Lecture 5 Flashcards
What high-stakes situations may people distort their responses?
o Employment selection
o Internet dating (e.g. RSVP)
o Selection for education
Is response distortion conscious or unconscious?
Both. People don’t always have an accurate representation of themselves (false sense of who they are)
What are the different kinds of response distortions?
♣ Self-deceptive enhancement (unconscious)
♣ Self-deceptive denial (unconscious)
♣ Impression management (conscious)
What are the types of biases in self-deceptive thinking?
- Egoistic bias (“Superman”)
- Moralistic bias (“Angel”)
What is egoistic bias?
o Exaggerate one’s status (social, intellectual, physical, etc.)
o Pro-self
o Value = agency
o Strong, competent
What is moralistic bias?
o Deny socially deviant impulses and claim sanctimonious, saint-like attributes
o Pro-social
o Value = communion
o Good, kind
What is egoistic bias linked with?
Linked with:
Self-deceptive enhancement
What is moralistic bias linked with?
Linked with:
Self-deceptive denial
What are the two types of faking?
- Faking good
- Faking bad
What is faking good?
Trying to get higher test scores
What is faking bad?
Trying to get lower scores
What situations may people try to fake good?
o Employment selection
o Education selection
o Dating/inter-personal evaluations
What situations may people try to fake bad?
o Legal context
♣ Obtain benefits
♣ Diminished responsibility
o Educational context
♣ Special treatment
o Military
♣ Discharge, special duties (especially conscription)
♣ WW2: “Black Psy-Ops” – dropped leaflets in enemies’ languages giving instructions on malingering to soldiers to get out of military serviceCan intelligence tests be faked?
Intelligence tests can’t be faked “good” but they can be faked “bad”
According to Mittenberg et al. (2002), what is faking suspected in?
♣ 30% of personal injury cases
♣ 30% of disability claims
♣ 19% of criminal evaluations
♣ 8% of clinical/medical cases
What are the two types of methods to deal with response distortion?
- Detecting fakers
- Reducing faking
What are the 4 methods for detecting fakers?
- “Lie” scales (a.k.a. Social desirability scales)
- Response time rubrics
- Over-claiming technique
- Bayesian truth serum
What are the 5 methods for reducing faking?
- Forced-choice formats
- Verifiable statements (especially biographical data)
- Other reports (e.g. self-assessments, referee assessments)
- Warnings
- Implicit measurement techniques
What is the basic idea/assumption of lie scales?
Everyone does, or has done at least once, these things (test items) so then, if you don’t admit to them, you are lying
What are the 4 lie scales?
o Marlow-Crowne Social Desirability Scale
o Minnesota Multiphase Personality Inventory (MMPI) Lie Scale
o Eysenck’s Lie Scale
o Paulhus Balanced Index of Desirable Responding (BID-R)
What is the issue with the basic assumption of lie scales?
Some people are just really nice and never do anything bad/wrong (i.e. have never done any of the test items)
What is a problem with the lie scales?
o Lie scales relate to substantive personality traits
♣ Possible interpretation: Lie scales do not measure lying but may measure actual aspects of personality
• Non-trivial correlations with
personality traits
♣ High scorers = nice people (not liars)
• Higher impression management and
self-deceptive enhancement
scores = higher conscientiousness,
higher agreeableness
o Statistically large correlations
• Kicking people out based on their scores actually means excluding the nicest people
What are the 3 other ways to detect fakers?
- Response time rubrics
- Over-claiming technique (Paulhus)
- Bayesian truth serum
What are response time rubrics?
o Participants response times measured because, theoretically, people take longer to respond because they are lying
o People pause to think about whether to fake an item (longer response time = faking?)
♣ Response time changes based on strategy – accuracy or lying?
o BUT people who decide to fake everything (rather than exaggerate from their own “real” personality) are quicker
