Relationships between personal and social desirability sets and performance on the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule.

"This study was concerned with the hypothesis that a personal desirability set operates somewhat independently of a social desirability set in determining response selection on the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule. To test this hypothesis 248 college Ss were administered the PPS." "It would appear that utilization of only social values for matching purposes does not represent a crucial flaw in Edwards' attempt to minimize desirability of verbal statements as an important source of performance variance." "The hypothesis of some independent effects of personal and social desirability sets upon response endorsement was supported." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Substance versus style: A new look at social desirability in motivating contexts.

Although there is an emerging consensus that social desirability does not meaningfully affect criterion-related validity, several researchers have reaffirmed the argument that social desirability degrades the construct validity of personality measures. Yet, most research demonstrating the adverse consequences of faking for construct validity uses a fake-good instruction set. The consequence of such a manipulation is to exacerbate the effects of response distortion beyond what would be expected under realistic circumstances (e.g., an applicant setting). The research reported in this article was designed to assess these issues by using real-world contexts not influenced by artificial instructions. Results suggest that response distortion has little impact on the construct validity of personality measures used in selection contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A note on the Couch and Keniston measure of agreement response set.

In a previous study, the authors have identified an "agreeing response set" and this may be related to what Edwards had identified as "social desirability set." Evidence (correlations between the OAS scale, a measure of agreement set, and responses on the MMPI), indicates that both scales are influenced by acquiescent tendencies as well as by social desirability tendencies. From Psyc Abstracts 36:01:3HF73E. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Availability and desirability of various skills in candidates for positions in counseling centers: A replication.

Designed a modified replication of A. Southworth's (1972) survey to identify any changes in the judged availability and desirability of skills among doctoral candidates for counseling center positions. 213 college and university counseling center directors served as the judges of the 26 skill items. Results indicate that on 12 of the items there was a significant change between the 1972 and 1977 surveys in the availability of skills; suggesting that in 1977 (a) directors were more concerned with campus-wide issues and efficiency of delivery of services, (b) the graduates of training departments had acquired significantly more skills than their predecessors, and (c) considerable discrepancy remains between availability and desirability of skills for college counseling center work. (2 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social desirability and agreement response set.

In this paper, Edwards and Walker reanalyze the Couch and Keniston data (see 36: 3HF75C) by performing a different method of rotation on the matrix. This analysis eventuated in only 2 factors, a social desirability set and an "acquiescence factor," with OAS items heavily loaded on both factors. Edwards and Walker reconclude that OAS may be loaded with, confounded with, or misidentified with items of the social desirability set. From Psyc Abstracts 36:01:3HF80E. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-criticism in adulthood and recalled childhood experience.

Investigated in a sample of 75 medical students the hypothesis that higher levels of self-criticism, a major vulnerability factor for depression, are related to retrospective reports of less satisfactory parenting, even when the potentially confounding factors of mood state and social desirability response set are controlled. At each of 2 measurement times, there were significant cross-sectional correlations between parental ratings and both depression and self-criticism, but the associations with self-criticism were no longer significant when depression was controlled. However, even after controlling for the effects of mood state and social desirability, persons with high levels of self-criticism at both measurement points (high trait self-criticism Ss) reported significantly worse relationships with their mothers than did the remaining Ss. They were also more likely to report below average relationships with both parents jointly. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Role of social desirability in personality testing for personnel selection: The red herring.

Response bias continues to be the most frequently cited criticism of personality testing for personnel selection. The authors meta-analyzed the social desirability literature, examining whether social desirability functions as a predictor for a variety of criteria, as a suppressor, or as a mediator. Social desirability scales were found not to predict school success, task performance, counterproductive behaviors, and job performance. Correlations with the Big Five personality dimensions, cognitive ability, and years of education are presented along with empirical evidence that (a) social desirability is not as pervasive a problem as has been anticipated by industrial-organizational psychologists, (b) social desirability is in fact related to real individual differences in emotional stability and conscientiousness, and (c) social desirability does not function as a predictor, as a practically useful suppressor, or as a mediator variable for the criterion of job performance. Removing the effects of social desirability from the Big Five dimensions of personality leaves the criterion-related validity of personality constructs for predicting job performance intact. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aging and negative priming in a location suppression task: The long and the short of it.

The role of temporal parameters in aging and inhibitory function was examined using negative priming (NP) and repetition priming (RP) in a task involving a series of visually presented prime-probe sets; responses were made on the basis of the location of a target stimulus. Preparatory intervals (PI) preceding prime-probe sets were 3,000 ms or 1,500 ms. The longer PI resulted in less NP in older adults than did the shorter PI. Further analyses suggest that older adults may be less prepared to inhibit the distractor following the longer PI. The longer PI also produced more RP than did the shorter PI for both age groups, indicating a greater emphasis on facilitatory processes in this condition. In addition, evidence was obtained to suggest that an inverse relationship between NP and RP exists for both young and old adults. These data suggest that individuals or task conditions may emphasize either facilitation or inhibition in selection. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Investigating the influence of social desirability on personality factor structure.

This study provides a comprehensive investigation into whether social desirability alters the factor structure of personality measures. The study brought together 4 large data sets wherein different organizational samples responded to different personality measures. This facilitated conducting 4 separate yet parallel investigations. Within each data set, individuals identified through a social desirability scale as responding in an honest manner were grouped together, and individuals identified as responding in a highly socially desirable manner were grouped together. Using various analyses, the fit of higher order factor structure models was compared across the 2 groups. Results were the same for each data set. Social desirability had little influence on the higher order factor structures that characterized the relationships among the scales of the personality measures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social desirability corrections in personality measurement: Issues of applicant comparison and construct validity.

Research investigating the validity of personality measures has established these measures as useful selection tools. However, personality measures are vulnerable to response distortion leading to employer concerns about the influence of applicant faking, with specific concerns about the influence of social desirability. A traditional method used to circumvent this is the application of a correction based on a social desirability scale score. This study sought to evaluate whether such corrections are effective tools for removing the influence of intentional distortion. A within-subjects design facilitated comparisons between honest, faked, and corrected scores. The goal was to evaluate whether a social desirability correction allows one to approximate an individual's honest score. The results suggest that a social desirability correction is ineffective and fails to produce a corrected score that approximates an honest score. Results are interpreted with respect to applicant comparison and construct validity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Response selections of neurotic and control subjects as a function of relative familiarity and social desirability of items.

"The primary purpose of this note was to determine whether both familiarity and social desirability as stimulus variables are related to subjects' response selections in a choice task. A second purpose was to determine whether the responses of neurotic and control groups were differentially related to these variables. The findings showed that for control subjects, both relative familiarity and social desirability were significantly related to preferences for alternatives when the other variable was held constant. With neurotic subjects, social desirability did not contribute significantly to the variance in their preferences for alternatives when familiarity was partialled out." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social desirability and acquiescence in response to personality items.

Acquiescence has been defined in 2 ways. Either this response set operates only when items are ambiguous, or acquiescent tendencies operate independently of item content. These 2 definitions were related to the social desirability variable. 10 independent 40-item scales were constructed from MMPI items, systematically varying the social desirability content and the True-False keying. Responses were obtained from 227 Ss. Of the 35 intercorrelations which were predicted to be different by the 2 hypotheses, 21 supported the social desirability hypothesis and 14 supported the acquiescence hypothesis. A tendency to say False rather than True was noted. This response set to deny appeared relatively weak compared to the tendency to respond in a socially desirable manner. (21 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Experimenter approval, social desirability, and statements of self-reference.

Using 40 undergraduate Ss high or low on a social desirability scale, a verbal conditioning attempt was made to alter the relative frequency of self-referent statements that were either positive or negative. Before reinforcement, high and low social desirability Ss responded very similarly, and used more positive than negative self-references. High social desirability Ss responded to reinforcement by increasing equally the frequency of both positive and negative self-referent statements. Low social desirability Ss did not condition, but continued to make more positive than negative self-references. Although high and low social desirability Ss both have the need to impress others favorably, the high social desirability person is apparently more dependent on the overt, evaluative behavior of others, and for this reason he can be manipulated more easily than low social desirability Ss. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship between probability of endorsement and social desirability scale value for a set of 2,824 personality statements.

A group of 47 male and 48 female judges rated 2824 personality statements for social desirability using a 9-point rating scale. Another group of 110 male and 111 female Ss described themselves in terms of the same set of 2824 statements by answering each "true" or "false." The correlation between probability of a "true" response and social desirability scale value for the combined sex groups was .892. The distribution of the social desirability scale values of the 2824 statements was distinctly bimodal. These results are in accord with another large-scale study in which 1647 personality statements were investigated. In view of the large number of personality statements involved in these 2 studies, it is suggested that a correlation of .90 between probability of endorsement and social desirability scale value and a bimodal distribution of the scale values of personality statements may be characteristic of the population. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social desirability and Wiggins's MMPI content scales.

Using the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) item pool, J. S. Wiggins (1966) developed 13 scales, each with a homogeneous content. The 13 scales, along with marker scales for the 1st 3 MMPI factors, Edwards'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 EMPI also resulted in 4 factors. The rotated factor loadings of the 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. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale discrepancy index: A neuropsychological evaluation.

Traditionally, the discrepancy between the WAIS Verbal IQ and Performance IQ has been used in clinical practice as an indicator of both brain damage and lesion lateralization. The present study investigated the relationship between this discrepancy index and brain damage, lesion lateralization, type of brain damage (acute vs chronic), Full Scale IQ, and gender. The WAIS was administered to 5 groups of a total of 335 Ss: left, right, diffuse, and nonspecific brain-damaged groups, and psychiatric controls (mean ages 33.97, 41.76, 43.35, 35.66, and 40.17 yrs, respectively). No relationship was found between this index and any of the preceding categories with the exception of Full Scale IQ. Caution is suggested in the use of the discrepancy index as a diagnostic indicator of brain damage and/or lesion lateralization. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Marital roles, sex differences, and interpersonal attraction.

Tested the hypothesis that role and dispositional factors can alter the usual link between similarity and attraction. In 2 replications, 64 undergraduate females and 64 males with traditional or nontraditional attitudes toward sex roles and marriage (measured by the Marital Role Decisions Questionnaire) rated similar or dissimilar opposite-sex strangers on 3 attraction measures. Results show that sex and traditionality interacted with similarity in determining ratings of the strangers' general likability and personal role attraction (e.g., desirability as a dating partner), but not their functional role attraction (e.g., desirability as a debater on sex roles). The discussion suggests that previous attempts to find interactions have often failed because of a lack of correspondence between dispositional factors and similarity manipulations. Reinforcement and informational explanations could account for the overall findings, but communication factors of extremity and discrepancy could not. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Proactive interference and the dynamics of free recall.

Proactive interference (PI) has long been recognized as a major cause of forgetting. Two experiments were conducted that offer another look at the subject by providing a detailed analysis of recall latency distributions during the buildup of and release from PI. These functions were accurately characterized by the convolution of the normal and exponential distributions (viz., the ex-Gaussian), which previously has been shown to describe recognition latency distributions. Further, the fits revealed that the increase in recall latency associated with the buildup of PI results from a slowing of the exponential retrieval stage only. The same result was found even when a short retention interval was used (and recall probability remained constant). These findings suggest that free-recall latency may be a sensitive index of the increased search set size that has often been assumed to accompany the buildup of PI. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social desirability and responses to items from three MMPI scales: D, Sc, and K.

For random samples of 25 D and 32 Sc items, and for 29 of the 30 K items, ratings of social desirability were correlated with the probabilities that the items would be endorsed when the MMPI was used as a personality test (based on proportion of a college student sample actually endorsing each item). The correlations were .82 and .89 for the D and Sc items respectively. For the K-scale items, correlations of social desirability were computed with endorsement probabilities from a "typical college sample" (r = .50), and "Average-K" group (r = .38), and a "high-K" group (r = .66). "The results were interpreted as demonstrating the validity of K as a measure of the set to respond to items in terms of their social desirability." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)