IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/judgdm/v21y2026ip-_6.html

Strategic misrepresentation in personality testing: An experimental study using the public goods game

Author

Listed:
  • Woods, Daniel

Abstract

Personality tests are commonly used to hire suitable employees but this process is susceptible to strategic misrepresentation by job-seekers. This article uses a lab experiment as an analogy of such a hiring process by using a repeated public goods game (PGG) as a proxy for a cooperative work environment. Participants first complete a Big Five personality test, focusing on the trait of ‘Agreeableness’, which some previous studies have associated with prosocial cooperation in the PGG. Two groups are formed: a high Agreeableness group and a low Agreeableness group. The experiment manipulates the timing of revealing the group formation rule, as knowing the rule before the personality test allows for misrepresentation of Agreeableness. I find no evidence of substantial misrepresentation when the group formation rule is revealed before the personality test. I do find that Agreeableness group formation increases contributions for both high and low groups, but only when it is described to participants before the PGG. I find no evidence that Agreeableness is related to contributions in the PGG.

Suggested Citation

  • Woods, Daniel, 2026. "Strategic misrepresentation in personality testing: An experimental study using the public goods game," Judgment and Decision Making, Cambridge University Press, vol. 21, pages 1-1, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:judgdm:v:21:y:2026:i::p:-_6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S193029752610031X/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:judgdm:v:21:y:2026:i::p:-_6. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jdm .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.