Abstract

The purpose of present study was to examine faking behavior on different types of personality measures(i.e., normative and ipsative type) for personnel selection. Specifically, the study was focused on the following three questions; (l)whether the college student participants(future job applicants) use their stereotypes of the desired workers in the target company, (2) whether participants are able to fake their answers on personality questionnaires when so instructed, and (3) whether they are able to fake equally well on both normative and ipsative type scales. Two hundred and ninety two participants, students of 6 different colleges, completed both a normative and an ipsative version of the RPST(Right People Selection Test) either honestly or in a fake-good condition. The normative form consists of 368 independent items while the ipsative is composed of 93 sets of items with 4 alternatives. They also identified what they believed to be an ideal personality profile for the target company. The high performers of the target company also completed an ideal personality profile for the company. Results indicated that there was considerable agreement between the incumbents and the student participants on what constitutes an ideal personality profile for the target company(Spearman p=.78, p<.00l), supporting that job applicants can use their stereotypes of desired workers of the target company to be selected in that company. In addition, a two-way AN OVA yielded a significant main effect for different types of personality measures(normative/ipsative) (F=48.66, p<.00l) and a significant two-way interaction(F=12.70, p<.00l). This demonstrated that there was no difference in the degree of faking on the ipsastive form between the honest and faking group, while on the normative form there was significantly more faking in the faking group than in the honest group. Finally, the limitations and future directions of the present study were discussed.