Egoistic and moralistic bias in real-life inventory responses

Response-faking tendencies can be divided into moralistic and egoistic bias according to the contents of the issue faked (Paulhus & John, 1998). Our hypothesis was that in a work-related selection context faking would occur on the egoistic sub-scales, as these are related to competence and talent, which are issues relevant in selection. To minimize the amount of conscious faking, half of 466 real-life applicants were warned about the presence of a socially desirable responding sub-scale in the Personality Research Form (PRF). Half of the respondents (control group) received standard instructions. Of all the PRF sub-scales, only the ones measuring either egoistic or moralistic traits were studied. The hypothesis was not supported: the warning affected not only some of the egoistic sub-scales, but also some of the moralistic sub-scales.