INTEGRITY TESTING AND DEVIANCE - CONSTRUCT-VALIDITY ISSUES AND THE ROLE OF SITUATIONAL FACTORS

Two studies were conducted to investigate relationships among several types of preemployment integrity tests and situational factors which c ould play a role in employee deviance. In one study, three integrity m easures were administered to subjects who were told to assume the role of job applicant for a position in either a large, small, or unspecif ied organization. Moral development stage, social desirability, and de mographic data were collected. While there was some construct consiste ncy across the different integrity measures, the expected relation bet ween honesty and moral development was not found. There was also no di fference in integrity test scores as a function of the organizational size manipulation. In a second laboratory study in which subjects were asked to play the role of job incumbents, both size and perceived equ ity of organizational climate were experimentally manipulated. The dep endent measure was a scale of likelihood of engaging in organizational ly proscribed behaviors. While again no effect was found for organizat ional size, those individuals who perceived themselves as employed in an organization in which employees are mistreated tended to report gre ater likelihood of engaging in organizational deviance. Implications f or integrity testing in personnel selection are discussed.