Construct and Predictive Validity of an Assessment Game to Measure Honesty–Humility

Abstract

Research on commercial computer games has demonstrated that in-game behavior is related to the players’ personality profiles. However, this potential has not yet been fully utilized for personality assessments. Hence, we developed an applied (i.e., serious) assessment game to assess the Honesty–Humility personality trait. In two studies, we demonstrate that this game adequately assesses Honesty–Humility. In Study 1 ( N = 116), we demonstrate convergent validity of the assessment game with self-reported Honesty–Humility and divergent validity with the other HEXACO traits and cognitive ability. In Study 2 ( N = 287), we replicate the findings from Study 1, and also demonstrate that the assessment game shows incremental validity—beyond self-reported personality—in the prediction of cheating for financial gain, but not of counterproductive work and unethical behaviors. The findings demonstrate that assessment games are promising tools for personality measurement in applied contexts.

Construct validity of a personality assessment game in a simulated selection situation and the moderating roles of the ability to identify criteria and dispositional insight

“…Recently, it has been demonstrated that the personality trait honesty-humility can be validly assessed using an assessment game (Barends et al, 2022). Across two studies, Barends et al demon-strated that the assessment game Building Docks had convergent validity with self-reported honesty-humility, discriminant validity with cognitive ability, and the remaining five HEXACO personality traits.…”

“…At t1, respondents completed the self-report HEXACO personality inventory (Lee & Ashton, 2018) and the Dispositional Insight Test (DIT; De Vries et al, 2021). One week later, at t2, participants completed the assessment game Building Docks (Barends et al, 2022). Half of the invited participants were randomly allocated to complete Building Docks in a simulated selection situation (complete the task as if you are completing the task as a part for a personnel selection procedure) and the other half were allocated to the control condition (without any specific instructions on how to approach the game).…”

“…1 Therefore, our goal is to test whether the construct validity of a personality assessment game is affected by letting respondents complete the game in a simulated selection situation compared with a control condition without any contextual instructions. For this project, we conducted two experimental studies using an assessment game developed to measure the personality trait honesty-humility (Barends et al, 2022). Therefore, we investigated whether a simulated selection situation influences the honesty-humility game scores and the patterns of convergent and discriminant validity of the honesty-humility game scores with self-reports of personality.…”

Compensatory beliefs in the internet gratification behavior: A study of game-based assessment

“…Despite that GBA has attracted a lot of attention in the educational/psychological assessment ( 30 – 34 ) and human resource management area ( 35 – 37 ), it has not become a standard tool in the public health domain. The IN-style GBA used in the present study was only a primer of what such assessment can be like.…”

Measuring honesty-humility with an implicit association test (IAT): Construct and criterion validity

“…The use of implicit tests to measure traits outside of the Big Five trait framework, for example, honesty-humility (from the HEXACO model), appears especially promising. To address concerns (see Fan et al, 2012;Schnabel et al, 2008) that self-reported honesty-humility measures may be vulnerable to socially desirable responding, self-report bias, faking and being prone to test-takers' lack of introspective accuracy, novel measurement methods to assess honesty-humility have been developed, including computer games (Barends et al, 2021) and situational judgment tests (Oostrom et al, 2019). Implicit tests for honestyhumility are especially promising alternatives to mainstream selfreport measures as such tests are expected to be less subject to voluntary control and faking.…”