“We found that Openness, or the tendency to be curious and explorative, is positively related to overclaiming, a relationship that held true across six samples collected from different countries using various scales and sources of measurement. ”
The tendency for people to inaccurately portray themselves in an overly desirable light is a common concern for many self-assessments, such as in personality questionnaires used in high-stakes employment settings. In order to detect the occurrence of this response bias, measurement scales have been developed. One such scale is the Overclaiming Questionnaire, which has been suggested to be promising despite the fact that it is, to date, still poorly understood. In a series of four studies, we provided novel insights into this scale and the qualities that it really measures. We found that Openness, or the tendency to be curious and explorative, is positively related to overclaiming, a relationship that held true across six samples collected from different countries using various scales and sources of measurement. Furthermore, we identified the underlying mechanism to be the accumulation of general knowledge, rather than egoistic or deceptive tendencies. These results have important implications for the use of this questionnaire in applied settings, as they suggest that overclaiming might not measure intentional self-presentation.
Summary of Dunlop, P. D., Bourdage, J. S., de Vries, R. E., Hilbig, B. E., Zettler, I., & Ludeke, S. G. (2017). Openness to (reporting) experiences that one never had: Overclaiming as an outcome of the knowledge accumulated through a procilivity for cognitive and aesthetic exploration. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113, 810 - 834.
