Faking Bad, Faking Good and the Dark Tetrad: Relationship Between Spontaneous Faking, History of Faking Behaviour, Propensity to Fake and Dark Tetrad

When asked about their health status, people sometimes intentionally respond inaccurately, such as pretending to feel better or worse than they actually do. This behaviour is often referred to as ‘faking’ and can be motivated by various reasons, including the desire to gain certain benefits or avoid negative consequences. In this study, we explored whether personality traits Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy and sadism (i.e., the Dark Tetrad) are related to three aspects of faking bad and faking good behaviour. Specifically, we looked at the relationship of students’ (N = 215) scores on the Short Dark Tetrad scale (SD4) and their (1) spontaneous faking behaviour (i.e., honest responses on Inventory of Problems-29, faking bad measure, and on Supernormality Scale, faking good scale); (2) Self-reported history of faking bad and faking; and (3) Propensity to fake in civil and criminal contexts. Propensity to faking bad and faking good was investigated using vignettes including both civil and criminal contexts (Faking Bad_civil n = 54; Faking Bad_criminal n = 54; Faking Good_civil n = 54; or Faking Good_criminal n = 53) after which students were asked to rate their willingness to fake in depicted situations. The results indicated that Machiavellianism, psychopathy and sadism were associated with spontaneous faking bad, whereas narcissism was linked to spontaneous faking good. Additionally, no significant relationship emerged between Dark Tetrad traits and the history of faking behaviour. Lastly, Machiavellianism was positively associated with a greater propensity to fake, regardless of the context.