Research consistently demonstrates that people can distort their responses on self‐report personality tests. Informant‐reports (where a knowledgeable informant rates a target's personality) can be used as an alternative to self‐ratings. However, there has been little research on the extent to which informants can distort their responses on personality tests (or their motives for response distortion). The current study examines the effects of experimentally induced response distortion on self‐ and informant‐reports of the Dark Triad. The participants (N = 834 undergraduates) completed Dark Triad measures in a 2 × 3 between‐person design crossing format (self‐ vs. informant‐report [imagined friend]) with instruction condition (answer honestly, look good, or look bad). “Look good” effects were significant for both self‐reports (d = −1.22 to 1.42) and informant‐reports (d = −1.35 to 0.62). “Look bad” effects were also significant for both self‐reports (d = −0.56 to 3.58) and informant‐reports (d = −0.55 to 3.70). The Five Factor Machiavellianism Inventory results were opposite to hypotheses, but Dirty Dozen Machiavellianism results were as expected. We conclude that people can distort Dark Triad scores for themselves (self‐report) and on behalf of someone else (informant‐report). We discuss the relevance of our findings for self‐ and informant‐report assessment in applied contexts.

中文翻译：

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自我报告中的伪造好与坏与黑暗三人格的线人报告的比较

研究一致表明，人们可能会扭曲自我报告性格测试的反应。线人报告（知识渊博的线人对目标的性格进行评分）可以用作自我评分的替代方案。然而，关于线人在性格测试中扭曲反应的程度（或扭曲反应的动机）的研究很少。目前的研究探讨了实验引起的反应扭曲对黑暗三人格的自我报告和线人报告的影响。参与者们 （氮= 834 名本科生）以 2 × 3 人际设计交叉格式（自我与线人报告[想象中的朋友]）完成了黑暗三合会测量，并附有指导条件（诚实回答、看起来不错或看起来很糟糕）。“看起来不错”的效果对于两种自我报告都很显着（d= −1.22 到 1.42) 和线人报告 (d= −1.35 至 0.62)。“看起来很糟糕”的影响对于这两项自我报告也很重要（d= -0.56 到 3.58）和线人报告（d= −0.55 至 3.70)。五因素马基雅维利主义调查结果与假设相反，但十二重马基雅维利主义结果符合预期。我们的结论是，人们可以为自己（自我报告）和代表他人（线人报告）歪曲黑暗三人格的分数。我们讨论了我们的研究结果在应用环境中与自我报告和知情者报告评估的相关性。