Tailored Adaptive Personality Assessment System (TAPAS) as an indicator for counterproductive work behavior: Comparing validity in applicant, honest, and directed faking conditions

ABSTRACT

The predictive validity of the Tailored Adaptive Personality Assessment System (TAPAS), the U.S. Army’s first computer-adaptive personality test incorporating multidimensional pairwise preference items, has been demonstrated for training performance in both the Army and Air Force. While the unique TAPAS format has been described as more resistant to applicant faking than traditional self-report personality measures, evidence regarding the magnitude of applicant score distortion on TAPAS, and how such distortion (if present) may affect reliability and validity, has been limited. To address this gap, the present study compared operational TAPAS scores of Air Force enlisted recruits (administered pre-accession to applicants) to their post-accession retest scores under honest and directed faking (“fake good”) conditions (based on re-administration of TAPAS during Basic Military Training). Data are presented on the relationship of applicant pre-accession scores to their retest scores under honest conditions (a form of test-retest reliability) and the magnitude of mean score differences in applicant, honest, and directed faking conditions is documented. Further, the validity of the TAPAS as an indicator for counterproductive work behaviors (CWB) was evaluated. Results indicate that TAPAS scores are relatively stable over time and the TAPAS methodology appears to reduce score distortion. In addition, the results suggest that the validities of the TAPAS scores as CWB correlates are comparable across honest and directed faking testing conditions and generally in line with those found for traditional Likert-type self-report Big Five measures.

KEYWORDS:

• Personality
• faking
• counterproductive work behavior
• forced choice
• unethical decision making

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The TAPAS version used by the U.S. Air Force consisted of 15 facets. Most of the items consisted of multidimensional statement pairs. One or two items for each facet were unidimensional pairs.