“I (might be) just that good”: Honest and deceptive impression management in employment interviews

Goal inference in moral narratives

We often form beliefs about others based on narratives they tell about their own moral actions. When constructing such moral narratives, narrators balance multiple goals, such as conveying accurate information about what happened ('informational goals') and swaying audiences' impressions about their moral characters ('reputational goals'). Here, we ask to what extent audiences' detection of narrators' reputational goals guide or prevent them from making moral character judgments intended by narrators. Across two pre-registered experiments, audiences read narratives written by real narrators about their own moral actions. Each narrator was incentivized to write about the same action twice while trying to appear like a morally good or bad person (positive and negative reputational goals). Audiences detected narrators' reputational goals with high accuracy and made judgments about moral character that aligned with narrators' goals. However, audiences were more suspicious toward positive than negative reputational goals, requiring more evidence of high informational goals. These results demonstrate how audiences' inferences of reputational goals can both support and hinder narrators: accurate goal recognition increases the chance that audiences will make judgments intended by narrators, but inferred positive reputational goals can lead to doubts about accuracy. More generally, this provides a novel approach to studying how moral information about people is transmitted through naturalistic narratives.

The double-edged sword effect of employee impression management and counterproductive work behavior: From the perspective of self-control resource theory

Why do people who seem to be doing well in the workplace occasionally behave badly? Because these employees may be using impression management tactics to create an image. Existing studies have focused on comparing the differences in the use of impression management among different individuals, but cannot explain why a well-behaved individual sometimes behaves badly. Based on the theory of self-control resources, we adopts the survey method of job logs and collects the data of 121 employees. The results show that: (1) the use of self-promotion tactics and ingratiation tactics will promote the depletion of self-control resources. (2) The depletion of self-control resources will encourage employees to engage in counterproductive work behaviors. (3) The effect of self-promotion tactic and ingratiation tactic on the depletion of self-control resources was moderated by emotional intelligence. In the case of high emotional intelligence, this effect is attenuated. And vice versa. (4) Under high emotional intelligence and low emotional intelligence, the indirect effects of self-promotion tactic and ingratiation tactic on employees' counterproductive work behaviors are significantly different. Our research breaks through the between-individual perspective and illustrates the double-edged sword effect of self-promotion tactic and ingratiation tactic on employee counterproductive work behavior and its mechanism from the internal perspective, which is highly innovative.

Making Job Candidates More Honest With a Theory-Based Form

Abstract. In collaboration with recruiting and background check firms, we gave a customized application form designed to both deter and enhance detection of deception to 27 real-life candidates. A total of 269 elements common to both the customized form and their usual free-form resumes were verified. Inaccuracies were reduced from 23% on the resumes to 11% on the customized forms ( p < .001). Furthermore, candidates who did not provide contact information for past professional experiences to facilitate our verifications were less likely to submit fully accurate information about the experience, compared to those who did provide contact information (39% and 77%, respectively, p = .007). This novel method thus appears to be a cost-effective way to address resume fraud.

Being Out of the Loop: Workplace Deviance as a Mediator of the Impact of Impression Management on Workplace Exclusion

This study investigates the extending negative effects of impression management (IM) on organizational outcomes in the nursing context. Specifically, this study aims to understand the impact of IM on workplace exclusion through workplace deviance. The data came from 277 head nurses (nurses in leadership positions) in elderly care homes in Belgium. Structured paper-and-pencil questionnaires were administered on site in the respondents’ workplaces. In the findings of the current research, IM is positively related to workplace exclusion and the relationship is mediated by workplace deviance. Although, initially, IM is performed by the actors as a natural behavior to maintain their image, at some point, the actors can become fatigued with maintaining their image. Under ego depletion theory, the exhausted IM actors will be highly experienced in deviance or bad performance. Furthermore, consistent with social information processing theory and a correlation study between employees’ poor performance and workplace exclusion, the IM actors who fail to deliver good performance or behavior following their like-based rewards may be subject to social exclusion in their workplace.

An Investigation of Situational and Dispositional Antecedents of Faking Intentions in Selection Interviews

Applicants use faking in selection interviews to create a favorable impression and to increase their chances for a job offer. Theoretical models assume that such a behavior is influenced by situational and dispositional variables. However, previous research has mainly focused on dispositional variables whereas research about situational variables is sparse. To address this gap, we conducted three studies in which we examined how competition for a job and warning interviewees that information from their answers will be verified can influence faking intentions. Furthermore, we wanted to know whether these situational variables are able to explain additional variance in faking intentions beyond dispositional variables and whether there are interactions between situational and dispositional variables. In Study 1, we only found that high competition led to slightly higher faking intentions than low competition in a student sample. In Study 2, only a warning about the verification of applicants’ answers led to slightly lower faking intentions compared to no warning concerning verification in a working sample. Furthermore, faking intentions were lower in Study 2 than in the student sample in Study 1. In Study 3, we found no impact of our situational variables in a combined sample of students and non-students. We only found slightly higher honest impression management intentions in the high competition and the verification warning condition. We also found hardly any support for interaction effects between the situational and dispositional variables. Furthermore, the situational variables did not explain additional variance beyond the dispositional variables in any of the three studies. Possible reasons for the non-significant or small effect sizes for the situational variables can be found in a qualitative analysis of answers to an open-ended question in Study 3. However, we found that Honesty-humility und all facets of the Dark Triad were related to faking intentions. These results indicate that dispositional variables in particular have an impact on faking intentions.

Shake and Fake: the Role of Interview Anxiety in Deceptive Impression Management

We investigated whether anxiety about self-presentation concerns during interviews (i.e., interview anxiety) is associated with applicants' use of deceptive impression management (IM) tactics. We examined the relationship between interview anxiety and deceptive IM, and we examined whether the personality traits of honesty-humility and extraversion would be indirectly related to deceptive IM through interview anxiety. Participants (N = 202) were recruited after an interview for a research assistant position. Interview anxiety scores were positively related to deceptive IM. Furthermore, there was evidence of a negative indirect effect of honesty-humility on deceptive IM, via overall interview anxiety. Also, extraversion was indirectly associated with deceptive IM through interview anxiety. Results suggest that deceptive IM can be used as a protective mechanism to maintain self-esteem or to avoid the loss of rewards. This paper is the first to examine the role of interview anxiety in interview faking.

The Influence of Competition on Motivation to Fake in Employment Interviews

Abstract. Many applicants fake, or intentionally misrepresent information, in employment interviews. Recent theories of faking propose that applicants may fake more when there are situational cues that signal intense competition for the job. We tested this proposition by manipulating the number of competitors and selection ratio in selection scenarios, and assessed individuals’ faking intentions. We also examined whether Honesty-Humility moderated the relation between competition and faking intentions. Hypotheses were tested using a between-subjects study with 775 participants. Results show that faking intentions increased with few competitors and a small selection ratio. Honesty-Humility did not moderate the relation between competition and faking intentions. Findings support competition as a situational predictor of faking intentions, lending support to models of faking.