Posted January 18, 2006 to Career News | Section Home | Print

Salespeople Psych Out Psych Tests

Psychological tests have been used to probe and analyze salespeople for decades. Mountains of scholarly papers have been based on results. Management practices altered. But according to research presented at the Nov. 3, 2005 convention of the Society for Marketing Advances in San Antonio, Texas, salespeople could be psyching-out the psych tests. “Over 50% of the answers on psychological sales tests are probably faked,” says Jeff Tanner, professor of Marketing at Baylor University’s Hankamer School of Business.

Tanner and co-author, George W. Dudley at the Behavioral Sciences Research Press (http://www.bsrpinc.com/research/papers.htm ) in Dallas, studied the test-taking behavior of over 94,000 salespeople scattered across several nations. The researchers used a psychological test specifically designed to measure business-building and deception in salespeople. “Salespeople in the U.S. fake the most,” Dudley reported, “while salespeople in New Zealand and Singapore fake less.” The study found that salesmen spin their answers slightly more than saleswomen, but the actual difference is surprisingly small.

Sales managers and executives should be extremely cautious when using results from psychological tests to inform their decisions and guide their practices, the scientists warned. “Our research shows that we probably don’t know as much about salespeople as we thought we did,” Tanner said, “and finding good salespeople is still challenging because many salespeople are better at selling themselves on psychological tests than selling the products and services they represent.”

What about those online sales personality tests hyped on the web? Are they an improvement? “Probably not,” Dudley said. “Salespeople in the U.K. and Australia actually faked more on sales tests administered online than on old fashion paper-and-pencil tests.”

The ethics of modern salespeople are featured in the forthcoming book, The Hard Truth About Soft Selling, by George Dudley with Jeff Tanner, published by Behavioral Sciences Research Press. The book is available this month.

About Baylor Business
The Hankamer School of Business holds to a visionary standard of excellence whereby integrity stands shoulder to shoulder with analytic and strategic strengths to build leaders, not simply careers. The school is ranked 12th among non-doctoral business schools, 24th among private business schools and 66th in the nation, according to U.S. News “Best Undergraduate Programs.” Visit www.baylor.edu/business for more information.