Spotting the “Ideal” Personality Response

Forced choice (FC) personality questionnaires attempt to constrain job applicants from presenting idealized responses (or “faking”). FC questionnaires are designed by identifying items equally desirable in applicants, matching these into “blocks,” and instructing respondents to rank the items “most like” themselves. Nonetheless, how closely items should be matched remains unclear, and desirability seems dependent on the job. We investigated how strongly respondents (N = 436) agreed regarding the “ideal” applicant response, while varying (a) how closely items were matched into blocks and (b) the job context. While the most closely matched blocks elicited slight agreement on an ideal response, agreement increased noticeably with poorer matching. Nonetheless, differences in item desirability between different job conditions were evident even in closely matched blocks.