 2 presents the means, standard deviations, and correla-tions between our study variables. We found a few significant correlations of demographic variables with our study variables. In line with previous research (Jackson et al., 2009), age correlated positively with conscientiousness, r = 0.20, p = .03. Compared to the male applicants (n = 109), the relatively small group of female applicants (n = 19) scored lower on cognitive ability, t(126) = −2.29, p = .02, d = −0.56, perceived weaker faking norms, t(62.90) = −3.61, p < .01, d = −0.63, scored higher on emotionality, t(126) = 2.47, p = .01, d = 0.61, and overclaimed to a lesser extent, t(126) = −2.02, p = .05, d = −0.45. We also checked whether there were any differences between participants who had been rejected or had withdrawn from the selection process (n = 77) versus those whose application was still under consideration or had been se-lected (n = 51). We only found significant differences for two vari-ables, that is, cognitive ability, t(126) = 5.86, p < .01, d = 1.06, and extraversion, t(126) = 2.50, p = .01, d = 0.45. The overall faking mean RADS correlated positively, but not significantly, with over-claiming, r = 0.12, p = .18.

3.2 | Measurement of ATIC

Because this paper describes the first attempt to measure personal-ity inventory ATIC, we further explored the properties of the meas-urement and made four observations. First, McDonald's ω for all six separate ATIC ratings (i.e., three job- relevant traits X trait and facet level score) was 0.66, providing some evidence of a common (albeit moderate) factor driving ATIC. Second, after combining the two scores for each dimension to form one ATIC estimate per job- relevant trait, dependent t- tests showed that participants identi-fied honesty– humility substantially more often than emotionality, t(127) = 6.21, p < .01, d = 0.55, and emotionality more often than conscientiousness, t(127) = 3.39, p < .01, d = 0.30. Additionally, the job- relevant traits were identified much more frequently than the ambiguously related traits, t(127) = 9.00, p < .01, d = 0.80 (see Figure 2 for all average ATIC levels). Third, participants scored 1.32 on average (SD = 0.84, min = 0.00, and max = 4.17), indicating that participants typically identified approximately one complete job- relevant trait or some partial job- relevant traits. Fourth, after com-pleting the ATIC measure, participants were asked to indicate their level of confidence in their descriptions (not at all to extremely– – 5- point scale); these ratings were correlated with actual ATIC (r = 0.24, p < .01), indicating that participants could somewhat estimate the extent to which they had identified the criteria correctly.

     |  195HOLTROP eT aL.

3.3 | Indicators of the ability to fake

Hypothesis 1 stated that (a) cognitive ability and (b) ATIC would be positively associated with faking, whereas we observed one signifi-cant and one non- significant negative correlation (cognitive ability r = −0.19, p = .03; ATIC r = −0.11, p = .24). Additionally, cognitive ability and ATIC were only correlated to a small and non- significant extent (r = 0.16, p = .08). We also conducted a regression analy-sis which showed that cognitive ability and ATIC together share a very small amount of variance (4%) with faking, F(2, 125) = 2.77, p = .07 (Cognitive ability: B = −0.16, SE = 0.08, β = −0.18, t = −2.02, p = .045; ATIC: B = −0.07, SE = 0.08, β = −0.08, t = −0.87, p = .39). Furthermore, cognitive ability and ATIC were correlated very weakly with overclaiming, respectively, r = −0.01, p = .90 and r = 0.09, p = .33. In short, Hypothesis 1— that the cognitive ability

and personality inventory ATIC are positively predictive of faking— was not supported, instead we found weak evidence suggesting the reverse.

3.4 | Indicators of the motivation to fake

Hypothesis 2, which stated that the perceived faking norms would be positively associated with (indicators of) faking, was partly sup-ported. Perceived faking norms were positively correlated with overclaiming, r = 0.19, p = .04, but negatively and very weakly with faking behavior, r = −0.09, p = .29. Furthermore, we did not find sup-port for Hypothesis 3, that honesty– humility is positively associated with faking and overclaiming. Honesty– humility, as measured in the low- stakes testing condition, was very weakly negatively correlated

F I G U R E 2   Average ATIC scores with standard error of the mean per HEXACO dimension, average ATIC for the three job- relevant traits (‘ATIC criteria’ conscientiousness, emotionality, and honesty– humility) and average ATIC score for all six traits

Fakinga  Overclaiming

BSE (B) β t B

SE (B) β t

Cognitive ability

−0.12 0.09 −0.12 −1.30 −0.02 0.05 −0.03 −0.34

ATIC −0.06 0.09 −0.06 −0.65 0.05 0.04 0.10 1.12

Honesty– Humility

0.05 0.17 0.03 0.30 0.06 0.08 0.06 0.67

Perceived norm to fake

0.00 0.00 −0.07 −0.76 0.01 0.00 0.19 2.20*

R2 0.024 0.05

F 0.76 1.61

Df 4,123 4,123

Note: N = 128.aIn this particular analysis, with (low- stakes) Honesty– Humility as one of the predictors, faking is represented by the average standardized residuals on conscientiousness and emotionality.**p < .01; *p < .05 (two- tailed).

TA B L E 3   Results of hierarchical regression analyses with (proxies of) faking as the dependent variables

196  |     HOLTROP eT aL.

with faking (i.e., the average RADS of emotionality and conscien-tiousness), r = −0.04, p = .84, and positively with overclaiming, r = 0.08, p = .39.

3.5 | Research questions

To examine the extent to which cognitive ability, ATIC, perceived faking norms, and honesty– humility overlap in their prediction of faking and overclaiming, we conducted two regression analyses (see Table 3). For faking (in this case the average RADS of just emotion-ality and conscientiousness), we found only negligible regression weights and, again contrary to expectations, the weights for cogni-tive ability and ATIC were negative. For overclaiming, we found a significant negative regression weight for perceived faking norms, B < 0.01, β = 0.19, t = 2.20, p = .03.

To examine whether any of the HEXACO traits, other than honesty– humility, predicted faking, we examined the correlations of each of the three low- stakes trait scores (i.e., the low- stakes scores) that were regarded as ambiguously job- relevant with faking. For emotionality and conscientiousness, we first created two other faking scores similar to the one created for honesty– humility (i.e., an average RADS of the other two job- relevant traits) and then cor-related these traits with the faking score that excluded that particu-lar trait. We did not find any significant correlations of emotionality (r = −0.03), extraversion (r = 0.11), agreeableness (r = 0.10), con-scientiousness (r = 0.17), and openness to experience (r = −0.07) with faking. For overclaiming, however, we found more substantial correlations: emotionality (r = −0.22), extraversion (r = 0.30), agree-ableness (r = 0.18), conscientiousness (r = 0.17), and openness to experience (r = −0.05).

Altogether, the results showed, on average, little evidence of fak-ing, based on participants’ scores differences in the low- stakes and high- stakes assessments. Furthermore, both cognitive ability and ATIC were negatively associated with the individual differences in faking on the HEXACO measure, and only cognitive ability signifi-cantly so.

4  | DISCUSSION

The goal of the present study was to investigate the theorized pre-dictors of faking on personality inventories among a sample of real applicants to a highly competitive and coveted role. To this end, we collected measures of personality from a sample of applicants both as part of the selection process (high- stakes) and 3 months later (low- stakes), allowing us to measure actual faking behavior directly through RADS. Our results showed low prevalence of faking over-all on average. Specifically, participants only faked significantly on honesty– humility (a job- relevant trait) and marginally on extraver-sion (a trait that is less clearly job- relevant). Moreover, for one of the job- relevant traits, emotionality, the mean difference in scores was in the opposite of the expected direction– – average levels increased

from low- to high- stakes, albeit not to a statistically significant ex-tent. Next, we tested the role of two sets of frequently theorized antecedents of faking, cognitive ability and ATIC as indicators of the ability to fake, and perceived faking norms and honesty– humility as indicators of the motivation to fake. Opposite to our expecta-tions and existing theories, the indicators of the ability to fake were negatively related to actual faking behavior, but only cognitive abil-ity significantly so. Furthermore, the indicators of the motivation to fake were only related to faking to a very modest extent; neither motivational antecedent was significantly related to faking behavior, and only perceived faking norms showed a small relation with over-claiming, a proxy measure of faking. All in all, our study shows a low prevalence of faking and very limited explanation of faking behavior by theoretically sound antecedents.

4.1 | Theoretical implications

Our findings have several theoretical implications. First, our find-ings seem to suggest that faking might be less prevalent than often feared. Although the position of firefighter is highly coveted, the ap-plicants in our sample, on average, faked much less than participants in experimental fake- good studies (e.g., MacCann, 2013) and some-what less than applicants in some other field studies (e.g., Arthur et al., 2010; Birkeland et al., 2006; Ellingson et al., 2007). The dif-ference in faking prevalence observed here with instructed faking experiments is to be expected, the applicants in this study were not explicitly instructed to manage impressions, thus not every applicant may have felt the need to fake. However, the contrast of our results against those from other field studies is more puzzling (e.g., Arthur et al., 2010; Donovan et al., 2003; Griffith et al., 2007; Peterson et al., 2011).

To understand the low faking prevalence in our sample, we compared the average low- stakes scores observed in this study's sample to those from other low- stakes samples. We found mostly large score differences with the HEXACO- 60 validation sample and with a small sample of firefighter incumbents. Considering the score differences with these other samples, it may be possible that the low- stakes scores in this study were contaminated by conscious or unconscious response elevation; in other words, even in the low- stakes condition, our participants may have been faking. This potential response elevation in the low- stakes scores may have re-duced the mean difference between conditions. Still, despite the low mean differences between the low- and high- stakes condition, we observed individual differences in the degree of faking behavior; some participants showed more elevated scores than others in the high- stakes condition. To be precise, the SDs of the raw difference scores on the job- relevant traits ranged from 0.30 for conscientious-ness to 0.37 for honesty– humility. To put this variance in faking into perspective, we compared it to the variances found in other sam-ples. For example, Mason and Ryan (2000) reported a 0.63 differ-ence score SD on conscientiousness in an experimental faking study and Peterson et al. (2011) reported a 0.72 difference score SD on

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conscientiousness in a field study. Compared to these two studies, this study's sample showed less variance in faking behavior.

We offer three potential explanations for this study's lower av-erage levels of faking and lower variance in faking behavior. The first explanation pertains to the context of the high- stakes assessment condition. Specifically, it may be that different selection situations do not evoke faking behavior equally as they may provide differ-ent faking demands and opportunities. Indeed, the opportunity to fake was constant in this investigation and applicants’ perceptions thereof may have been different from other studies in this regard, evoking different or less faking behaviors here. Two alternative ex-planations for the low levels of faking pertain to the low- stakes con-dition. First, our participants completed the high- stakes assessment before the low- stakes assessment, therefore, we cannot rule out any order effects. Indeed, Ellingson et al. (2007) found larger difference scores for participants who first completed a personality inventory for development and then for selection purposes (d = 0.73– 1.44) than for participants who first completed the inventory for selec-tion and then for development purposes (d = 0.27– 0.74). It might be that our participants wanted to appear consistent and thus tried to replicate their high- stakes response pattern in in the low- stakes condition. We hasten to note that a lot of effort was put into mak-ing the low- stakes communication and instructions as unassuming as possible, and that considerable time (3 months) had passed since their high- stakes assessment. Second, it is possible that the partic-ipants completed the low- stakes assessments with their proverbial ‘firefighter applicant hat’ on. In other words, perhaps the context of our research may have prompted the participants to tailor their responses to how they see themselves as a firefighter and not how they are in general. Such a context effect would have brought the honest responses closer to the faked responses. To an extent, the difference between the mean scores of the firefighter incumbent sample (Francis et al., 2018) and the HEXACO community sample (Lee & Ashton, 2018; Table 1) support this notion. All firefighter incumbent mean scores were closer to our sample's honest scores than the community sample's scores.

Second, while keeping in mind that we found limited evidence of faking in the first place, our findings appear to contradict ele-ments of theoretical models of faking (e.g., Roulin et al., 2016; Tett & Simonet, 2011) and previous findings from fake- good experiments (e.g., Geiger et al., 2018; MacCann, 2013) by showing that among actual applicants, cognitive ability was negatively correlated with faking. The phenomenon that findings from a lab environment do not replicate in the field is not uncommon. Indeed, upon comparing results from a large number of lab and field studies, Mitchell (2012) concluded ‘any psychological results found in the laboratory can be replicated in the field, but the effects often differ greatly in their size and less often (though still with disappointing frequency) differ in their directions’ (p. 114). Thus, we also do not wish to dismiss our findings as a mere anomaly simply because it makes sense theoret-ically that applicants with higher cognitive ability should be better able to fake. Instead, we believe that the need for field studies on

the individual differences and circumstances that elicit faking is only further emphasized by this study's incongruent findings.

In an attempt to address these puzzling findings, we explored two possible explanations. First, Levashina et al. (2009) showed that applicants with higher abilities fake less, but when they choose to fake they faked more than applicants with lower abilities. Following their approach, we also explored polynomial relations between the ability to fake and faking behavior, but found no evidence of any. Second, the negative relation might originate from applicants’ perceived need to fake. In this case, applicants were able to choose which as-sessments (personality or cognitive ability) to complete first. Thus, applicants who completed the cognitive ability tests prior to the per-sonality inventory, and thought that they performed badly on the cognitive ability tests, might have felt a need to compensate their lower test scores on the cognitive ability tests by trying to elevate their scores on the personality inventory. Applicants who (think that they) performed well on the cognitive ability tests might have felt more confident about their hiring chances and, therefore, might not have felt such a need. Meanwhile, applicants who completed the cognitive ability tests after the personality inventory cannot use information about their cognitive test performance to guide their personality responding strategy. Our data show some tentative sup-port for this explanation: Among the applicants who completed the cognitive ability tests before the personality inventory (n = 52), the negative correlation between cognitive ability and faking was sig-nificant (r = −0.34, p = .02). However, among the applicants who completed the personality inventory before the cognitive ability tests (n = 76), the correlation between cognitive ability and faking was weaker (r = −0.07, p = .55). The difference between these two correlations is not significant (Z = 1.54, p = .12), however, although we note that our small sample offers only an under- powered test of that difference. Still, if this explanation would be true, this has implications for the design of selection procedures, as administering personality inventories at a later phase in the procedure might influ-ence applicants’ faking behaviors.

Third, this study's field sample presented a unique opportu-nity to investigate individual differences in indicators of the mo-tivation to fake instead of a blanket experimental condition that aims to motivate all participants to fake. In most lab studies, there is little motivation to fake other than doing what the researcher has instructed, or perhaps a small monetary incentive. In contrast to expectations, perceived faking norms and honesty– humility, as indicators of the motivation to fake, played a minimal role in ap-plicant faking. In fact, only perceived faking norms were related to overclaiming, as a proxy to faking, and this relation was modest (r = 0.19). Note, however, that these findings must still be consid-ered with the fact that little (variance in) faking was observed in the first place. Additionally, the participants varied widely in how many applicants they thought engage in faking, ranging from 0% to 80% (M = 20%, median = 15%). The emerging body of literature that in-vestigates applicants’ perceptions of the selection context (Buehl & Melchers, 2018; Ho et al., 2019; Roulin & Krings, 2016), approaches

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these perceptions in various ways (such as competitive worldviews, selection ratio, and number of competing applicants). In our study, we asked to what extent the applicant thought that other applicants would focus only on making a good impression while completing the personality inventory. This study's method appears to overlap mostly with the competitive world views operationalization, which was found to be related to retrospectively reported applicant faking (Roulin & Krings, 2016), and appears to overlap less with the selec-tion ratio operationalization, which was found to be both related (Ho et al., 2019) and unrelated (Buehl & Melchers, 2018) to faking. Considering these findings together with the finding in the present study, it seems that applicants’ perception of the selection context somewhat affects their response biases. Future research could at-tempt to investigate if field interventions, for example, downplaying the competitive nature of a selection process, can reduce percep-tions of competition and result in less faking behavior.

Lastly, we introduced a new conceptualization and measurement of ATIC for a multi- dimensional personality inventory. Previous studies have already measured multidimensional assessment exer-cises (e.g., König et al., 2007) or single dimension personality scales (König et al., 2006). In this study, we defined personality inven-tory ATIC as an individual's ability to identify which job- relevant personality traits are being assessed by a personality inventory. Accordingly, ATIC was assessed for each personality dimension by coding the responses to open- ended questions. Although the re-sponses were sufficiently clear, as two independent raters generally agreed in their ratings ([ICC2, 2] = 0.93), the Omega reliability was acceptable for a highly complex measure (ω = 0.66).

4.2 | Practical implications

Faking behavior can have detrimental effects on personnel selection: Some research shows that it seems to undermine the construct and criterion validity of personality assessments (Donovan et al., 2014; Ellingson et al., 2001), as scores become contaminated with system-atic, but construct- irrelevant variance (e.g., Heggestad et al., 2006). Hence, it is imperative to prevent faking. While keeping in mind that our sample showed less (variance in) faking behavior than usual, our findings also suggest that it can be difficult to predict individual dif-ferences in faking behavior in some settings. Not only did ATIC, per-ceived faking norms, and honesty– humility show negligible relations to faking and was cognitive ability unexpectedly negatively related to faking, but also overclaiming, as a proxy of faking behavior, failed to explain a meaningful amount of the variance in faking. Simply put, predicting faking was very difficult and even counter- intuitive in this sample. We thus challenge any broad claims of being able to detect faking with the same set of predictors in any setting. Importantly, because organizations cannot know the extent to which their ap-plicant sample has faked, nor the variances in faking behavior (as low- stakes scores are not available in such a sample), it is nigh im-possible to verify that faking can be detected in their setting. Thus, we believe that organizations should turn away from attempting to

identify fakers and turn to interventions at the test- development and instruction level to shape the perceived opportunity to fake, such as adding detection warnings (Dwight & Donovan, 2003; Fan et al., 2012). We also encourage organizations to put the onus on test- developers to develop harder- to- fake personality inventories.

4.3 | Limitations and suggestions for future research

This study has some limitations that are especially worth noting. First, we believe that the role of firefighter attracts a specific group of applicants, therefore, a self- selection bias is likely to have been present and may have affected our findings. Indeed, this suspicion is strengthened by the comparison with a normative data set (i.e., the male community sub- sample in Ashton & Lee, 2009) and the mean scores of firefighter incumbents (Francis et al., 2018). We note that the role of firefighter has strong stereotypes attached to it and O*Net job descriptions suggest that firefighter requirements do not match typical production, office, sales, or managerial roles. The unique at-tributes of the firefighter role and its strong stereotype may attract a specific type of person with a very positive and role- congruent self- image. As a result, this self- selection bias could potentially lead to higher low- stakes scores and leave less room for response eleva-tion. As such, our results may not readily generalize to other, more common, roles. Additionally, because our analyses were conditional on the willingness of participants to respond to our invitation to our follow- up survey, there may have been variables relevant to this willingness that have biased the results. For example, perhaps ‘true’ honesty– humility determines both the willingness to fake in high- stakes (negatively), and the willingness to participate (positively). To the extent that this is true, the final sample would comprise only people who are truly high on honesty– humility, whereas those who faked their honesty– humility in high- stakes never completed the low- stakes assessment. Hence, there is a clear need for more research on the individual differences and circumstances that elicit faking in actual selection contexts.

Second, upon reflection, some adjustments might improve the quality of ATIC measurement. First, the ATIC task was very ‘difficult’. Indeed, some participants could apparently not even think of any characteristic that the personality inventory was measuring. Other research also found that not every applicant actively considers what personality inventories are trying to measure (König et al., 2012), perhaps meaning that participants are not equally motivated to look for job- relevant traits. However, if ATIC is indeed an ability, which is further supported by its (weak but) positive correlation with cogni-tive ability in our sample, it would be preferable that every partici-pant is equally motivated to use their ATIC during the whole exercise (i.e., including completing the personality inventory)– – so that the ability is not conflated with motivation to search for job- relevant traits. To that end, it might be preferable to inform participants be-fore they complete the personality inventory that they will be asked to report the job- relevant traits that were measured afterward. Second, participants were provided with the opportunity to provide

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three characteristics per page and could indicate if they wanted to provide more. Only, a small number of participants (n = 19) provided characteristics on the second page. We would, therefore, propose to provide participants all response opportunities on the same page. Finally, to better estimate the effect of ATIC on faking, it seems pru-dent to also ensure that applicants themselves believe the traits that they have identified are important for the job. This belief is likely to be an important step in undertaking faking behavior and should thus make a worthwhile inclusion to map the process from ATIC to fak-ing. As such, future research should instruct participants to report characteristics that are indicative of positive job- relevant behaviors.

Lastly, we wish to make some general observations regarding the prediction of faking behavior. First, much work has investi-gated a limited number or isolated antecedents of faking. The present study examined a larger set of antecedents and found that, collectively, these only predicted a very small amount of faking behavior. Still, we did not measure the opportunity to fake and did not have enough statistical power to explore multiplicative effects. We encourage future research to investigate these ven-ues for these are noticeable omissions in our work and other field studies. Second, we noticed that current models of faking behav-ior still forego some important considerations that applicants may have when completing a personality inventory. For example, ap-plicants consider detrimental long- term effects of faking. Indeed, when interviewing real applicants, König et al. (2012) found, for example, that some applicants may be reluctant to fake out of fear of detection and that some do not want to present themselves differently than they really are. We, therefore, encourage future research to attempt the difficult task of mapping the cognitive processes that real applicants go through while completing per-sonality inventories.

5  | CONCLUSION

Using a sample of firefighter applicants, this study shows that cogni-tive ability is negatively related to faking on personality inventories and that perceived faking norms are positively related to overclaim-ing. However, altogether, the applicants faked very little when their high- stakes assessment was compared to their low- stakes assess-ment. All in all, our study shows the importance of more within- subjects studies among real applicants to better understand the prevalence and predictors of faking.

ACKNOWLEDG MENTSThe authors thank Courtenay McGill for her efforts in coding the textual data, and two reviewers and the Associate Editor whose comments/suggestions greatly helped to improve this manuscript.

ORCIDDjurre Holtrop https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3824-3385 Janneke K. Oostrom https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0963-5016 Patrick D. Dunlop https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5225-6409

ENDNOTE S 1 Please see this project's OSF page for more details on the information

sources that informed the rank- order the traits and the authors’ con-siderations on how to rank the traits.

2 This project's OSF page includes a file with excerpts from our com-munications with the review team about the measurement of ATIC. We hope that the considerations in these communications may serve future researchers wishing to study ATIC in a multidimensional (per-sonality) measure.

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How to cite this article: Holtrop D, Oostrom JK, Dunlop PD, Runneboom C. Predictors of faking behavior on personality inventories in selection: Do indicators of the ability and motivation to fake predict faking?. Int J Select Assess. 2021;29:185– 202. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijsa.12322