Document Type
Article
Publication Date
3-29-2024
Keywords
experiments, hiring, measurement, personality, screening
Abstract
What can employers learn from personality tests when applicants have incentives to misrepresent themselves? Using a within-subject, laboratory experiment, we compare personality measures with and without incentives for misrepresentation. Incentivized personality measures are weakly to moderately correlated with non-incentivized measures in all treatments. When test-takers are given a job ad indicating that an extrovert (introvert) is desired, extroversion measures are positively (negatively) correlated with IQ. Among other characteristics, only locus of control appears related to faking on personality measures. Our findings highlight the identification challenges in measuring personality and the potential for correlations between incentivized personality measures and other traits.
Citation
McGee, A. & McGee, P. (2024) Whoever you want me to be: personality and incentives. Economic Inquiry, 62(3), 1268–1291. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1111/ecin.13220
Disclosure forms
ecin13220-sup-0002_appendix.docx (34 kB)
Appendix
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
