Would-do, could-do, and should-do: comparisons among typical, maximal, and faking patterns of personality responding

Abstract

Much research has examined the results of "faking" (i.e., presenting an overly favorable view of oneself) on personality measures used for personnel selection, but little research or theory-building has been done on the strategies that applicants use to fake their responses. It has been largely assumed that applicants lie to lake their personality scores. However, a potentially powerful, but overlooked, strategy is that of responding with the level of a trait at which one is capable of reaching (i.e., using a maximal personality strategy). For example, when an applicant rates himself on the trait of Dependability, he may know that he usually runs late for work, but he also knows that he is capable of being on-time or even early for important meetings or conferences. Thus, when presented with such an item in a selection or evaluation context, this applicant may respond with a high score to represent his capacity for Dependability, rather than representing his low typical level of the trait. The following paper advances a definition for a maximal personality response pattern, distinguishes it from the commonly-accepted concepts of typical personality and lying, and describes the results from a research study investigating the use of a maximal personality strategy as a response strategy. Additionally, individual differences may largely affect the strategy that people use to respond to personality items. The concept and measurement of traitedness (i.e., the variance in an individual's behavior across situations) is also a significant focus of this paper.