Integrity Testing

Integrity (or honesty) tests are paper-and-pencil instruments administered primarily to job applicants for the purpose of predicting counterproductive work behavior. Recent estimates suggest that several million such tests are administered in the US annually, primarily to applicants for entry-level jobs with access to money or merchandise (e.g., retailing, financial services). Early integrity tests were billed as paper-and-pencil surrogates for polygraph testing. Current research, however, downplays or eliminates the link to the polygraph. It focuses not only on the prediction of employee theft but also on a wide variety of counterproductive behaviors, to include violation of work rules, fraudulent workers' compensation claims, and absenteeism. Two basic types of tests can be identified. Overt tests measure attitudes toward theft and other forms of counterproductivity. They commonly ask for a self-report of applicant involvement in various illegal and/or counterproductive behaviors. Personality-oriented tests are considerably broader in focus and are not explicitly aimed at theft. They may include items dealing with dependability, conscientiousness, social conformity, thrill-seeking, trouble with authority, and hostility.