Opening the Black Box of the Response Process to Personality Faking: An Application of Item Response Tree Models

Cross‐cultural differences in the use of the “?” Response category of the Job Descriptive Index: An application of the item response tree model

“…LaHuis et al (2019) noted, “We were not able to assess directly how well the model fits the data… We suspect indices of model ft will soon be developed for IR trees” (p. 1016). Most recently, Lee et al (2022) stated, “Unfortunately, this methodological issue has not been fully addressed until this moment, and thus, we were unable to test the overall model fit of IR‐tree models” (p. 7). We hope this methodological issue can be addressed in the near future, so researchers may be able to fully investigate the measurement invariance of the IRTree models.…”

“…Because the IRTree models are recent developments in the IRT literature that are still evolving, they still have limitations from the psychometric perspective. The IRTree model currently provides only the AIC and BIC values and does not provide overall model fit indices as in the traditional multiple‐group confirmatory factor analysis measurement invariance models (LaHuis et al, 2019; Lee et al, 2022). LaHuis et al (2019) noted, “We were not able to assess directly how well the model fits the data… We suspect indices of model ft will soon be developed for IR trees” (p. 1016).…”

“…For example, Böckenholt (2012) and Zettler et al (2016) used the IRTree model to examine associations between midpoint responding and education, extreme responding and age, and extreme responding and honesty-humility. Because of its unique advantages, the IRTree model has been increasingly applied to examine a wide range of topics such as personality response in the selection context (LaHuis et al, 2019;Lee et al, 2022), consumers' attitudes (Böckenholt, 2012), cognitive activities (Böckenholt, 2019;Boeck & Partchev, 2012), and survey responses (Böckenholt, 2012;Plieninger & Meiser, 2014).…”

“…In the last step, the intensity of the agreement is determined, and the response process ends with a strong positive attitude (“5”). This response process model approach is referred to as a midpoint primary process (MPP) model (LaHuis et al, 2019) and has been well supported by research (Böckenholt, 2017; Lee et al, 2022; Plieninger & Meiser, 2014; Zettler et al, 2016).…”

“…In the last M step, test takers are assumed to evaluate whether to express or not to express an opinion. We note that queries D , E , and M are allowed to be correlated in the IRTree model specification (e.g., Lee et al, 2022).…”