- Email: [email protected]
Personality facet loadings onto the general factor of personality change when social desirability responding is considered
Personality and Individual Differences 147 (2019) 200–203
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Personality and Individual Differences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid
Short Communication
Personality facet loadings onto the general factor of personality change when social desirability responding is considered
T
⁎
Julie Aitken Schermera, , Ronald R. Holdenb a b
Management and Organizational Studies, Social Science Centre, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON N6A 5C2, Canada Department of Psychology, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
A R T I C LE I N FO
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: General Factor of Personality Big Five Social desirability
The General Factor of Personality (GFP) has been found to be more robust under faking conditions and to correlate significantly with both self-report faking and social desirability responding, yet some still regard the GFP as a meaningful construct. This study examines the structure of the GFP (based on facet loadings on the first unrotated principal axis factor) when five individual social desirability/impression management scores (as well as the total) are partialled from the facets. Controlling for the social desirability/impression management variance altered the loadings of the personality facets. Specifically, loadings for the facets varied in magnitude, and for some, even changed direction when individual and combined measures of social desirability/impression management were removed. The results suggest that the GFP is not consistent in structure and is influenced by social desirability/impression management. Further, the results suggest that the interpretation of the structure of the GFP may change depending on how individuals present themselves when completing personality measures.
1. Introduction The “substance versus artefact” debate about the General Factor of Personality (GFP) began shortly after Musek (2007) described a higherorder factor for the Big Five personality (openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism), titled “The Big One”. Those supporting the GFP as a meaningful dimension (of substance) have argued that the higher order factor reflects an individual's character and can be used in applied settings such as employee assessment and selection (van der Linden, Bakker, & Serlie, 2011; van der Linden, te Nijenhuis, & Bakker, 2010). In contrast, others have argued that the GFP reflects an artefact of social desirability responding (for example see Bäckström, Björklund, & Larsson, 2009). The suggestion of using the GFP in applied settings has motivated some researchers to assess the nature of the GFP in situations where social desirability, impression management, or even faking may play a role. Schermer and Goffin (2018) reported significant positive correlations between two different GFPs (based on different personality scales) and self-report faking-good and a small but significant negative correlation with a first-order GFP and self-report faking-bad. Recently three studies have been published examining the GFP under faking conditions. MacCann, Pearce, and Jiang (2017) tested the structure of the GFP based on the HEXACO model (honesty/humility, emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and ⁎
openness) under honest and faking good conditions. Except for agreeableness, the personality dimensions had higher loadings on the fakegood GFP compared to the honest GFP. Schermer, Krammer, and Goffin (2019) examined two GFPs, based on different personality measures, and reported that the fake-good GFP accounted for more variance and had higher loadings than the honest GFPs. Across four studies, Schermer, Holden, and Krammer (2019) examined the nature of the GFP under honest, fake-good, and fake-bad instructions. The fake-good GFPs typically were more robust than the honest GFPs (accounted for more variance and tended to have higher loadings) but surprisingly the fake-bad GFPs were the most robust. These results suggest that people respond even more consistently when asked to appear to have an unappealing personality profile more than when asked to appear to have a “good” personality. Also reported by Schermer, Holden, et al. (2019) were the correlations between the GFPs and impression management and social desirability variables. The honest, fake-good, and fake-bad GFPs correlated of similar magnitude with measures such as the validity index of the Holden Psychological Screening Inventory (HPSI; Holden, 1996) and impression management, but had significantly different correlations with other validity measures. The honest and fake-good GFPs correlated higher on self-deceptive enhancement (from the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding; BIDR; Paulhus, 1998) when compared to the fake-bad GFP. Interestingly, the honest-GFP correlated significantly
Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (J.A. Schermer).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.04.038 Received 7 February 2019; Received in revised form 22 April 2019; Accepted 29 April 2019 Available online 06 May 2019 0191-8869/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Personality and Individual Differences 147 (2019) 200–203
J.A. Schermer and R.R. Holden
higher than the fake-good GFP with social desirability. This finding adds to the debate of whether or not faking and social desirable responding are separate variables (Holden & Passey, 2010) as social desirability had a stronger relationship with honest responses than with faked responses. In finding that social desirability related more to honest than faked responses, results support the perspective that social desirability and faking are not isomorphic. Consistently, concerns have been raised about the relationships between the GFP and social desirability. For example, Schermer and Goffin (2018) reported significant correlations with two GFPs and social desirability scale scores. Bäckström et al. (2009) demonstrated that the GFP from three different personality measures was attributed to social desirability. In contrast, Rushton and Erdle (2010) reported that controlling for the variance from a Lie scale (Study 1) and for social desirability (Study 2) did not significantly alter the loadings of personality measures onto the GFP. In the current study, the influence of social desirability on the structure of the GFP is examined by looking at the structure of the GFP after individually removing the variance due to five social desirability/impression management scales. The analyses were conducted using the self-report data from Holden and Passey (2010) which included a large sample of participants who, in addition to completing a personality measure, completed a large number of social desirability/impression management scales. If the GFP is influenced by response styles, then the structure of the GFP should change when the variance from social desirability/impression management is removed.
et al., 2017). The next column in Table 1 is the facet loadings after removing the variance from the Self-Deceptive Enhancement (SDE; Paulhus, 1998) responses. The loadings for the agreeableness facets increased slightly and the facet loadings for conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness generally decreased. The extraversion facet loadings both increased and decreased. The third loading column reflects the facets after the Impression Management (IM; Paulhus, 1998) variance was removed. Compared to the PAF column, the facet loadings for agreeableness, neuroticism, and conscientiousness decreased and the extraversion loadings increased. As with the SDE, the openness facet loadings both increased and decreased. The same pattern of changes occurred for the facet loadings after controlling for the variance due to the Marlowe–Crowne Social Desirability Scale (MCSD; Crowne & Marlowe, 1960). Controlling for the variance from the Desirability scale from the PRF (PRFSD; Jackson, 1984) had a slightly different pattern than for the SDE, IM, and MCSD. Generally, the loadings for extraversion, openness, and agreeableness increased and the conscientiousness and neuroticism facet loadings decreased. Interestingly, some of the loadings changed direction, such as impulsiveness (neuroticism facet), modesty (agreeableness facet), and self-discipline and deliberation (conscientiousness facets). The facet loadings controlling for the HPSI (Holden, 1996) also showed an interesting pattern of changes when compared to the unaltered PAF column. Most of the openness loadings increased. Extraversion and agreeableness had approximately equal numbers of increases and decreases. The majority of the neuroticism and conscientiousness loadings reversed direction. In the final column of Table 1, the facet loadings for the first factor are provided after having removed the variance from all five social desirability/impression management scales. Extraversion and openness facets tended to increase. Agreeableness facets both increased and decreased and the modesty facet reversed direction (from negative to positive). In addition, almost all of the neuroticism facets and all of the conscientiousness facets reversed direction in their loadings. In general, these results demonstrate that social desirability/impression management has an impact on the structure of the GFP. Interestingly, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) test of adequacy dropped consistently as each social desirability/impression management scale was removed. As the KMO is the sum of the squared correlations divided by the sum of the squared and partial correlations, this decrease suggests that the intercorrelations between the facets decreases as each response style measure is removed. Typically the KMO for the GFP under faking instructions (good and bad) are higher than honest/ straight-take GFPs (Schermer, Holden, et al., 2019; Schermer, Krammer, et al., 2019). If the KMO decreases when social desirability/ impression management variance is removed, these sets of results tend to support the position that social desirability/impression management is a less overt form, but still a manner, of faking. Similarly, faking GFPs tend to account for more variance than honest/straight-take GFPs (Schermer, Holden, et al., 2019; Schermer, Krammer, et al., 2019). The results presented in Table 1 demonstrate a decrease in the percentage of variance explained when the variance from each response measure was removed and the first factor (GFP) extracted. This pattern also supports the suggestion that social desirability/impression management is somewhat similar to faking. The changes in the pattern of loadings suggest that the definition of the GFP would also be modified if various levels of social desirability/ impression management are controlled. For example, the unaltered PAF results reflect the “definition” typically used of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, some openness, and negative neuroticism (van der Linden et al., 2017). In contrast, the GFP after controlling for the five social desirability/impression management scales is characteristic of positive neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and negative conscientiousness. Because the GFP structure changes after controlling for social
2. Method 2.1. Participants The data analyzed in this study came from the self-report sample reported by Holden and Passey (2010). Specifically, the sample consisted of 602 undergraduate students (81% female) who were on average 18.80 years old (SD = 1.14) and ranged in age from 17 to 27. Participants were recruited through posted on-campus flyers that directed individuals to a particular place and time for research participation. Individuals were financially compensated for completing the study. 2.2. Measures and procedure As described by Holden and Passey (2010), individuals completed the NEO-PI-R (Costa Jr. & McCrae, 1992) and five response style scales, including: the Self-Deceptive Enhancement and the Impression Management scales of the BIDR (Paulhus, 1998); the Marlowe–Crowne Social Desirability Scale (Crowne & Marlowe, 1960); Jackson's (1984) Desirability scale from the Personality Research Form (PRF); and the validity index of the HPSI (Holden, 1996). Scale score reliability values were reported to be acceptable (see Holden & Passey, 2010, p. 447). 3. Results and discussion Holden and Passey (2010) report that the majority of the correlations between the facet scores and the five social desirability/impression management scales were significant, suggesting that social desirability/impression management may influence a GFP extracted from the facets. Listed in Table 1 are the facet loadings on the first unrotated principal axis factor for the self-report responses (first column, labelled PAF) and then after removing (regressing) the variance due to individual social desirability/impression management scores, and finally the loadings with the variance from all response style scales removed (based on the residual scores). The unaltered GFP loadings reflect the pattern typically reported for the factors, with negative neuroticism, positive extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness, and low positive openness loadings (van der Linden 201
Personality and Individual Differences 147 (2019) 200–203
J.A. Schermer and R.R. Holden
Table 1 Loadings of 30 Big Five Facets on the GFP using principal axis factoring (PAF) before or after controlling for various social desirability and impression management scales. Facet scale
PAF
PAF (controlling for SDE)
PAF (controlling for IM)
PAF (controlling for MCSD)
PAF (controlling for PRFSD)
PAF (controlling for HPSI)
PAF (controlling for all SDs)
NEO-PI-R N1: Anxiety NEO-PI-R N2: Angry hostility NEO-PI-R N3: Depression NEO-PI-R N4: Self-consciousness NEO-PI-R N5: Impulsiveness NEO-PI-R N6: Vulnerability NEO-PI-R E1: Warmth NEO-PI-R E2: Gregariousness NEO-PI-R E3: Assertiveness NEO-PI-R E4: Activity NEO-PI-R E5: Excitement-seeking NEO-PI-R E6: Positive emotions NEO-PI-R O1: Fantasy NEO-PI-R O2: Aesthetics NEO-PI-R O3: Feelings NEO-PI-R O4: Actions NEO-PI-R O5: Ideas NEO-PI-R O6: Values NEO-PI-R A1: Trust NEO-PI-R A2: Straightforwardness NEO-PI-R A3: Altruism NEO-PI-R A4: Compliance NEO-PI-R A5: Modesty NEO-PI-R A6: Tender-mindedness NEO-PI-R C1: Competence NEO-PI-R C2: Order NEO-PI-R C3: Dutifulness NEO-PI-R C4: Achievement striving NEO-PI-R C5: Self-discipline NEO-PI-R C6: Deliberation KMO % Total variance (initial eigenvalues) % Total variance (extracted sum of squares)
−0.361 −0.549 −0.613 −0.586 −0.269 −0.539 0.634 0.412 0.395 0.456 0.298 0.552 0.016 0.165 0.187 0.162 0.228 0.168 0.508 0.269 0.586 0.260 −0.093 0.233 0.566 0.212 0.512 0.452 0.543 0.143 0.840 18.99
−0.322 −0.621 −0.574 −0.522 −0.260 −0.470 0.652 0.422 0.273 0.358 0.247 0.561 0.000 0.151 0.141 0.157 0.176 0.148 0.614 0.373 0.627 0.409 −0.010 0.293 0.467 0.144 0.453 0.349 0.469 0.138 0.832 17.95
−0.341 −0.415 −0.582 −0.599 −0.131 −0.513 0.633 0.486 0.520 0.557 0.465 0.578 0.081 0.146 0.239 0.189 0.222 0.172 0.407 0.068 0.479 0.076 −0.243 0.131 0.547 0.196 0.411 0.449 0.486 0.005 0.830 18.01
−0.255 −0.256 −0.500 −0.538 0.006 −0.421 0.629 0.498 0.594 0.606 0.476 0.596 0.146 0.149 0.340 0.159 0.208 0.169 0.322 −0.034 0.385 −0.078 −0.313 0.092 0.519 0.168 0.336 0.453 0.421 −0.059 0.821 16.54
0.009 −0.370 −0.022 −0.164 0.235 −0.007 0.752 0.478 0.136 0.190 0.347 0.673 0.367 0.374 0.363 0.347 0.194 0.319 0.547 0.255 0.565 0.344 0.137 0.463 −0.076 −0.279 −0.053 −0.112 −0.199 −0.285 0.804 14.35
0.245 −0.162 0.248 0.055 0.384 0.222 0.675 0.407 0.070 0.116 0.308 0.613 0.442 0.420 0.481 0.313 0.180 0.312 0.432 0.221 0.471 0.257 0.175 0.463 −0.173 −0.302 −0.145 −0.137 −0.271 −0.302 0.802 13.94
0.220 −0.185 0.223 0.013 0.421 0.199 0.705 0.443 0.125 0.158 0.374 0.647 0.444 0.412 0.511 0.317 0.186 0.317 0.450 0.221 0.512 0.265 0.156 0.461 −0.161 −0.303 −0.160 −0.125 −0.283 −0.338 0.788 14.83
16.54
15.49
15.54
14.04
11.88
11.28
12.26
SDE = Self-Deceptive Enhancement (Paulhus, 1998); IM = Impression Management (Paulhus, 1998); MCSD = Marlowe–Crowne Social Desirability Scale (Crowne & Marlowe, 1960); PRFSD = Desirability scale from the Personality Research Form (PRF; Jackson, 1984); HPSI = Holden Psychological Screening Inventory (HPSI; Holden, 1996).
assessment professionals should be cautioned from using the GFP, especially in applied settings.
desirability/impression management, these results support those who suggest that the GFP is strongly related to desirable responding (Schermer & Goffin, 2018) and that the GFP may even be due to social desirability (Bäckström et al., 2009). The results here also fail to support the assertions made by Rushton and Erdle (2010) in that the structure of the GFP clearly changes when social desirability variance is removed.
References Bäckström, M., Björklund, F., & Larsson, M. R. (2009). Five-factor inventories have a major general factor related to social desirability which can be reduced by framing items neutrally. Journal of Research in Personality, 43(3), 335–344. https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.jrp.2008.12.013. Costa, P. T., Jr., & McCrae, R. R. (1992). Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO Five-Factory Inventory (NEO-FFI): Professional manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources. Crowne, D. P., & Marlowe, D. (1960). A new scale of social desirability independent of psychopathology. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 24, 349–354. Holden, R.R. (1996). The Holden Psychological Screening Inventory manual. North Tonawanda, NY: Multi-Health Systems. Holden, R. R., & Passey, J. (2010). Socially desirable responding in personality assessment: Not necessarily faking and not necessarily substance. Personality and Individual Differences, 49(5), 446–450. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2010.04.015. Jackson, D. N. (1984). Personality Research Form manual. Port Huron, MI: Research Psychologists Press. MacCann, C., Pearce, N., & Jiang, Y. (2017). The general factor of personality is stronger and more strongly correlated with cognitive ability under instructed faking. Journal of Individual Differences, 38(1), 46–54. https://doi.org/10.1027/1614-0001/ a000221. Musek, J. (2007). A general factor of personality: Evidence for the Big One in the fivefactor model. Journal of Research in Personality, 41, 1213–1233. Paulhus, D. L. (1998). Paulhus Deception Scales (PDS): The balanced inventory of desirable responding – 7. North Tonawanda, NY: Multi-Health Systems. Rushton, J. P., & Erdle, S. (2010). No evidence that social desirability response set explains the general factor of personality and its affective correlates. Twin Research and Human Genetics, 13(2), 131–134. Schermer, J. A., & Goffin, R. D. (2018). A tale of two general factors of personality in
3.1. Limitations Limitations to our findings exist. In particular, data were based on a predominantly female sample of university undergraduates. Further, the assessment context was low-stakes in nature with no motivation to fake. Replication with samples drawn from other socio-demographic populations (e.g., male, clinical) and with other assessment contexts (e.g., personnel, forensic settings) will serve to establish the generalizability of current results and provide further assessments of how the structure of the GFP may change when variance from social desirability/impression management is removed. 4. Conclusion Because the GFP correlates with social desirability (and has been suggested by some to represent social desirability variance) and selfreport faking, changes with faking (good and bad) conditions, and as the present study has demonstrated, changes structure when variance due to social desirability/impression management is removed, 202
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in selection and assessment samples. Personality and Individual Differences, 51(5), 641–645. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2011.05.032. van der Linden, D., Pekaar, K., Bakker, A. B., Schermer, J. A., Vernon, P. A., & Petrides, K. V. (2017). Overlap between the general factor of personality and emotional intelligence: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 143(1), 36–52. https://doi.org/10. 1037/bul0000078. van der Linden, D., te Nijenhuis, J., & Bakker, A. B. (2010). The general factor of personality: A meta-analysis of Big Five intercorrelations and a criterion-related validity study. Journal of Research in Personality, 44, 315–327.
relation to intelligence and validity measures. Personality and Individual Differences, 124, 111–116. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2017.12.010. Schermer, J. A., Holden, R. R., & Krammer, G. (2019). The general factor of personality is very robust under faking conditions. Personality and Individual Differences, 138, 63–68. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2018.09.025. Schermer, J. A., Krammer, G., & Goffin, R. D. (2019). The general factor of personality and faking: A cautionary note on meaningfulness of the GFP under different response conditions. Personality and Individual Differences, 137, 110–114. https://doi.org/10. 1016/j.paid.2018.08.023. van der Linden, D., Bakker, A. B., & Serlie, A. W. (2011). The general factor of personality
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Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Personality and Individual Differences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid
Short Communication
Personality facet loadings onto the general factor of personality change when social desirability responding is considered
T
⁎
Julie Aitken Schermera, , Ronald R. Holdenb a b
Management and Organizational Studies, Social Science Centre, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON N6A 5C2, Canada Department of Psychology, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
A R T I C LE I N FO
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: General Factor of Personality Big Five Social desirability
The General Factor of Personality (GFP) has been found to be more robust under faking conditions and to correlate significantly with both self-report faking and social desirability responding, yet some still regard the GFP as a meaningful construct. This study examines the structure of the GFP (based on facet loadings on the first unrotated principal axis factor) when five individual social desirability/impression management scores (as well as the total) are partialled from the facets. Controlling for the social desirability/impression management variance altered the loadings of the personality facets. Specifically, loadings for the facets varied in magnitude, and for some, even changed direction when individual and combined measures of social desirability/impression management were removed. The results suggest that the GFP is not consistent in structure and is influenced by social desirability/impression management. Further, the results suggest that the interpretation of the structure of the GFP may change depending on how individuals present themselves when completing personality measures.
1. Introduction The “substance versus artefact” debate about the General Factor of Personality (GFP) began shortly after Musek (2007) described a higherorder factor for the Big Five personality (openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism), titled “The Big One”. Those supporting the GFP as a meaningful dimension (of substance) have argued that the higher order factor reflects an individual's character and can be used in applied settings such as employee assessment and selection (van der Linden, Bakker, & Serlie, 2011; van der Linden, te Nijenhuis, & Bakker, 2010). In contrast, others have argued that the GFP reflects an artefact of social desirability responding (for example see Bäckström, Björklund, & Larsson, 2009). The suggestion of using the GFP in applied settings has motivated some researchers to assess the nature of the GFP in situations where social desirability, impression management, or even faking may play a role. Schermer and Goffin (2018) reported significant positive correlations between two different GFPs (based on different personality scales) and self-report faking-good and a small but significant negative correlation with a first-order GFP and self-report faking-bad. Recently three studies have been published examining the GFP under faking conditions. MacCann, Pearce, and Jiang (2017) tested the structure of the GFP based on the HEXACO model (honesty/humility, emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and ⁎
openness) under honest and faking good conditions. Except for agreeableness, the personality dimensions had higher loadings on the fakegood GFP compared to the honest GFP. Schermer, Krammer, and Goffin (2019) examined two GFPs, based on different personality measures, and reported that the fake-good GFP accounted for more variance and had higher loadings than the honest GFPs. Across four studies, Schermer, Holden, and Krammer (2019) examined the nature of the GFP under honest, fake-good, and fake-bad instructions. The fake-good GFPs typically were more robust than the honest GFPs (accounted for more variance and tended to have higher loadings) but surprisingly the fake-bad GFPs were the most robust. These results suggest that people respond even more consistently when asked to appear to have an unappealing personality profile more than when asked to appear to have a “good” personality. Also reported by Schermer, Holden, et al. (2019) were the correlations between the GFPs and impression management and social desirability variables. The honest, fake-good, and fake-bad GFPs correlated of similar magnitude with measures such as the validity index of the Holden Psychological Screening Inventory (HPSI; Holden, 1996) and impression management, but had significantly different correlations with other validity measures. The honest and fake-good GFPs correlated higher on self-deceptive enhancement (from the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding; BIDR; Paulhus, 1998) when compared to the fake-bad GFP. Interestingly, the honest-GFP correlated significantly
Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (J.A. Schermer).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.04.038 Received 7 February 2019; Received in revised form 22 April 2019; Accepted 29 April 2019 Available online 06 May 2019 0191-8869/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Personality and Individual Differences 147 (2019) 200–203
J.A. Schermer and R.R. Holden
higher than the fake-good GFP with social desirability. This finding adds to the debate of whether or not faking and social desirable responding are separate variables (Holden & Passey, 2010) as social desirability had a stronger relationship with honest responses than with faked responses. In finding that social desirability related more to honest than faked responses, results support the perspective that social desirability and faking are not isomorphic. Consistently, concerns have been raised about the relationships between the GFP and social desirability. For example, Schermer and Goffin (2018) reported significant correlations with two GFPs and social desirability scale scores. Bäckström et al. (2009) demonstrated that the GFP from three different personality measures was attributed to social desirability. In contrast, Rushton and Erdle (2010) reported that controlling for the variance from a Lie scale (Study 1) and for social desirability (Study 2) did not significantly alter the loadings of personality measures onto the GFP. In the current study, the influence of social desirability on the structure of the GFP is examined by looking at the structure of the GFP after individually removing the variance due to five social desirability/impression management scales. The analyses were conducted using the self-report data from Holden and Passey (2010) which included a large sample of participants who, in addition to completing a personality measure, completed a large number of social desirability/impression management scales. If the GFP is influenced by response styles, then the structure of the GFP should change when the variance from social desirability/impression management is removed.
et al., 2017). The next column in Table 1 is the facet loadings after removing the variance from the Self-Deceptive Enhancement (SDE; Paulhus, 1998) responses. The loadings for the agreeableness facets increased slightly and the facet loadings for conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness generally decreased. The extraversion facet loadings both increased and decreased. The third loading column reflects the facets after the Impression Management (IM; Paulhus, 1998) variance was removed. Compared to the PAF column, the facet loadings for agreeableness, neuroticism, and conscientiousness decreased and the extraversion loadings increased. As with the SDE, the openness facet loadings both increased and decreased. The same pattern of changes occurred for the facet loadings after controlling for the variance due to the Marlowe–Crowne Social Desirability Scale (MCSD; Crowne & Marlowe, 1960). Controlling for the variance from the Desirability scale from the PRF (PRFSD; Jackson, 1984) had a slightly different pattern than for the SDE, IM, and MCSD. Generally, the loadings for extraversion, openness, and agreeableness increased and the conscientiousness and neuroticism facet loadings decreased. Interestingly, some of the loadings changed direction, such as impulsiveness (neuroticism facet), modesty (agreeableness facet), and self-discipline and deliberation (conscientiousness facets). The facet loadings controlling for the HPSI (Holden, 1996) also showed an interesting pattern of changes when compared to the unaltered PAF column. Most of the openness loadings increased. Extraversion and agreeableness had approximately equal numbers of increases and decreases. The majority of the neuroticism and conscientiousness loadings reversed direction. In the final column of Table 1, the facet loadings for the first factor are provided after having removed the variance from all five social desirability/impression management scales. Extraversion and openness facets tended to increase. Agreeableness facets both increased and decreased and the modesty facet reversed direction (from negative to positive). In addition, almost all of the neuroticism facets and all of the conscientiousness facets reversed direction in their loadings. In general, these results demonstrate that social desirability/impression management has an impact on the structure of the GFP. Interestingly, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) test of adequacy dropped consistently as each social desirability/impression management scale was removed. As the KMO is the sum of the squared correlations divided by the sum of the squared and partial correlations, this decrease suggests that the intercorrelations between the facets decreases as each response style measure is removed. Typically the KMO for the GFP under faking instructions (good and bad) are higher than honest/ straight-take GFPs (Schermer, Holden, et al., 2019; Schermer, Krammer, et al., 2019). If the KMO decreases when social desirability/ impression management variance is removed, these sets of results tend to support the position that social desirability/impression management is a less overt form, but still a manner, of faking. Similarly, faking GFPs tend to account for more variance than honest/straight-take GFPs (Schermer, Holden, et al., 2019; Schermer, Krammer, et al., 2019). The results presented in Table 1 demonstrate a decrease in the percentage of variance explained when the variance from each response measure was removed and the first factor (GFP) extracted. This pattern also supports the suggestion that social desirability/impression management is somewhat similar to faking. The changes in the pattern of loadings suggest that the definition of the GFP would also be modified if various levels of social desirability/ impression management are controlled. For example, the unaltered PAF results reflect the “definition” typically used of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, some openness, and negative neuroticism (van der Linden et al., 2017). In contrast, the GFP after controlling for the five social desirability/impression management scales is characteristic of positive neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and negative conscientiousness. Because the GFP structure changes after controlling for social
2. Method 2.1. Participants The data analyzed in this study came from the self-report sample reported by Holden and Passey (2010). Specifically, the sample consisted of 602 undergraduate students (81% female) who were on average 18.80 years old (SD = 1.14) and ranged in age from 17 to 27. Participants were recruited through posted on-campus flyers that directed individuals to a particular place and time for research participation. Individuals were financially compensated for completing the study. 2.2. Measures and procedure As described by Holden and Passey (2010), individuals completed the NEO-PI-R (Costa Jr. & McCrae, 1992) and five response style scales, including: the Self-Deceptive Enhancement and the Impression Management scales of the BIDR (Paulhus, 1998); the Marlowe–Crowne Social Desirability Scale (Crowne & Marlowe, 1960); Jackson's (1984) Desirability scale from the Personality Research Form (PRF); and the validity index of the HPSI (Holden, 1996). Scale score reliability values were reported to be acceptable (see Holden & Passey, 2010, p. 447). 3. Results and discussion Holden and Passey (2010) report that the majority of the correlations between the facet scores and the five social desirability/impression management scales were significant, suggesting that social desirability/impression management may influence a GFP extracted from the facets. Listed in Table 1 are the facet loadings on the first unrotated principal axis factor for the self-report responses (first column, labelled PAF) and then after removing (regressing) the variance due to individual social desirability/impression management scores, and finally the loadings with the variance from all response style scales removed (based on the residual scores). The unaltered GFP loadings reflect the pattern typically reported for the factors, with negative neuroticism, positive extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness, and low positive openness loadings (van der Linden 201
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Table 1 Loadings of 30 Big Five Facets on the GFP using principal axis factoring (PAF) before or after controlling for various social desirability and impression management scales. Facet scale
PAF
PAF (controlling for SDE)
PAF (controlling for IM)
PAF (controlling for MCSD)
PAF (controlling for PRFSD)
PAF (controlling for HPSI)
PAF (controlling for all SDs)
NEO-PI-R N1: Anxiety NEO-PI-R N2: Angry hostility NEO-PI-R N3: Depression NEO-PI-R N4: Self-consciousness NEO-PI-R N5: Impulsiveness NEO-PI-R N6: Vulnerability NEO-PI-R E1: Warmth NEO-PI-R E2: Gregariousness NEO-PI-R E3: Assertiveness NEO-PI-R E4: Activity NEO-PI-R E5: Excitement-seeking NEO-PI-R E6: Positive emotions NEO-PI-R O1: Fantasy NEO-PI-R O2: Aesthetics NEO-PI-R O3: Feelings NEO-PI-R O4: Actions NEO-PI-R O5: Ideas NEO-PI-R O6: Values NEO-PI-R A1: Trust NEO-PI-R A2: Straightforwardness NEO-PI-R A3: Altruism NEO-PI-R A4: Compliance NEO-PI-R A5: Modesty NEO-PI-R A6: Tender-mindedness NEO-PI-R C1: Competence NEO-PI-R C2: Order NEO-PI-R C3: Dutifulness NEO-PI-R C4: Achievement striving NEO-PI-R C5: Self-discipline NEO-PI-R C6: Deliberation KMO % Total variance (initial eigenvalues) % Total variance (extracted sum of squares)
−0.361 −0.549 −0.613 −0.586 −0.269 −0.539 0.634 0.412 0.395 0.456 0.298 0.552 0.016 0.165 0.187 0.162 0.228 0.168 0.508 0.269 0.586 0.260 −0.093 0.233 0.566 0.212 0.512 0.452 0.543 0.143 0.840 18.99
−0.322 −0.621 −0.574 −0.522 −0.260 −0.470 0.652 0.422 0.273 0.358 0.247 0.561 0.000 0.151 0.141 0.157 0.176 0.148 0.614 0.373 0.627 0.409 −0.010 0.293 0.467 0.144 0.453 0.349 0.469 0.138 0.832 17.95
−0.341 −0.415 −0.582 −0.599 −0.131 −0.513 0.633 0.486 0.520 0.557 0.465 0.578 0.081 0.146 0.239 0.189 0.222 0.172 0.407 0.068 0.479 0.076 −0.243 0.131 0.547 0.196 0.411 0.449 0.486 0.005 0.830 18.01
−0.255 −0.256 −0.500 −0.538 0.006 −0.421 0.629 0.498 0.594 0.606 0.476 0.596 0.146 0.149 0.340 0.159 0.208 0.169 0.322 −0.034 0.385 −0.078 −0.313 0.092 0.519 0.168 0.336 0.453 0.421 −0.059 0.821 16.54
0.009 −0.370 −0.022 −0.164 0.235 −0.007 0.752 0.478 0.136 0.190 0.347 0.673 0.367 0.374 0.363 0.347 0.194 0.319 0.547 0.255 0.565 0.344 0.137 0.463 −0.076 −0.279 −0.053 −0.112 −0.199 −0.285 0.804 14.35
0.245 −0.162 0.248 0.055 0.384 0.222 0.675 0.407 0.070 0.116 0.308 0.613 0.442 0.420 0.481 0.313 0.180 0.312 0.432 0.221 0.471 0.257 0.175 0.463 −0.173 −0.302 −0.145 −0.137 −0.271 −0.302 0.802 13.94
0.220 −0.185 0.223 0.013 0.421 0.199 0.705 0.443 0.125 0.158 0.374 0.647 0.444 0.412 0.511 0.317 0.186 0.317 0.450 0.221 0.512 0.265 0.156 0.461 −0.161 −0.303 −0.160 −0.125 −0.283 −0.338 0.788 14.83
16.54
15.49
15.54
14.04
11.88
11.28
12.26
SDE = Self-Deceptive Enhancement (Paulhus, 1998); IM = Impression Management (Paulhus, 1998); MCSD = Marlowe–Crowne Social Desirability Scale (Crowne & Marlowe, 1960); PRFSD = Desirability scale from the Personality Research Form (PRF; Jackson, 1984); HPSI = Holden Psychological Screening Inventory (HPSI; Holden, 1996).
assessment professionals should be cautioned from using the GFP, especially in applied settings.
desirability/impression management, these results support those who suggest that the GFP is strongly related to desirable responding (Schermer & Goffin, 2018) and that the GFP may even be due to social desirability (Bäckström et al., 2009). The results here also fail to support the assertions made by Rushton and Erdle (2010) in that the structure of the GFP clearly changes when social desirability variance is removed.
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3.1. Limitations Limitations to our findings exist. In particular, data were based on a predominantly female sample of university undergraduates. Further, the assessment context was low-stakes in nature with no motivation to fake. Replication with samples drawn from other socio-demographic populations (e.g., male, clinical) and with other assessment contexts (e.g., personnel, forensic settings) will serve to establish the generalizability of current results and provide further assessments of how the structure of the GFP may change when variance from social desirability/impression management is removed. 4. Conclusion Because the GFP correlates with social desirability (and has been suggested by some to represent social desirability variance) and selfreport faking, changes with faking (good and bad) conditions, and as the present study has demonstrated, changes structure when variance due to social desirability/impression management is removed, 202
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