Psychologists create fake proof personality test

Psychologists from the University of Toronto have developed a personality inventory that can predict who will excel in academic and creative domains, even when respondents are trying hard to fake their answers.

Study authors note that personality questionnaires have a long history of predicting real-world performance, but have been plagued by the problem of biased responding. "It's very common for people to try and make themselves look better than they actually are on these questionnaires, especially if they know they are being evaluated," said Jordan B. Peterson, psychology professor at the University of Toronto and co-author of the paper. "This sort of faking can distort the predictive validity of these tests, with significant negative economic consequences. We wanted to develop a measure that could predict real-world performance even in the absence of completely honest responding."

The research findings demonstrate that traditional personality inventories fail to predict performance outcomes when respondents have strong incentive to fake their scores. The new measure, by contrast, retained its ability to predict success, even when respondents were consciously trying to make themselves look good.

The study findings are published in the October edition of the Journal of Research in Personality.

Source: University of Toronto