Degro, Greta MiaGreta MiaDegro2025-07-172025-07-172022https://fis.uni-bamberg.de/handle/uniba/108706Masterarbeit, Otto-Friedrich-Universität, 2022To study faking as an intentional response distortion in laboratory setting, scientists manipulate the generic instructions of measurement instruments such as personality questionnaires. Therefore, researchers generated applicant settings to elicit a motivation to fake and an as natural as possible faking behavior. Participants are instructed to answer the items as if they were applying for a job they really wanted and as if they wanted to maximize their chances of getting this job. The emerging “honest” and “faking” conditions are then compared to each other, and the difference is interpreted to result from faking. Interestingly the frame of reference (FOR) research found the contextualization via instructions, which ask participants to think of their behavior in a certain context, e.g., at work while answering the items, to lead to a higher validity of contextualized questionnaires as compared to noncontextualized ones. We argue that applicant faking instructions to study faking in laboratory settings do not only induce faking but at the same time a specific frame of reference. Thus, we assume that faking and frame of reference effects are confounded if this paradigm is used to study faking. If this holds to be true, studies using this manipulation of instructions do not meet the criterion of internal validity. If two systematically confounded processes cause the observed effects, the conclusion that these effects are caused by faking alone do not take the dependence of both factors into account and may therefore be biased.engfakingFOR150masterthesisurn:nbn:de:bvb:473-irb-108706x