RESEARCH ARTICLE
Is the Truth Visible? Study Along the L Scale
Dvora G. Eitan§, *
Department of Criminology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2011Volume: 4
First Page: 73
Last Page: 87
Publisher ID: TOPSYJ-4-73
DOI: 10.2174/1874350101104010073
Article History:
Received Date: 23/07/2011Revision Received Date: 26/07/2011
Acceptance Date: 26/07/2011
Electronic publication date: 01/11/2011
Collection year: 2011
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
This study addresses the problem of ”faking bad“ (malingering) of abnormal types (non paranoid schizophrenia, paranoid schizophrenia, and psychopathy) when answering the EPQ-R-S personality questionnaire and clinical scales. We tested 180 students under two conditions: ”fake bad“ and ”sincerity“. We demonstrated that although answers to EPQ-R-S may be deliberately and specifically modified, this will be identified in the questionnaire's scales scoring profile and the reaction times. When ”faking“, P scores were elevated and the results of the other dimensions were also ”negatively“ irregular. However their L scores were very low. This low L score should be interpreted as a warning sign of an attempt to present oneself in a negative light.
Keywords: Personality questionnaires, Faking bad, Malingering, Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, L scale.
