TaskUs Announces Frontiers in Psychiatry Publishes First Peer-Reviewed Research Study Investigating Trait-Based, Pre-Hire Screening for Content Moderators

Results of 4,800 participant study demonstrate psychometric tests may help identify employees who are well suited to succeed in content moderation roles

NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- TaskUs, Inc. (Nasdaq: TASK), a leading provider of outsourced digital services and next-generation customer experience to the world’s most innovative companies, today announced Frontiers in Psychiatry has published the first peer-reviewed study that evaluates a robust employee screening tool, The Cognitive Adaptability and Resiliency Employment Screener (CARES), designed to decrease psychological risk for content moderators.

Funded by the Wellness + Resiliency Division of Research, an independent research arm within TaskUs, and in collaboration with two leading psychologists – María Martín López and Keanan J. Joyner from a renowned U.S. research university – the study investigated the skills and dispositions that are most likely to succeed in the content moderator role without adverse outcomes.

“Content moderators are critical to making the online world safe for users,” said Rachel Lutz Guevera, Vice President of Trust + Safety at TaskUs. “Every day, they are exposed to content that ranges from misinformation to potentially disturbing images and text. We must find strategies for protecting their mental health and make this research widely available to the entire community, especially as AI will cause a massive proliferation in user-generated content and even more demand for moderators. Our goal with this study – one of 40 we’ve conducted over the past four years – is to develop a thorough yet concise vetting process to recruit those who best fit the role of content moderator.”

The CARES study examined 76 screening questions and yielded three factors: Psychological Perseverance & Agility, Rumination & Emotional Lingering, and Expressiveness & Sociability that showed good fit and relevance for qualities such as resilience, cognitive control and flexibility, emotional regulation, and optimism. Altogether, the findings revealed that the screener demonstrated characteristics consistent with a valid and robust measure, which, pending future studies, may serve as a promising employment screener for content moderators.