Although the use of personality tests for personnel selection has gained increasing acceptance, researchers have raised concerns that job applicants may distort their responses to inflate their scores. In the present meta-analysis, we examined the effects of the two dimensions of social desirability, impression management and self-deception, on the criterion validity of personality constructs using the balanced inventory of desirable responding (BIDR). The results indicate that impression management and self-deception did not create spurious effects on the relationship between personality measures and performance, nor did they function as performance predictors. Moreover, removing the influence of impression management or self-deception from personality measures did not substantially attenuate the criterion validity of personality variables. Implications of the results and directions for future research are also discussed.

Using identity theory and the gender role framework, this study examined the interactive effects of family identity salience, family-interference-with-work (FIW), and gender on two outcome variables: job satisfaction and job distress. Results from a sample of 163 employees support the proposed buffering hypothesis for job distress and job satisfaction, such that individuals who experienced a high level of FIW reported more job distress and less job satisfaction only when they were low in family identity salience. Additionally, we found support for a three-way interaction, such that the two-way interactive effects of family identity salience and FIW on job satisfaction were stronger for women than for men. Theoretical and practical implications of the results, as well as directions for future research, are discussed.

We draw on the cross-domain model of work-family conflict and conservation of resources theory to examine the relationship between disability caregiving demands and the psychological well-being of employed caregivers. Using a sample of employed disability caregivers from a national survey, we found that the relationship between caregiving demands and family-to-work conflict was stronger when employees experienced high levels of strain from family. Additionally, we found high levels of family to-work conflict were subsequently associated with decreases in life satisfaction and increases in depression, but only when perceived supervisor support was low. Overall, our findings suggest an indirect relationship between caregiving demands and psychological well-being that is mediated by family-to-work conflict and is conditional on family strain and perceived supervisor support. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

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The Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR) is one of the most widely used social desirability scales. The authors conducted a reliability generalization study to examine the typical reliability coefficients of BIDR scores and explored factors that explained the variability of reliability estimates across studies. The results indicated that the overall BIDR scale produced scores that were adequately reliable. The mean score reliability estimates for the two subscales, Self-Deception Enhancement and Impression Management, were not satisfactory. In addition, although a number of study characteristics were statistically significantly related to reliability estimates, they accounted for only a small portion of the overall variability in reliability estimates. The results of these findings and their implications are also discussed.