Contamination with positivity bias is a potential problem in virtually all areas of psychological assessment. To determine the impact of positivity bias, one common approach is to embed special indicators within one's assessment battery. Such tools range from social desirability scales to overconfidence measures to the so-called overclaiming technique. Despite the large literature on these different approaches and underlying theoretical notions, little is known about the overall nomological network-in particular, the degree to which these constructs overlap. To this end, a broad spectrum of positivity bias detection tools was administered in low-stakes settings ( N = 798) along with measures of the Big Five, grandiose narcissism, and cognitive ability. Exploratory factor analyses revealed six first-order and two second-order factors. Overclaiming was not loaded by any of the six first-order factors and overconfidence was not explained by either of the two second-order factors. All other measures were confounded with personality and/or cognitive ability. Based on our findings, overclaiming is the most distinct potential indicator of positivity bias and independent of known personality measures.

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Faking remains an unsolved problem in high-stakes personality assessment. It is important that the evaluation of so-called faking-detection scales differs between psychological disciplines. One of the reasons for this might be the unclear nature of actual faking behavior. In the present study, we aimed to apply a modeling technique introduced by Ziegler, Maaß, Griffith, and Gammon (2015) that allows capturing of interindividual differences in faking behavior as a latent variable. We used this approach to isolate variance because of experimentally induced faking good and faking bad of the Big Five, and we predicted this variance with a variety of theoretically relevant constructs (socially desirable responding, overclaiming, and dark triad traits). We tested a sample (n = 233) divided between 2 experimental conditions and n = 167 persons in a control condition twice (honest/faking and honest/honest). The application of the modeling approach for all 5 personality domains was successful. In a second step, factor scores for all faking variables derived from these prior analyses were tested for homogeneity within each faking condition. Results showed that whereas faking was neither homogeneous within each condition (i.e., faking good vs. faking bad), nor was it homogeneous across conditions. Thus, faking is a complex psychological process that is responsive to specific situational demands. In a final step, the faking variables representing faking good and faking bad were regressed onto scores from other measures. The results indicated that the common variance shared by some social desirability scales predicted faking. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of these findings.

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