Item and Person Characteristics as Predictors of Faking

by Day, Nicholas Tyler

Applicants may be more motivated to fake than incumbents and may fake more on some items than others. The present study investigated both item and person characteristics as predictors of faking. At the item level, both item transparency and job-relevance were hypothesized to be associated with higher levels of faking. In contrast, item verifiability was hypothesized to be associated with lower levels of faking. At the person level, applicants were expected to have a higher prevalence of faking than incumbents. Data was taken from an existing pool of applicants (n = 507) and incumbents (n = 302) at a customer calling center. The study was performed using a multilevel-logistic regression (MLR) approach to estimating person response curve (PRC) for results for Conscientiousness, Extraversion, and Openness items. None of the item-level results were significant for Conscientiousness, but the analyses found significant item-level effects for Extraversion and Openness. First, item transparency was related to higher levels of faking. Also, individuals were more likely to fake for items of low verifiability than items of high verifiability. Unexpectedly, individuals were more likely to fake for items of low job-relevance than items of high job-relevance. The results for person-level effects showed that applicants exhibited substantial model fit over incumbents, although incumbents appeared to have higher levels of faking than incumbents. The results and implications are discussed.