The impact of social desirability bias on the EPQ-R item scores: An item response theory analysis

The Willingness to Intervene in Cases of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women (WI-IPVAW) Scale: Development and Validation of the Long and Short Versions

Willingness to intervene when one becomes aware of a case of intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) reflects the level of tolerance and acceptance of this type of violence in society. Increasing the likelihood of intervention to help victims of IPVAW is also a target for prevention strategies aiming to increase informal social control of IPVAW. In this study, we present the development and validation of the Willingness to Intervene in Cases of Intimate Partner Violence (WI-IPVAW) scale. We report data for both the long and short versions of the scale. We analyzed the latent structure, the reliability and validity of the WI-IPVAW across four samples (N = 1648). Factor analyses supported a bifactor model with a general non-specific factor expressing willingness to intervene in cases of IPVAW, and three specific factors reflecting different intervention preferences: a preference for setting the law enforcement process in motion ("calling the cops" factor), a preference for personal intervention ("personal involvement" factor), and a preference for non-intervention ("not my business" factor). Configural, metric, and partial scalar invariance across genders were supported. Two short versions of the scale, with nine and six items, respectively, were constructed on the base of quantitative and qualitative criteria. The long and short versions of the WI-IPVAW demonstrated both high reliability and construct validity, as they were strongly related to the acceptability of IPVAW, victim-blaming attitudes, perceived severity of IPVAW, and hostile sexism. These results confirm that both the long and short versions of the WI-IPVAW scale are psychometrically sound instruments to analyze willingness to intervene in cases of IPVAW in different settings and with different research needs (e.g., long versions for clinical and research settings, and short versions for large population surveys). The WI-IPVAW is also useful for assessing prevention policies and public education campaigns design to promote a more responsive social environment in cases of IPVAW, thus contributing to deter and reduce this major social and public health problem.

Infant SES as a predictor of personality--is the association mediated by intelligence?

Background

Although research into the continuity and change of personality traits during a lifespan has been fairly extensive, little research has been conducted on childhood predictors of adult personality.

Purpose

We aimed to investigate the association between infant socioeconomic status (SES), and Eysenck personality traits in adulthood. An additional aim was to investigate whether intelligence and education may mediate this association.

Methods

SES of 9125 children in the Copenhagen Perinatal Cohort was recorded at a 1-year examination. A subsample of this cohort, comprising 1182 individuals, participated in a follow-up at 20–34 years and was administered the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) which includes measures of neuroticism, extraversion, psychoticism and the so-called lie-scale. Associations of SES with each of the four personality traits were analysed by bivariate and partial correlations, and the mediating effects of intelligence and years of education were analysed.

Results

Higher SES in infancy was associated with lower neuroticism (r = −0.06; p = 0.05), lower lie-scale scores (r = −0.11; p = 0.0002), and higher psychoticism (r = 0.09; p = 0.003). However, analyses of mediation revealed no direct effect of infant SES on any of the adult personality traits, but only indirect effects mediated by intelligence and years of education, with intelligence being the main mediating factor.

Conclusion

Only weak associations were observed between infant SES and personality in young adulthood, and the observed associations were mediated by adult intelligence and educational level. Thus, factors associated with infant SES or family background appears to have weak direct effects on personality development.

Modeling Effects of Faking on an Objective Personality Test

The article investigated the effect of faking on the dimensionality and mean scores of an objective personality test measuring subjectively accepted level of risk. Various studies conducted with standardized personality questionnaires have demonstrated that faking may distort both the dimensionality and mean scores. In contrast, the empirical evidence on the effect of faking on the dimensionality and mean scores obtained with objective personality tests is still sparse. In the first study, we evaluated the effect of naturally occurring faking on the dimensionality and mean scores using a between-subject design that compared professional driver applicants to volunteers matched according to relevant sociodemographic characteristics. The results indicated that the objective personality test measures the same latent trait in both samples. Furthermore, we failed to observe a significant mean difference between volunteers and professional driver applicants. Furthermore, we failed to observe any mean score differences between both samples. The second study experimentally evaluated the effect of individual differences in respondents’ ability to infer the ideal level of the latent trait on the dimensionality and mean scores using a combined between- and within-subject design. Using modern item response theory techniques we found that a less clear description of the ideal level of the latent trait prevented a successful faking attempt. In contrast, a more clear and less difficult to implement a description of the ideal level of the latent trait allowed respondents to successfully increase their test scores. The results are discussed in light of current models of applicants response processes when working personality tests.

Assessing the Impact of Faking on Binary Personality Measures: An IRT-Based Multiple-Group Factor Analytic Procedure

This article proposes a model-based multiple-group procedure for assessing the impact of faking on personality measures and the scores derived from these measures. The assessment is at the item level and the base model, which is intended for binary items, can be parameterized both as an Item Response Theory (IRT) model and as an Item Factor-Analytic (FA) model. The specific solution proposed is bidimensional, and the propensity to fake is specifically modeled as a second factor. The approach we propose allows (a) previous separate results obtained either from IRT-based or from FA-based studies to be related and (b) some hypotheses on measurement invariance and structural changes to be assessed in more detail. The procedure was used in a study based on 2 personality scales that were administered in 1 group under standard instructions and in another group under faking-good instructions. For both scales, results suggested that strong measurement invariance was attained. Also, for both scales substantial mean changes were obtained in the propensity-to-fake factor but not in the content factors. The implications of the results and future research directions are discussed.