Francesca Bosco

I am a psychologist and researcher specializing in personality assessment, with a primary focus on response bias and test validity in high-stakes evaluation contexts. My work examines socially desirable responding, impression management, and defensive response styles, with the goal of supporting accurate and responsible psychological assessment in applied settings.

My research interests center on positive response bias in clinical, forensic, and personnel selection contexts, where assessment outcomes may carry significant personal, legal, or occupational consequences. I am particularly interested in how individuals manage self-presentation under evaluative pressure and how these processes influence test results and their interpretation. To address these questions, my work integrates self-attribution measures and performance-based methods.

I have been involved in studies examining faking and defensiveness across instructed-response, simulated, and ecological assessment contexts, with an emphasis on the practical challenges clinicians face when interpreting profiles characterized by positive response bias in real-world settings.

Currently, I am working on projects related to personality assessment in applied and high-risk settings, including forensic evaluations, child custody assessments, and personnel selection contexts. Through my research, I aim to contribute to evidence-based assessment practices and to support clinicians in making careful, ethically grounded judgments in complex assessment environments.