Social desirability correlates of social responsibility.
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Humans↗
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Social desirability and questioning children in dental research.
The influence of social desirability on the results of a social dental investigation was examined in a survey of 320 15-yr-old children. Children with a lower level of schooling seemed to be more inclined to give social desirable answers. It appeared that the stronger the social desirability, the more satisfaction children tended to show with their dentist, the less they said they were afraid of him, but, surprisingly, the less responsible they felt for their dental health. Other measures were not influenced by social desirability: dental hygiene, perception of the quality of one's own teeth, knowledge about dental health, sources of information, and evaluation of the dentist's behavior. Also independent of social desirability were the measures of the amount of fluid sugar consumed, the child's obesity, and the actual dental health (DMFS, degree of treatment, P.H.P.). Several aspects of the meaning of social desirability in dental research are discussed.
Adolescent↗
Assessing social desirability in family self-report.
This study focused on social desirability in family members' self-reports. 32 clinical families (93 family members) were given self-report measures from the McMaster and Circumplex family-assessment models and a measure of social desirability. Clinicians assessed these families on clinical rating scales from the same models. Regression analyses were used to examine the relationship between self-reports, social desirability scores, and clinicians' ratings. It was expected that social desirability would be a suppressor variable (i.e., when accounted for, the similarity between clinicians' and family members' ratings would be enhanced). This did not occur; instead, social desirability was significantly but negatively correlated with ratings of pathology. Results provide evidence that correcting for social desirability on clinical pencil-and-paper tests is not supported.
Adolescent↗
Sex differences, social desirability, masculinity, and the tendency to worry.
Relationships between worry and sex differences, social desirability, masculinity, and femininity were explored in this study. Data were obtained from 141 undergraduates who answered a questionnaire containing a worry scale, the Crowne-Marlowe (1964) Social Desirability Scale, the Bem (1974) Sex Role Inventory, the Trait Anxiety scale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger, Gorsuch, & Lushene, 1970), and several demographic items. Women reported significantly higher levels of worry than men did, and worry was significantly correlated with lower social desirability and with lower masculinity but not with femininity. However, multiple regression strategies revealed that sex differences in reported worry cannot be accounted for solely by variations in social desirability and masculinity. Also, sex differences in the tendency to worry were not eliminated by statistically controlling for trait anxiety, social desirability, and masculinity simultaneously.
Adult↗
Well-being scales do not measure social desirability.
To examine the contention that well-being scales are contaminated by socially desirable responding, three well-being measures were correlated with peer ratings of neuroticism before and after controlling for Edwards' social desirability in a sample of 62 adult men and women. Because social desirability was correlated with rated neuroticism, "correcting" for social desirability bias decreased, rather than increased, the validity of well-being measures as judged against an external criterion. Findings support the position that self-reports of well-being can generally be taken as veridical assessments.
Adult↗
Social desirability in measures of subjective well-being: a systematic evaluation.
The present investigation addressed the problem of a social desirability response bias in measures of psychological well-being. Data on 150 people, between the ages of 50 and 82, yielded high correlations between three measures of well-being (the MUNSH, the LSI-Z, and the PGC) and the Edwards Social Desirability Scale, but only moderate ones between well-being scales and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale. Part correlations between well-being measures and an external criterion of happiness, controlling for social desirability, failed to improve on the zero-order criterion/well-being relationship. Controlling for social desirability, therefore, does not enhance the construct validity of well-being scales. These and related results suggest that the high zero-order correlations between measures of well-being and the Edwards scale are more readily attributed to content similarity between the Edwards scale and measures of well-being than to a social desirability response bias in well-being measures.
Aged↗
The role of hopelessness and social desirability in predicting suicidal behavior: a study of prison inmates.
The purpose of this study is to further examine the relationships among hopelessness, social desirability, and suicidal behavior in the decade-long dispute about the role of social desirability and the ability of the Beck Hopelessness Scale to predict suicidal behavior. Using a stratified random sample of state prison inmates, we found that hopelessness and suicidal behavior remain significantly correlated even after social desirability is held constant, failing to replicate Linehan and Nielsen's (1981, 1983) findings. In addition, a multivariate regression analysis demonstrated that the utility of hopelessness in predicting suicidal behavior varies with the level of social desirability, consistent with Holden, Mendonca, and Serin's (1989) results describing an interaction between hopelessness and social desirability. Implications for the assessment of suicidality incorporating the role of social desirability are discussed.
Adult↗
Relationship among prospective parents' locus of control, social desirability, and choice of psychoprophylaxis.
This study sought to determine if there is a relationship among locus of control, social desirability, and choice of psychoprophylaxis (PPM). It was hypothesized that internal locus of control and low social desirability would correlate significantly with the choice of PPM by husbands and wives; that externally controlled wives who participated in PPM would have more internally controlled husbands than externally controlled wives who participated in PPM would have more internally controlled husbands than externally controlled wives who did not participate; and that locus of control and social desirability, when taken together, would be better predictors of choice of PPM than either taken separately. Ninety-eight middle-class nulliparous couples, participant and non-participant, were studied in the seventh or eighth month of the wife's pregnancy. Rotter's I-E Scale and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale were used to measure locus of control and social desirability. Study findings did not support the hypotheses.
Choice Behavior↗
Suicide, hopelessness, and social desirability: a test of an interactive model.
We examined the relationships among suicidal indices, hopelessness, and social desirability. Both hopelessness and a measure of social desirability that reflected a sense of general capability were significant indicators of suicidal manifestations. In particular, hierarchical multiple regression procedures demonstrated that hopelessness and social desirability interacted in the prediction of suicide variables. Results generalized across various clinical diagnostic subgroups of psychiatric patients and a sample of prisoners and across different clinically evaluated and self-reported indices of suicidal behavior. Findings are interpreted to mean that a sense of general capability buffers the link of hopelessness to suicidal behavior. Implications for understanding the cognitions associated with suicide and for improving prediction of persons at risk are discussed.
Adult↗
Social desirability and irritable bowel syndrome.
The Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, a 33-item self-report questionnaire, was administered to an age-matched sample of twenty-five irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) patients, twenty-four psychiatric patients meeting a diagnosis of major depression, and nineteen controls. As predicted, planned comparisons analysis showed a significant group effect: IBS group scores were significantly higher than both depressed and control group scores (p less than .05). Implications of this social desirability response set for the psychological assessment and treatment of IBS are discussed.
Adaptation, Psychological↗
Impact of social desirability response sets on the self-report of marital adjustment in alcoholics.
The role of social desirability response sets on self-reported marital satisfaction in 143 male alcoholics and their wives was assessed in a factor analytic study of the combined Locke-Wallace Marital Adjustment Scale (MAS) and Edmonds Marital Conventionalization Scale (MCS). Overall, results indicated that alcoholics rated their marriage as significantly more satisfying than did their wives. There was, however, a large amount of covariation between the MAS and MCS for husbands, and factor analyses revealed considerable redundancy between the two measures as evidenced in one dominant factor on which both MAS and MCS items loaded. Although there was also high covariation between the two scales for wives, there was still enough differential responding to MAS and MCS items to identify both a dominant factor and a second factor, the latter loaded on only by MCS items. Results suggest that the self-reported marital satisfaction of male alcoholics may be highly contaminated by social desirability response sets. The results are discussed with respect to the two-component model of socially desirable responding and caution is urged in the evaluation of self-report marital adjustment measures with this population.
Adaptation, Psychological↗
Social desirability and self-reports of mood: a rejoinder.
Warehime and Jones found moderate correlations between social desirability and short-term mood level scores on the Wessman-Ricks Personal Feeling Scales. They suggested that it might be valuable to study patterns of dissimulation in self-reports of immediate feeling states. In the present authors' studies involving long-term mood reports and multivariate methods, social desirability was shown to have a moderately weak relationship with measures of mood level and mood variability. Under conditions of confidentiality and good rapport, repeated self-reports of mood appeared to share more variance with important personality characteristics and situational influences than with social desirability per se.
Emotions↗
Social-desirability responding in the assessment of social skill and anxiety.
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Anxiety↗
Adolescent suicidal behavior and popular self-report instruments of depression, social desirability, and anxiety.
Popular self-report inventories of depression, hopelessness, social desirability, and anxiety, along with the Suicidal Behaviors Questionnaire, were completed by 150 college students. Tanaka-Matsumi and Kameoka (1986) had questioned the use of popular depression instruments in the assessment of this population, due to the high correlation between depression, anxiety, and social desirability scales. The present experiment also found significant correlations between the self-report instruments and suicidal behaviors. These findings may be due to the fact that anxiety and depression are often found together in clinical settings, and that the content of depression and anxiety scales is not specific to those constructs.
Adolescent↗
The influence of social desirability on the Ai3 measure of anal character.
The probability of item endorsement in the Ai3 test of anal character was found to be significantly related to item social desirability, but total scores on the test were unrelated to measures of social desirability. It is concluded that the test is adequately free of social desirability effects and that the experimental findings strengthen claims for the construct validity of the Ai3.
Adult↗
Social desirability response set and systematic distortion in the self-report of adult male gender patients.
This study showed that the "socially desirable" presentation for a heterosexual male gender dysphoric is one that emphasizes traits and behaviors characteristic of "classic" transsexualism. Fifty-one homosexual and 64 heterosexual adult male gender patients were administered the Crowne-Marlowe (1964) Social Desirability Scale as well as eight questionnaire measures that tapped various features of the clinical history commonly given great weight in differential diagnosis. The tendency for a heterosexual subject to describe himself in terms of moral excellence or admirable personal qualities was significantly correlated with scores in the "transsexual" direction on all eight sexological measures; for the homosexual subjects, only one correlation was significant. It is argued that the patients most motivated to create a favorable impression on the examiner are likely to be those most anxious to obtain approval for sex reassignment surgery. Because, in this population, the socially desirable presentation is "feminine," it is possible that the differences in the histories produced by transvestites and heterosexual transsexuals are exaggerated to an unknown degree by the motivation of the latter to obtain approval for this operation. The findings do not diminish the important distinction between these groups, but they do suggest caution in interpreting the self-report data that have been used in comparing them.
Adult↗
Spiritual well-being, social desirability and reasons for living: is there a connection?
In order to explore the relationship between spirituality, social desirability, and reasons for living, 100 individuals completed the Reasons for Living Inventory (RFL), the Spiritual Well-being Scale (SWBS) and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (MCSDS). Positive correlations were found between religious well-being and the total RFL score and Moral Objections subscale and between existential well-being and several RFL scales. Results indicate that the RFL Moral Objections subscale taps the same type of beliefs as does the SWBS religious well-being subscale. There also appears to be a strong relationship between the adaptive cognitive beliefs which people report as reasons for not considering suicide and their existential beliefs. This emphasises the need for careful assessment of individual needs and beliefs when dealing with suicidal individuals. Areas of concern to the therapist who is working with a suicidal client were not affected by high SD scores.
Adult↗
Social desirability and Wiggin's MMPI content scales.
Using the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) item pool, Wiggins (1966) developed 13 scales, each with a homogeneous content. The 13 scales, along with marker scales for the 1st 3 MMPI factors, Edward's social desirability (SD), Welsh's repression (R), and Wiggins's social desirability (Sd) respectively were scored in the MMPI. The same scales were scored in an Experimental Multiphasic Personality Inventory (EMPI). A principal-components analysis of the 16 scales when scored in the MMPI resulted in 4 factors. A principal-components analysis of these same scales when scored in the MMPI and when scored in the EMPI were found to be highly congruent. The SD, R, and Sd scales proved to be excellent markers for the 1st 3 factors of the MMPI and also for the 1st 3 factors of the EMPI. Results provide further evidence that the 1st MMPI factor is a social desirability factor rather than a content factor.
Adult↗