Potential for hostility and faking-good in high-hostile men

We investigated if Type A Structured Interview (SI)-assessed hostility (PoHo) is subject to voluntary underreporting, or faking-good by hostile subjects. Sixteen men who previously scored above the clinical cutoff of 3 on SI hostility were randomly assigned to an experimental (N = 8) or control (N = 8) group. Both groups underwent a second videotaped SI, prior to which experimental subjects were asked to present themselves in a favorable light. Repeated-measures ANOVA revealed that experimental subjects were able successfully to decrease their global polio scores when instructed to do so (38% scored below the clinical cut off score). The SI-derived hostility score is vulnerable to faking-good, and attention should be paid to both the motivational set of subjects and the instructions given prior to the SI.