Insufficient Effort Responding to Psychological Assessments: Practical Advice for Combatting a Serious Threat to Data Quality

Insufficient effort responding (IER) on psychological assessments is a well-studied topic with far-reaching implications that stretch across many organizational domains (Huang et al., 2012; Maniaci & Rogge, 2014; Meade & Craig, 2012).1 IER, unfortunately, threatens data quality in assessments of psychological and organizational topics. Researchers have, for instance, detected IER in various assessments, including low-stakes employee surveys (e.g., Bowling et al., 2016, Study 1), job analysis questionnaires (e.g., Morgeson et al., 2016), personality assessments (e.g., Huang et al., 2024), and ability tests (Ramsey & Bowling, 2024). In the current white paper, we review the IER literature and provide practical advice that organizational practitioners and researchers can use to mitigate the effects of IER in their data.