Application of Preventive Strategies

This chapter addresses issues surrounding strategies to identify and reduce socially desirable responding, impression management, and faking in applied assessment settings. Strategies are discussed in terms of a framework with four categories based on purpose (identification or prevention) and level (scale/test or person). Three major questions are considered: Which forms do the strategies take (what are recommendations for use in applied assessment practice)? To what degree do test users rely on such strategies in identifying or preventing response distortion (what are the prevalence rates)? What is the effectiveness of each strategy in applied settings (does it lead to the successful identification or prevention of faking under realistic assessment conditions)? The chapter concludes that even those strategies that have received the most research attention so far do not present effective solutions in applied assessment settings.