Effects of Job Ads on Socially Desirable Responding in Personality Testing

In collaboration with Hazal Ceylan Baysal, Fuat Çıkan, Zeynep Demircioğlu, Dilek Dursun, Emel Ceren Erarslan, Burak Özkum, Sıla Sarsın

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Job applicants are known to engage in socially desirable responding in personality tests. We are investigating if the wording of job advertisements lead to socially desirable responding on related personality factors.

Trust in Personality Testing and its Predictors

In collaboration with Umutcan Akkaya, Ada Ayhan, Fuat Çıkan, Zeynep Demircioğlu, Dilara Güner, Burak Özkum

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We seek to understand the extent to which individuals accept the personality test results given to them, even when test results are based on characteristics that do not reflect them. We are also investigating factors that predict the degree to which individuals endorse their results.

TÜBİTAK 1002 - Project Funded by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey

The Moderating Role of The Dark Triad Personality Traits on the Association between Emotional Labor and Work Outcomes: An Investigation based on Activation/Inhibition Systems, September 2020–May 2021.

(Karanlık Üçlü Kişilik Özelliklerinin Duygusal Emek ve İş Yeri Sonuç Değişkenleri Arasındaki İlişkide Moderatör Rolü: Aktivasyon/İnhibisyon Sistemlerine Bağlı Bir İnceleme). Proje No: 119K578.

Principal Investigator: Yonca Toker Gültaş

This project is based on the dissertation work of Aysu Gökalp.

Undergraduate scholarship student: Burcu Başayan

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• The Dark Triad personality traits (Machiavellianism, sub-clinical narcissism, sub-clinical psychopathy) and the emotional labor literature is combined with a focus on the activation and inhibition regulatory fit pathways and emotional labor outcomes of affective delivery, service sabotage, emotional exhaustion and job engagement.
• The daily diary method is used for gathering data on emotional labor strategies (deep acting and surface acting), service performance, employee well-being and employee mood (positive and negative affect).

Project Funded by the METU Scientific Research Grants (BAP) – (BAP-08-11-2015-011)

Individual Differences Predicting Academic Success, January–December 2015.

Principal Investigator: Yonca Toker

In collaboration with İpek Mete, PhD.

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• The relative contribution of intelligence-as-process (fluid intelligence) measures and intelligence-as-knowledge (crystallized intelligence) on academic achievement were assessed.
• As hypothesized based on the adult intelligence theories (i.e., Cattell's Investment Theory, Ackerman's PPIK Theory) and the existing literature, knowledge-based assessment tools were better predictors of college and graduate school success than ability-based assessments.
• For the undergraduate sample (N=132), dominance analysis revealed that scores from a knowledge test (ÖSYM-YGS) explained greater variance in undergraduate CGPA than scores from a reasoning test (ÖSYM_LYS).
• Similar results were reported for the graduate sample (N=114). Undergraduate GPA, indicative of domain-specific knowledge, explained greatest variance in first-year graduate CGPA, whereas scores from a reasoning test (ÖSYM-ALES) explained almost no variance.

Implicit Cognitive Biases of Machiavellians

In collaboration with Assistant Prof. A. Başak Ok and Assistant Prof. Savaş Ceylan.

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Implicit cognitive biases and justification mechanisms have proven useful in motive and personality assessments and in predicting work outcomes (James & Mazerolle, 2002). The Dark-Triad personality trait assessments suffer from poor psychometric properties. Such individual differences could be better captured by the identification of implicit thought processes. We sought to identify Machiavellian individuals' thought processes and cognitive biases via interviews conducted with 72 individuals. We identified 6 basic cognitive biases characterizing Machiavellian leaders. More information will appear in our forthcoming chapter "Cognitive biases of destructive leadership styles: A special focus on Machiavellianism" by Toker-Gültaş, Y., Ok, A. B., & Ceylan, S. to appear in S.M. Camgoz & O.T. Ekmekci (Eds) Destructive leadership and management hypocrisy: Advances in theory and practice, UK: Emerald Publishing. The next step is to develop Conditional Reasoning Test questions to assess those cognitive biases.

Validation of the Conditional Reasoning Test-Aggression in Turkish Samples

In collaboration with Assistant Prof. A. Başak Ok, Atakan Okat, Aysu Gökalp, Başak Gençtürk, and İrem Akıncı.

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The CRT-A (James et al., 2005) has proven useful in predicting various work outcomes, with effect sizes surpassing the self-report tests of personality. The test was initially validated in US samples and then in other cultures. We translated the test into Turkish and are in the process of designing studies to validate it in samples in Turkey.

Effects of Job Descriptions on Personality Test Response Distortion

Hazal Ceylan's completed Master's Thesis: https://open.metu.edu.tr/handle/11511/93242

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People are changing their jobs almost every 4 years. Everybody can find a job posting on the Internet. Furthermore, companies are using personality test for hiring processes and the candidates are generally reading the job descriptions before coming to the testing session. However, the priming effect is a known fact; therefore, reading job descriptions before the test might affect people’s responses. The current study aimed to examine the effect of reading job descriptions on response bias in personality tests. 291 university student participants received two personality tests which were the Big Five Inventory (BFI), some factors from the International Personality Item Pool; and a spatial ability test. After the first test, participants were assigned to three groups. One experimental group read a job description with job-related personality adjectives; another experimental group read a job description with job-related behavioral indicators, and the control group read an instruction stating that they should fill out the tests as if they are applying for a job. After reading the materials all participants again took the two personality tests. The results revealed reading job descriptions has no effect on the response distortion on the BFI scores; however, for two of the IPIP factors, reading the job descriptions resulted in more response distortion as compared to the control group. For all factors from the two tests, the main effect of time was significant meaning that participants distorted their responses when they imagined applying for a job. The results were in line with the response bias literature.