Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Management

Faculty/School

Lazaridis School of Business and Economics

First Advisor

Chet Robie

Advisor Role

Professor

Abstract

Personnel selection is critical to organizational success, and personality assessment is widely used to identify the best job candidates. However, applicant faking threatens the validity of personality assessments in high-stakes contexts. Faking is widely assumed to be more cognitively demanding than honest responding, and several faking-prevention methods rest on this premise. This dissertation examines that assumption across three studies using the dual-task paradigm to impose cognitive demands during personality assessments. Study 1 used a verbal digit-span task with a student sample and limited faking on the three job-relevant personality composites. Study 2 used a visual dual-task with a student sample and did not mitigate faking on any trait. Study 3 used adaptive verbal and visuospatial dual tasks with a sample of employed finance and insurance professionals and found that neither task limited faking on job-relevant traits. Honest scores for Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Openness were lower in the dual-task conditions, while faking was not reduced on any trait. The findings are difficult to reconcile with the assumption that faking is uniformly more cognitively demanding than honest responding.

Convocation Year

2026

Convocation Season

Fall

Download

Share

COinS