Facts About Honesty/Integrity Tests and Interviews

by David Ricardo

It was with some interest that, among the letters of the Spring 2018 issue of 2600, I read that a correspondent named "GazetteMed" was interested in an article regarding honesty tests written by "U.R. Source" as published in the Autumn 1993 issue.

I have to use a pseudonym here, unfortunately, because revealing many of the matters discussed in this article may have consequences.

Honesty tests and psychological tests in general derive much of their strength from their mystique - but there is no mystique.

Anything devised by the mind of man can be beaten by the mind of man and it is only when you start messing with natural things, like the climate, that you get into real trouble.  As long as there has been technology, there have been hackers, and all you need do is think back to that kid down the street who, in the 1930s, took a radio apart, reassembled it, and suddenly he or she was listening to the news from Paris.  It is natural to want to know how things work and psychological tests are no exception to this rule.

Honesty tests (or "integrity tests" as they are now often called) still exist and are still used.

In 1993, they were all pencil and paper tests, and scored with a perforated piece of card stock by counting the "correct" answers.  Now the company administering the test buys software and they are all machine scored.  Twenty-five years ago, the leader in the field was the Reid Report, now called the Reid Test, named for John Reid, a pioneer in the field of using a polygraph, another pseudo-science that has somehow gained respectability in certain quarters where, unfortunately, it can make a difference in your life.  John E. Reid and Associates is doubtless among the leading commercial entities in this field and one of the services they now pitch is an "integrity interview," which is a highly structured process which (they say) will uncover every dark secret in your past.

The interview is a very detailed and highly structured procedure that takes some time to completely administer and requires a trained interviewer.  Despite its highly structured nature, the length of time it takes will vary depending on what salacious details you reveal - after all, if one little thing comes to light, there must be more and bigger things, and all it takes is digging.  The interview is based on a simple technique: all tests of all kinds must be normed, that is, baseline scores must be established that derive from what the test constructors believe to be normalcy, hence psychological tests generally have a White, upper middle-class bias built into them because these are the people who construct the tests.

The polygraph works, when it works at all, because the person unlucky enough to be hooked up to one believes that there is some technological magic about it, and this places the test taker at a serious disadvantage.

With the interview, it is different: many people do have a strange compulsion to confess their sins, real or imagined to other people.  Maybe they feel this makes them seem more human, maybe they think that confession will cleanse their soul or maybe they just want to talk to someone and that is certainly a good way to strike up a conversation - a fact, I might add, that has led to many false confessions.  There is no built-in evolutionary mechanism compelling us to confess to others.

Instead it all goes back to your parents when they looked you in the eye and made it seem that they knew the truth even if you weren't telling the truth or even if you did not know what the truth was yourself.  This is why the confessional works as well as it does: you are confessing to your "father" in exchange for cleansing you of the sin you are confessing and, theoretically, you are the winner in that transaction.  I do not know this is true in the case of the confessional; with integrity tests, this is not the case, theoretically or otherwise.

The integrity interview works because the person administering it builds up rapport with the person being interviewed, usually by indicating some similarity between them: "Your father was a dairy farmer?  Well, what do you know, my uncle had a dairy farm..." and the interviewer will say this to you even though he has never been near a dairy farm in his life, and the people who made the integrity interview learned this trick from studying very good sales people.

In the world of honesty testing and interviewing, it is ethical for them to lie to you but not the other way around.  Most people will open up to the interviewer because this person has been established as one of them.  The easiest way to get the interviewer off balance is to know even a very little bit about the field, and ask the interviewer a question about this alleged past that only someone in the business would know.

They are prepared with some stock answers in many common fields, but when it comes to a discussion of the specifics of dairy cow productivity, they will know nothing.  Since they are trained to not get flustered, they will respond with a stock answer like "It was a long time ago, I was young, my uncle sold the farm and I really don't remember much about it, except that I was very happy there."

This will satisfy 99 percent of the people likely to be interviewed.  It will also tell you that this is an integrity interview, even if the interviewer does not (which he or she won't) and if you should ask, they will say that it's just a personality test or a general employment test.  The interview starts out with simple questions that are intended to get you talking: do you like animals, what's your favorite food or color or kind of car - and this just reinforces the belief that it is just some silly personality test.

Then the questions get progressively deeper: are you happy, do you like your boss, have you ever hurt an animal?  Before the end of the interview, the questions are "Have you stolen anything from your current employer?" and because you have been talking so much and so easily, it is simple to say something in response to this, and if you believe that the interviewer has the ability to peer inside your mind and know whether you are being truthful, then you will tend to be truthful.

If you have stolen something and you are truthful, you get no points for your candor, as the interview will immediately turn to determining what it was that you stole, how many times you did this, when you did it, and the cumulative value of these things you stole, which can even include time for which you were paid but during which you did nothing for your employer.

If you are truthful and adamant about this, then the question is "Have you ever stolen anything from any of your employers?"  The people who constructed the interview believe that the test taker will regard their current employer and their past employer as somehow different, but as far as the test/interview is concerned, if you stole from a past employer, you are almost certainly stealing from your current employer.

Here is the really strange thing about the interview, and the Reid Report, too: the instrument was designed and normed by people with that White, upper middle-class mentality and morality, and they do truly believe that everyone has stolen something from their employer.  After all, it is the American way.

In this case, it is a good idea to admit to stealing something small a long time ago: pencils, pens, or a stapler are good choices.  Just be sure to keep it under ten dollars of value and in the distant past, when you were young and your moral sense was not yet fully developed, and there is actually some truth to this.

You should indicate that you do not dwell on it (because if you did, you'd be thinking about stealing again) but when you do think about it, you are not pleased with yourself for having done this thing but, again, don't stress this.

In the course of taking any integrity interview or test, never confess to anything else that is not a matter of public record.  Now, let's say, just for the sake of argument that you truly have never stolen anything from anybody and that you are being completely honest about it.

You will immediately fail the interview and/or the test because, according to them, everyone has stolen something and you must be "faking good" as they call it.

There are many states where pre-hiring honesty tests are illegal, though these generally refer to the pencil and paper or computer variety of test, rather than the interview.

The Reid Company is very secretive about these things, and the interview could have been developed to get around this limitation while offering its customers a pricier alternative.  In other states, these tests can be used, but the results of such tests cannot be the "primary" determining factor in deciding to not hire someone.  This is a matter of such legal complexity, particularly given federal employment laws, that the potential employer will simply find another reason for rejecting the applicant, and it is very difficult or impossible to prove anything in a way that is legally actionable in court.

If you are applying for a job where you are handling money or merchandise that is easily sold for money - liquid Tide detergent or Gillette razor blades - you almost certainly will get some version of the test, assuming it is legal in your state, so cashiers and retail shelf stockers are frequently subject to employer integrity testing.  If you are in a position of trust with minimal supervision, such as a security guard, a field service rep, or a home health aide, you will probably be subject to some form of integrity screening.

There are myriad psychological tests that will measure any aspect of the human mind.

"GazetteMed" mentioned personality tests and there is no critical shortage of those.  The most commonly used test is the MMPI, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, which consists of several hundred questions each in the form of a statement and you are asked whether you agree or disagree with it.

This is commonly used in criminal justice, though it can be found in use elsewhere, such as job screening or for diagnostic purposes, and it is a test where there is no middle ground: you either agree or you don't.  Whole books, and very thick books at that, have been written about this test, and many very thick books remain to be written about it.  There are also projective tests, such as the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) and the Rorschach, both of which are subject to the vagaries of interpretation, and the ever-popular intelligence tests, and I haven't even scratched the surface.

Here are some quick suggestions for beating these tests: in the MMPI, be aware of what the question is asking, and make a mental note of how you answered this.

The people who constructed the MMPI think you are not capable of doing this, but if you do and you are consistent, then you can come across as anything you want from an absolute saint among people to another Stalin: it's your choice.

Only in the most recent versions of the MMPI are there any measures intended to detect "faking good" and if you follow the advice regarding the integrity tests and interviews, you will make mincemeat of this feature.  The Rorschach is another test about which whole books have been written and it and the TAT deserve an article of their own.

Without getting into the subtleties of validity and reliability and all the other characteristics (projective tests such as the TAT are not valid to the point of meaninglessness and the reliability of a projective test is largely dependent on the relationship between the test administrator and the test taker), and while the integrity tests and interviews may be valid in that they measure what they are supposed to measure, they most assuredly are not reliable.

For example, the test-retest reliability when the same person takes the test a second time is highly variable.  This writer does not know of any published information regarding the validity and reliability of integrity tests and I think that this is simply because the people using these tests are solely interested in results rather than whether they are actually good tests.

So, there you have it: about 2,000 words on this topic.

Let me close this article on an ominous note: given the current political climate in the United States, it is highly possible that honesty tests will become legal in many jurisdictions where they currently are not.

Yes, you can refuse to take the honesty test, but if you do, you are immediately removed from consideration for that job on the grounds that your application is incomplete.

If you find yourself in that position, all you can do is be aware of what the test or interview is and know how to defeat it to get what you want from it.