Detecting Faking Good and Faking Bad With the Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory—3 in a College Student Sample

Claims that the Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory-3 (SASSI-3; F. G. Miller & L. E. Lazowski, 1999) defeats defensiveness have not been independently verified. This study investigates the SASSI-3's ability to discriminate faking (faking good, problem denial; faking good, claiming extreme virtue; faking bad) from standard answering. Although the results suggest that the Defensiveness scale detects faking, the Subtle Attributes scale was manipulated. These results call into question the SASSI-3's utility in detecting substance dependence among college students. ********** Substance abuse is prevalent on college campuses. For example, approximately 73% of college students use alcohol (Wagner, Stempliuk, Zilberman, Barrosa, & de Andrade, 2007) and approximately 35% use cannabis (McCabe, Schulenberg, et al., 2005). Students' substance abuse can have numerous deleterious effects such as increased risk of poor academic performance (Jennison, 2004), personal injury (Wechsler et al., 2002), and compromised decision making (e.g., accepting a ride with an intoxicated driver; McCabe, Teter, Boyd, Knight, & Wechsler, 2005). Some substance abusing students operate a motor vehicle under the influence (Fischer, Rodopoulos, Rehm, & Ivsins, 2006; McCarthy, Lynch, & Pedersen, 2007), destroy property (Perkins, 2002), and engage in and are victims of physical and/or sexual assault (Cole, 2006; Parks, Hsieh, Bradizza, & Romosz, 2008). The abuse of substances can have numerous effects on students' academic career such as lagging behind in school work (Perkins, 2002; Wechsler et al., 2002), poor performance on exams (Bennett, Walters, Miller, & Woodall, 2000; Perkins, 2002), less success in courses overall (Perkins, 2002; Porter & Pryor, 2007), and less likelihood to continue in college (Martinez, Sher, & Wood, 2008). University officials frequently refer students who abuse substances to college counseling centers (Cellucci, Krogh, & Vik, 2006) where college counselors often administer substance abuse screening instruments (e.g., Laux & Perera-Diltz, 2008). Benton, Robertson, Wen-Chih, Newton, and Benton (2003) reported that approximately 6.5% of clients in college counseling centers present with substance abuse problems, a percentage rate that remained consistent across a 13-year period. According to Juhnke, Vacc, Curtis, Coil, and Paredes (2003), the Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory-3 (SASSI-3; F. G. Miller & Lazowski, 1999) is one of the instruments most frequently used by college counselors to assess for substance abuse issues. The SASSI-3 is described by its authors as "a brief, easy-to-administer, objectively scored, accurate, and cost effective instrument" (F. G. Miller & Lazowski, 1999, p. 2). Strengths of the SASSI-3 when compared with other commonly used substance abuse instruments include the instrument's design to measure the direct recognition of alcohol and other drug use and the signs, symptoms, and consequences frequently associated with substance abuse, as well as indirect, or subtle, approaches to substance abuse assessment. The inclusion of a measure of positive presentation management, also known as defensiveness, is considered an additional benefit. A limited body of literature is available regarding the SASSI-3's use with college students. The first available study (Cooper & Robinson, 1987) provided initial support for the SASSI's effectiveness with college students. Later, Svanum and McGrew (1995) compared the original SASSI (G. A. Miller, 1988) with direct measures of alcohol dependence among college students and concluded that the direct measures outperformed the SASSI's indirect methods. Myerholtz and Rosenberg (1998) built on and extended the work of Svanum and McGrew using the SASSI's second edition (SASSI-2; G. A. Miller, 1994). Myerholtz and Rosenberg reported high 2- and 4-week estimates of stability but cautioned that although the SASSI's face-valid scales demonstrated high estimates of internal consistency (IC), the coefficient alphas for the subtle scales were low to moderate. …