JRPC 2016 · Intentional distortion in personality assessment: Relationship with test format, culture, and cognitive ability

Althan Orhon, Eline Van Geert, Barbora Hubená, Iulia A. Cioca, Rui Mamede, Slobodan Golušin, & Daniel Morillo
JRP Conference 2016 · August 15, 2016 · Cambridge, United Kingdom

When faced with self-report personality questionnaires in a high-stakes context like job selection, people feel motivated to intentionally distort their answers, undermining the validity of the test results. Forced-choice questionnaires are allegedly more resistant to intentional distortion compared to widely used graded-scale questionnaires. However, the forced-choice format produces ipsative data incompatible with many kinds of analyses. This issue can be overcome using novel IRT models. Besides examining the robustness of forced-choice questionnaires against intentional distortion, the project also investigates the effects of culture and cognitive ability. Data will be collected in three countries with differing attitudes toward intentional distortion (the UK, Serbia, and Turkey). The results will be framed in the context of a comprehensive theoretical model of intentional distortion.