The over-claiming technique: measuring self-enhancement independent of ability.
Over-claiming is a concrete operalization of self-enhancement based on respondents' ratings of their knowledge of various persons, events, products, and so on. Because 20% of the items are nonexistent, responses can be analyzed with signal detection formulas to index both response bias (over-claiming) and accuracy (knowledge). Study 1 demonstrated convergence of over-claiming with alternative measures of self-enhancement but independence from cognitive ability. In Studies 2-3, the validity of the over-claiming index held even when respondents were (a) warned about the foils or (b) asked to fake good. Study 3 also showed the utility of the over-claiming index for diagnosing faking. In Study 4, the over-claiming technique was applied to the debate over the adaptive value of positive illusions.
Paulhus
Delroy L
DL
Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. dpaulhus@psych.ubc.ca
Harms
P D
PD
Bruce
M Nadine
MN
Lysy
Daria C
DC
D000328:Adult; D001076:Aptitude; D001290:Attitude; D003071:Cognition; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011897:Random Allocation; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012649:Self Concept; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires