Citation

Aleixo PA, Hollin CR. Leg. Crim. Psychol. 1996; 1(2): 229-232.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1996, British Psychological Society, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.2044-8333.1996.tb00321.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Purpose. Response bias to the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (Eysenck, Eysenck & Barrett, 1985) and the Sociomoral Reasoning Measure (Gibbs & Widaman, 1982) was investigated by examining lay individuals' ability to 'fake' offenders' responses to these tests. This method also allowed for the investigation of the way lay individuals conceptualize the personality and moral reasoning of offenders and how these may relate to the academic theories of offending behaviour proposed by Eysenck (1977) and Kohlberg (1964).Methods. One hundred and thirteen undergraduate students, who received course credits for participating, were divided into a comparison and a 'faking' group and completed three standard measures: the short form of the revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (Eysenck et al., 1985); the Sociomoral Reflection Measure (Gibbs & Widaman, 1982); and a self-reported delinquency questionnaire (Elliott, Ageton, Huizinga, Knowles & Canter, 1983). The 'faking' group were asked to give responses to the first two measures as they would imagine convicted offenders might.Results. Comparisons of the results with previously published findings showed that the responses of the 'fakers' closely followed patterns of responding of actual offenders.Conclusions. It was concluded that the measures were susceptible to this kind of bias and that further studies might look at the influence of other variables on faking on these measures.

Language: en