The relationship between agreeing response set and social desirability.

3 measures of response set and 5 content scales were administered to 125 schizophrenic patients and 135 college Ss. The data indicate that the Overall Agreement Score which ostensibly measures an agreeing response set also contains negative social desirability (SD). SD18 also appears to have a naysaying element in it. The results also show that truly balanced measures of acquiescence and Social Desirability might very well be orthogonal to each other and support both sets of authors' contentions that their scales are not necessarily associated with elements of the other response set. (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)     

Gender differences in social desirability and social approval bias in dietary self-report

Social desirability (the tendency to respond in such a way as to avoid criticism) and social approval (the tendency to seek praise) are two prominent response set biases evident in answers on structured questionnaires. These biases were tested by comparing nutrient intakes as estimated from a single 24-hour diet recall interview (24 HR) and a 7-day dietary recall (7DDR). Data were collected as part of the Worcester Area Trial for Counseling in Hyperlipidemia, a randomized, physician-delivered nutrition intervention trial for hypercholesterolemic patients conducted in Worcester, Massachusetts, from 1991 to 1995. Of the 1,278 total study subjects, 759 had complete data for analysis. Men overestimated their fat and energy intakes on the 7DDR as compared with the 24HR according to social approval: One unit increase in the social approval score was associated with an overestimate of 21.5 kcal/day in total energy intake and 1.2 g/day in total fat intake. Women, however, underestimated their dietary intakes on the 7DDR relative to the 24HR according to social desirability: One unit increase in the social desirability score was associated with an underestimate of 19.2 kcal/day in energy intake and 0.8 g/day in total fat. The results from the present study indicate that social desirability and social approval biases appear to vary by gender. Such biases may lead to misclassification of dietary exposure estimates resulting in a distortion in the perceived relation between health-related outcomes and exposure to specific foods or nutrients. Because these biases may vary according to the perceived demands of research subjects, it is important that they be assessed in a variety of potential research study populations.     

Conditioning of verbal behavior as a function of awareness, need for social approval, and motivation to receive reinforcement.

This investigation evaluated the effects of awareness, need for social approval, and motivation to receive reinforcement on verbal conditioning. 61 male college students were reinforced with "good" for constructing sentences beginning with "I" or "we." Awareness and reinforcement motivation were assessed by an intensive postconditioning interview; need for social approval was measured by the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability scale. Ss aware of a correct response-reinforcement contingency gave more "I" and "we" sentences than Unaware Ss, who showed no evidence of learning. Aware Ss motivated to receive reinforcement gave more "I" and "we" sentences than unmotivated Aware Ss. Contrary to expectation, need for approval was not related to Ss' reinforcement motivation or performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Agreeing response set and social desirability.

This is a rejoiner to 2 papers (see 36: 3HF73E, 3HF80E) which suggest that "social desirability set" had been confounded with an "agreeing response set"; Couch and Keniston attempted to confirm or reject this assumption. Factor analysis of responses to MMPI scales, Edwards' Social Desirability scale (SD), and Couch and Keniston's scale measuring agreement response set (OAS), indicated that SD and OAS responses sorted out into separate, orthogonally related factors. Moreover, a 3rd factor was discerned, suggesting that SD is measuring the admission or denial of anxiety rather than conformity to conventional values. Further research was called for to confirm the findings. From Psyc Abstracts 36:01:3HF75C. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A social desirability questionnaire for young children.

The Young Children's Social Desirability Scale based on the MMPI L scale model was constructed and administered to 437 nursery school children. Split-half reliabilities were substantial for children over 4 and moderate for those under 4; test-retest reliabilities were moderate for children over 4 and mixed for those under 4. Social desirability scores increased with age, showed a low positive relationship to picture vocabulary IQ, and were unrelated to sex in a high-socioeconomic sample, but were higher for girls in a more general sample. 3 construct validation studies are summarized which indicate that children who score high on the scale are more motivated than low scorers to respond positively to interpersonal demands. (23 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aggression, need for social approval, and humor preferences.

This study investigated the humor preferences of Ss with extreme scores on need aggression and need for social approval under alcohol and nonalcohol conditions. Since aggression is disapproved by the middle class, conflict in the S was inferred by the relationships between these 2 scores. High-aggression Ss rated aggressive cartoons as funnier than did low-aggression Ss. Nonsense cartoons were rated higher by high need for social approval Ss than by low need for social approval Ss. Alcohol seemed to facilitate the expression of repressed aggressive needs in humor since the ratings of aggressive cartoons by high aggression-high need for social approval Ss were greater under alcohol than nonalcohol conditions. This difference was not found for high aggression-low need for social approval Ss, nor for the Ss with low need aggression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"The relationship between agreeing response set and social desirability": Erratum.

Reports an error on page 178 of the article "The Relationship between Agreeing Response Set and Social Desirability," by Leonard Solomon and Edward Klein (Journal of Abnormal Social Psychology, 1963, 66, 176-179; see record 1963-06735-001), the word "squared" was omitted in the first line of Column 2 and should read: sum of whose squared loadings was 1.00 or more were . . . . (The original abstract of this article originally appeared in record 196306735-001). 3 measures of response set and 5 content scales were administered to 125 schizophrenic patients and 135 college Ss. The data indicate that the Overall Agreement Score which ostensibly measures an agreeing response set also contains negative social desirability (SD). SD-sub(18) also appears to have a naysaying element in it. The results also show that truly balanced measures of acquiescence and Social Desirability might very well be orthogonal to each other and support both sets of authors' contentions that their scales are not necessarily associated with elements of the other response set. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Roles of approval motivation and social reinforcement in children's discrimination learning.

144 3rd- and 4th-grade children were given a 2-choice discrimination learning task. The 2 major factors were (a) the 3 levels of social desirability (high, moderate, and low) on the Children's Social Desirability scale; and (b) the 2 types of treatment conditions (monetary-social reinforcement and monetary-no social reinforcement). In opposition to D. P. Crowne and D. Marlowe's (1961) model of the approval-motivated individual, the high-social-desirability group made significantly fewer errors than both the moderate and low groups. It is suggested that for young children, social desirability scores may require a different interpretation than scores for older children and adults. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-esteem, need for approval, and cheating behavior in children.

We investigated the effects of personality and situational variables on children's cheating behavior. Two hundred twenty-eight 10- to 12-year-old boys and girls completed the Children's Social Desirability Questionnaire and the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory and were given unsolvable problems at which they could "succeed" only by cheating. One group was offered a tangible prize for success, the second group was told that its performance would be made public, and the third group served as a control group. The children with high self-esteem and low need for approval cheated significantly less than the children with high self-esteem and high need for approval, who behaved similarly to the children with low self-esteem. In addition, boys cheated more than girls, and all children cheated most when they expected a tangible prize. We discuss two kinds of high self-esteem: "true" high self-esteem and defensive high-esteem. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The conditioning of verbal behavior as a function of the need for social approval.

The hypothesis tested herein is that need for approval will facilitate learning. Need for approval was measured by the M-C Social Desirability Scale (Crowne & Marlowe, 1960); the learning task employed the model of verbal conditioning as used by Greenspoon (1955); the Ss were undergraduate psychology students. The results supported the hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relationship between social desirability and internal consistency of personality scales.

3 hypotheses concerning the relationships between psychometric characteristics of 61 personality scales were tested. A measure of internal consistency (Kuder-Richardson Formula 21) was found to be positively correlated (.62) with the degree of imbalance in the social desirability keying of the scales. Internal consistency was also negatively correlated (-.46) with the proportion of neutral items in the scales. The mean probability of a keyed response to the items in a scale was positively correlated (.83) with the proportion of items keyed for socially desirable responses. These results are consistent with predictions based upon social desirability considerations. (19 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stuck in a rut: Perseverative response tendencies and the neuroticism-distress relationship.

Clinical views of neuroticism-linked distress often make reference to the perseverative sorts of mental processes that reinforce such experiences. The goal of the present 7 studies, involving 488 undergraduate participants, was to directly examine such perseverative processes. Individual differences in response perseveration were operationalized in terms of choice reaction time difficulties switching (vs. repeating) responses across consecutive trials. Response perseveration interacted with neuroticism in predicting negative emotion, dissatisfaction with life, and displays of negative emotion (Studies 1-4). Specifically, neuroticism-outcome relations were quite a bit stronger at high levels of perseveration. Additional studies (Studies 5-7) provided support for the convergent and discriminant validity of response perseveration. Overall, the results highlight the manner in which response perseveration reinforces experiences of negative emotion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Need for approval and susceptibility to unintended social influence.

Investigated the relationship between Ss' need for approval and their susceptibility to the subtle unintended influence of biased Es. 48 female undergraduates divided into high- and low-need-for-approval groups (on the basis of their Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability scale scores) were tested by 6 male Es. It was suggested that prior failures to find such a relationship were due to the absence during the programmed pretask interaction of E and S of cues which would be likely to arouse S's approval motivation and thereby make him more susceptible to E's influence. A single sentence designed to arouse S's motivation was thus inserted into the standard pretask instructions. Under these conditions, Ss high in need for approval demonstrated a significant susceptibility to E expectancy effects, while low-approval-motivation Ss did not. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Need for approval, guilt, and sexual stimulation and their relationship to sexual responsivity.

Describes an experiment in which 111 male undergraduates were given the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability scale and the Mosher Forced-Choice Guilt Scale prior to reading a series of either sexual or neutral passages. Ss rated the extent to which they were sexually aroused, anxious, bored, angry, disgusted, and entertained, and then responded to a sexual double-entendre word association test. Responses indicate that Ss were significantly more sexually aroused after reading the sexual as opposed to the neutral passages. Need approval and guilt scores were not significantly related to stated degree of arousal or any of the other dimensions. Low need-approval Ss showed greater sexual responsivity to the entendres than highs, especially subsequent to reading the sexual passages. For the guilt variable, Ss with low sex guilt demonstrated greater sexual responsivity on the entendres regardless of whether they read neutral or sexual passages. Results suggest that these personality variables affect responding rather than affect arousal. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A factor analysis of experimental social desirability and response set scales.

Intercorrelations between 19 response set scales, based upon the scores of 110 students, were factor analyzed and the factors rotated orthogonally. Edwards' SD scale and 6 experimental social desirability scales had their highest loadings on the 1st factor. 3 scales containing neutral items in which the probability of a True response to the items varied between scales were found to have their highest loadings on 3 different factors. Scales designed to measure the tendency to give deviant True responses to items with socially undesirable scale values, to items with socially desirable scale values, and to items with neural scale values were found to have their highest loadings on 3 different factors. The tendency to give deviant True responses to items with socially undesirable scale values was found to be related to the tendency to give deviant False responses to items with socially desirable scale values. The tendency to mark items as doubtful and the tendency to answer items marked doubtful as True were identified as 2 factors unrelated to social desirability tendencies. (31 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Item popularity and social desirability in the MMPI.

While the popularity of an item is partially a function of its judged social desirability (SD), reliable item preferences also occur which are independent of a general SD variable and which in some cases may have greater predictive power. 4 analyses showed: (1) The proportion of true responses to MMPI items obtained from 10 disparate groups contained 40%-52% common variance on the average across items classed as very desirable, desirable, neutral, undesirable, and very undesirable. (2) With SD controlled, intergroup partial rs were all significant (     

Need for social approval and blame assignment.

Investigated the relation of the need for social approval (as measured by the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale) to the attribution of blame. 40 dyads of female psychiatric nursing students worked on a cooperative task. Both dyad members were exposed to an induced failure experience and made subsequent ratings whereby blame could be ascribed to features of the experiment, transient personal states, and/or to one's partner. As predicted, approval-dependent persons were more likely to rationalize or excuse the "failure" by blaming various experimental factors and/or their partners, but this was always done within the limits of a generalized tendency to seek social acceptance by expressing attitudes complimentary to other persons or situations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Need for social approval and drug use.

Administered to 66 undergraduates the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability (M-C SD) scale to measure need for social approval, and a drug data sheet to categorize Ss into nonusers, soft drug users, and hard drug users. Results indicate significant differences among the 3 groups (p