1 / 18

Personality Retest Effects: Guilt as a Mechanism for Managing Response Distortion

Personality Retest Effects: Guilt as a Mechanism for Managing Response Distortion. Jill E. Ellingson, Eric D. Heggestad, and Erin E. Coyne October 13 – 14, 2006 ETS Technical Advisory Group Meeting. Current Retesting Policy.

burton
Download Presentation

Personality Retest Effects: Guilt as a Mechanism for Managing Response Distortion

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. Personality Retest Effects: Guilt as a Mechanism for Managing Response Distortion Jill E. Ellingson, Eric D. Heggestad, and Erin E. Coyne October 13 – 14, 2006 ETS Technical Advisory Group Meeting

  2. Current Retesting Policy • Applicants allowed to voluntarily retake assessment after period of time if displeased with outcome • Applicant elects to retake the assessment • Common in organizations which use assessment tools for hiring • Most often used in conjunction with cognitively-loaded assessments

  3. Personality Assessment Retesting • Organization directs certain applicants whose responses are likely distorted to retake the personality assessment • Responses deemed distorted on basis of embedded intentional distortion scale • Flags extreme response profiles • Applicants informed that responses were flagged as suspect • Hiring decisions made using retested scores

  4. Key Questions • Does retesting flagged applicants lower previously inflated personality scale scores? • What psychological mechanism operates within applicants to help explain why they would adjust their responses?

  5. Scale Score Changes • Flagged applicants have positively biased score profiles • Retest effect evident in degree to which second assessment scores are lower • Preliminary research suggests that scores may be lowered up to 0.7 standard deviation units (Ellingson & Heggestad, 2003) Hypothesis 1: Retesting flagged individuals will result in decreased personality scale scores in the second assessment relative to the first assessment.

  6. Role of Guilt: Appraisal Theory Event Evaluation Factors Relevance? Congruence? Associated values? Accountability? Coping potential? Emotion Behavior

  7. Role of Guilt: Applicant Appraisal • Evaluation Factors • Personally relevant • Incongruent • Violates personal standards • Personally accountable • Coping potential? Told to retest Guilt Behavior Hypothesis 2: Retesting flagged individuals will result in increased feelings of guilt in the second assessment relative to the first assessment.

  8. Role of Guilt: Applicant Appraisal • Evaluation Factors • Personally relevant • Incongruent • Violates personal standards • Personally accountable • Make reparation Told to retest Guilt Respond honestly Hypothesis 3: The level of guilt reported by flagged individuals in the second assessment will moderate the degree to which personality scale scores change.

  9. Sample and Measures • 288 undergraduate students • Measures: • NEO-Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) • Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding-Impression Management scale (BIDR-IM) • Personal Feelings Questionnaire-2 Guilt scale (PFQ2-G) • Positive and Negative Affect Schedule-Expanded (PANAS-X) • Test of Self-Conscious Affect-3 (TOSCA3)

  10. Procedure • All participants: • Completed the TOSCA3 • Completed NEO-FFI and BIDR-IM • under motivating instructions • Completed the PFQ2-G and PANAS-X • regarding feelings had while taking • the personality measure Sorted participants into 3 groups based on BIDR-IM score Time 1 • Low Control Group • Low BIDR-IM score • High Control Group • High BIDR-IM score • Flagged Retest Group • High BIDR-IM score Time 2 Told responses were suspect and unusable Asked to retest Retested for neutral reason

  11. EffectSizes Positive values indicate that Time 1 score was larger than Time 2 score.

  12. Repeated-measures MANCOVA:Personality Scales Within-subjects factor (Time): Time 1, Time 2 Between-subjects factor (Condition): Low Control, High Control, Flagged Retest Covariate: Trait Guilt

  13. Repeated-measures ANCOVA:Personality Scales Within-subjects factor (Time): Time 1, Time 2 Between-subjects factor (Condition): Low Control, High Control, Flagged Retest Covariate: Trait Guilt *p < .05

  14. Repeated-measures ANCOVA:Agreeableness Interaction

  15. Repeated-measures ANCOVA: State Guilt Within-subjects factor (Time): Time 1, Time 2 Between-subjects factor (Condition): Low Control, High Control, Flagged Retest Covariate: Trait Guilt

  16. Moderated Regressions:Understanding Score Change * p < .05 † p < .10

  17. Moderated Regressions:Conscientiousness Interaction

  18. Conclusion • Retesting flagged applicants will result in a set of personality scale scores that are less positively inflated • The appraisal profile of guilt helps explain this effect • Flagged applicants who feel guilty as a result of being retested decrease their scores in response.

More Related