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Given that Italy has had one of the few perfectly bicameral parliamentary systems (in which each house has equal powers), there are two different electoral systems to analyse. These electoral systems are relatively new (dating only to 1993) and are very complex, reflecting compromises between parties with different interests. Lijphart’s prescription that an electoral system should emphasize ‘proportionality and simplicity’ is certainly violated. Italy has changed from list PR (before 1993) to variations of mixed-member majoritarian systems. Both the Chamber and the Senate are composed of 75 per cent of members elected from SMDs, and 25 per cent from lists. Beyond this, the electoral systems vary in a range of important ways. One of the important effects is the ‘proportionalisation of the plurality tier’. Italy is a leading example of the manner in which major electoral reform can have some expected and some very unexpected consequences. There is widespread discontent with the ‘new’ systems, such that electoral reform is very much on the agenda.

This chapter examines the converse displacement to that considered in Chapters 3 and Chapter 4, looking instead at cases where fiction‐writers colonize the forms of life‐writing, producing a variety of fake diaries, journals, biographies, and autobiographies. It takes a different approach to most of the other chapters, consisting of brief accounts of many works rather than sustained readings of a few. A taxonomy of modern engagements with life‐writing is proposed. The chapter moves on to discuss Galton's notion of ‘composite portraiture’ as a way of thinking about the surprisingly pervasive form of the portrait‐collection. The main examples are from Ford, Stefan Zweig, George Eliot, Hesketh Pearson, Gertrude Stein, Max Beerbohm and Arthur Symons; Isherwood and Joyce's Dubliners also figure. Where Chapters 3 and Chapter 4 focused on books with a single central subjectivity, this chapter looks at texts of multiple subjectivities. It concludes with a discussion of the argument that multiple works — an entire oeuvre — should be read as autobiography.

This chapter indicates that self-report personality assessment can be substantially distorted by faking. In putting forth this premise, the nature and the dimensionality of faking are examined, differences between experimentally induced and naturally occurring faking are explored, and distinctions between validity for a personality scale and validity for an individual test protocol are articulated. To understand appropriately the impact of faking, this chapter emphasizes that attention must be given to the specific type of faking, base rates associated with faking, selection ratios, and the construct validity of the measure or the manipulation of faking. In highlighting the distinction between personality scale validity and individual test protocol validity, this chapter asserts that a consideration of faking is always prudent testing practice.

This chapter attempts to show that a particular intuition that has played a central role in discussions of epistemology for roughly a quarter‐century is highly unstable. This is the intuition that, in so‐called fake barn cases, the subject does not know that he is seeing a barn. By presenting a range of examples that share the structural features of Alvin Goldman's original fake barn case, but differ from it in terms of their content, the chapter provides grounds for thinking that the fake barn intuition is not one around which a theory of knowledge can aptly be built.

The chapter offers an introduction to the issue of faking on personality assessment. Before delving into the topic of faking itself, a short presentation of the history of personality assessment is given. Since most research in the area of faking uses questionnaires assessing the Big 5, the constructs are also shortly introduced. The remainder of the chapter deals with faking and what research has uncovered or still needs to uncover. A first step is the comparison of several definitions for faking. Based on this, a working definition is established. Following this is a summary of research results concerning the effects of faking on the mean structure, validity, and rank order of results of personality questionnaires. It is shown that evidence for the effect of faking on a questionnaires mean is indisputable. However, it is also discussed that results regarding discriminant validity, test-criterion correlations or rank ordering are less equivocal

Researchers have studied the expected effects of faking and explored potential solutions to the problem it presents without first developing a thorough understanding of its nature. The goal of this chapter is to provide a conceptual framework for understanding faking. This framework is based on two key ideas: 1) that faking is a behavior rather than a psychological construct and 2) that faking is a measurement issue. The first part of the chapter reviews the dispositional, attitudinal, situational, and demographic factors that have been discussed as determinants of faking behavior. The second part of the chapter provides a psychometric representation of how these determinants of faking behavior can be expected to influence personality test scores. A key conclusion is that faking is a complex phenomenon and, as such, it is unlikely that there will be a simple approach to preventing or detecting faking behavior.

This chapter discusses how psychometric testing can aid clinicians and forensic experts in understanding a patient/examinee. In addition, the chapter discusses how psychometric test results suggestive for malingering may look based on the malingerer’s situation (e.g. criminal or civil context), motivation (faking good or faking bad), and sophistication (e.g., coached). Other factors that may also result in symptom elevation scores (e.g., stress of a lawsuit, response bias, unconscious factors), which may not be due to a clear intention to malinger, are also discussed. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the ethical obligations inherent with the use of these tests (e.g., test integrity, informing about validity scales, sharing of results).

This chapter identifies two major components of faking in education: intentional faking and unintentional faking. The authors posit that if the ultimate goal of countering faking is to more accurately identify one’s true score, then researchers should consider the possibility that scores that appear faked may be artificially inflated for reasons other than intentional faking. The chapter discusses how intentional faking particularly influences noncognitive assessments in education, expanding on techniques to counter intentional faking in education and some ways in which these techniques are being used in applied settings. In addition, the chapter explores the effects of unintentional faking in education, including when it may occur and ways in which it may be minimized.

This chapter provides a narrative of the author's performance and retraces her unique tactics of setting an admirable example in turning the institution of heterosexual, monogamous, and monosexual marriage inside out. It also shows the vitality and pleasure of a possible queer politics and counter-public which prioritizes non-normative intimacies, coalition building, sex education, and advocacy over love, privacy, and the life-long couple form of marriage. Together with some other gay activists, she decided to organize a fake wedding to encourage further thinking about and discussion of the issues of marriage. She proposed to a gay activist who was a long-time friend, and a lesbian woman whom she had just met. There would be three of them in a marriage: one gay man and two lesbian women. The wedding ceremony was to claim that bisexuality is not a crime.

Although it is hoped that respondents will answer all items honestly and accurately, this is often not the case. Various factors affect how a person will respond. These include the cognitive demands required in answering a question (understanding the item, recalling the relevant information, mapping the response onto the presented alternatives, and editing the answers). The editing process includes social desirability bias, yea- or nay-saying, end-aversion bias, the halo effect and so forth. Other factors, including difficulties in assessing change and framing, are discussed.

This chapter argues that faking is a behavior that individuals will engage in when they believe it is necessary to obtain something of personal value and when they believe they are capable of doing so successfully. Stemming from a lack of attention in the current literature, this chapter explores the nature of individual differences in personal value perceptions and suggests that these differences can actively mitigate the high-stakes nature of an assessment situation thereby shaping behavior within that situation. Drawing from expectancy theory, the chapter outlines how current conceptualizations of faking incorporate expectancy and instrumentality judgments as determining factors in the choice to fake, yet give little attention to valence (i.e., value) judgments in theoretical models of faking. Three constructs (marketability, job search self-efficacy, and job desirability) are reviewed as options for introducing the concept of valence into current models of faking behavior.

This chapter addresses the longstanding question of “Do applicants fake?”. The authors discuss the nature of this question, a review of the relevant evidence, and an estimate of the degree to which faking on personality measures occurs in applicant contexts. Previous research has produced disparate answers to the question of whether applicants fake, with some researchers claiming the majority of applicants engage in the behavior and others suggesting the incidence of faking is negligible. In order to “prove” the existence of faking behavior, the authors use a metaphorical framework consisting of the forms of evidence often presented in a criminal trial to organize the diverse sources of evidence collected across numerous study designs. In addition, the authors present arguments that rule out alternative explanations for the outcomes of faking behavior. The data presented in this chapter suggest that on average 30% (+ or – 10%) of applicants engage in faking behavior.

The goal of this chapter is to re-examine research and theory on impression management by examining alternatives to the trait-realist perspective on personality. By examining alternatives lenses on personality and faking, it is hoped this will spur new directions for theory and research on faking. This chapter briefly summarizes existing research on impression management and response distortion and, second, discuss the need and associated benefits of a shift to alternate theoretical perspectives, with an emphasis on the identity theory and social-cognitive perspectives. This chapter focuses the discussion on two recent theoretical perspectives; the Personality and Role Identity Structural Model (PRISM) and Behavioral Process Model of Personalty (BPMP). Finally, this chapter identifies future directions for research on faking.

This chapter presents a framework for considering faking from an item response perspective. This view argues that responding to personality items should be viewed from the perspective of the test taker and that it is fundamentally a social interaction not unlike an interview or conversation. Test takers are attempting to manage a unidirectional social interaction where test takers are attempting to appear impressive while remaining credible much like they would in face to face conversation. This chapter also suggests that the long and short term goals of the test taker affect how they manage this communication. The chapter then uses this framework to discuss new methods for detection and control of deliberate faking behavior. This chapter reviews unlikely virtue scales, social desirability scales, over-claiming or bogus items, idiosyncratic response detection, and Bayesian truth serum approaches.

This chapter discusses the application of item response theory (IRT) techniques to the detection of faking in personality assessment. The chapter begins with a discussion of the basics of IRT measurement techniques: the parameters, the models, and benefits over classical test theory. Following this, past research into the application of IRT to faking detection is presented and discussed. The discussion of past research is broken into three sections, beginning with research related to the application of a broad set of models known as appropriateness measurement. Next, studies are discussed which have sought to clarify the nature of the differences between faking and honest respondents. Finally, past research is discussed in which computational modeling has been used to understand what actually occurs when individuals fake. The chapter concludes with a discussion of lessons learned regarding IRT and faking detection and the chapters’ suggestions for those interested in researching this area.

The over-claiming technique (OCT) is offered as a method of identifying fakers while simultaneously measuring their expertise in specific knowledge domains. The procedure is straightforward: Respondents are asked to rate their familiarity with a range of items relevant to a faking domain (e.g., academic facts, workplace items, consumer products). Knowledge accuracy is indexed by a respondent’s ability to distinguish real items from non-existent items (foils). Exaggeration can be measured either by (a) the tendency to claim familiarity with foils or (b) the overall tendency to claim familiarity. The construct validity of both the accuracy and exaggeration indexes is well-supported. They have both proved their utility in a variety of assessment contexts. Applications of the OCT currently include marketing research, educational measurement, and ethics research, as well as personnel selection.