The relationship between self-perceived personality and impression management on the NEO-FFI

This study examined the relationship between self-perception of personality traits and adoption of a self-presentational strategy on the NEO-FFI. Research participants were provided with blank NEO-FFI Summary Forms and asked to estimate their levels of Neuroticism, Extroversion, Openness, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness on a 3-point scale. Self-ratings on the NEO Summary Form served as the measure of self-perceived personality. Participants then completed the NEO-FFI under one of five instructional sets (fake good, fake bad, graduate psychology and police academy admissions and control). Results suggest that NEO-FFI scores were influenced by both instructional set and self-perceived personality. That is, even when participants were faking, their NEO-FFI scores still reflected the influence of self-perceived personality. The control group provided an opportunity to assess the relationship between self-perceived personality and scores obtained on the NEO-FFI under standard instructional set. Correlations ranged from 0.58 to 0.70 and were all statistically significant, suggesting a moderately strong overlap etween individuals' perceptions of personality and scores obtained on the NEO-FFI. The results suggest that for participants in this study, self-perceived personality structure influenced results when instructed to fake on the NEO-FFI. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.