Overclaiming is not related to dark triad personality traits or stated and revealed risk preferences

The utility of overclaiming questionnaires depends on the fit between test content and application context

Overclaiming questionnaires (OCQs) were proposed as a means to counteract social desirability bias by capturing individual differences in participants’ self-enhancement tendencies in self-report assessments. Previous studies that evaluated OCQs reported mixed results. However, fit between the content of an OCQ in terms of its items and the context in which the measure is presented has not been tested systematically. In a mock application study (N = 432), we compared different levels of content-context fit between conditions. Results show that the utility of a general knowledge OCQ varied as a function of its content fit to different application contexts. Expectedly, overclaiming was most pronounced in an application context with optimal content fit to the OCQ, followed by a context with lower fit and an honest control condition without application context. Furthermore, participants in the application conditions were shown to successfully fake on conventional personality scales while incorporating specific requirements of the application context into their faking behavior. Our results thus corroborate previous findings suggesting a high susceptibility of personality scales to deliberate faking. In contrast, when content-context fit is taken into account, OCQs may be a promising method for assessing applicant faking.

Bursting balloons - comparison of risk taking between extreme sports, esports, and the general public

Arguably, extreme sports athletes exhibit a more significant risk appetite than the general public. Are standard behavioral risk measures able to capture this? To answer this question, we assessed self-reports of risk taking and measured the risk-taking behavior of samples of snowboarders and climbers. Two groups of non-athletes, university students and crowdworkers, and athletes of a sport that does not include the potential of grave injury or death, esports athletes, serve as control conditions and complement our study. Across these five different groups, 1313 participants performed an online version of the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) and gave self-reports of general willingness to take risks and sports-specific risk taking. Extreme sports athletes exhibited greater risk taking in the BART than non-athletes and esports athletes. Furthermore, BART-performance predicted sports-specific risk taking and its affective consequences. Our results speak to the BART’s ecological validity and the unique role of physical consequences on risk-taking behavior.