ACQUIESCENCE AND SOCIAL DESIRABILITY RESPONSE SETS, ITEM CHARACTERISTICS, AND CONFORMITY1

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis study explored the tendency for two characteristics of personality and attitude items–readability and extremeness–to elicit acquiescent and socially desirable responses. The results were largely not consistent with a conceptualization of these response sets as aspects of conformity. The findings were that (a) more acquiescent responses were made to moderate than to extreme personality and attitude items; (b) fewer socially desirable responses were made to moderate than to extreme personality items, but no differences were found for attitude items; (c) more acquiescent responses were made to hard‐ than easy‐to‐read attitude items, although, conversely, fewer acquiescent responses were made to hard‐ than easy‐to‐read personality items; (d) fewer socially desirable responses were made to hard‐ than easy‐to‐read personality and attitude items; (e) subjects high, moderate, and low in acquiescence, as measured independently, did not generally differ in their trends of acquiescent responses to items varying in readability and extremeness; (f) subjects high, moderate, and low in social desirability set, as measured independently, did not generally differ in their trends of socially desirable responses to items varying in readability and extremeness; (g) responses to the two subsets of items that should most reflect conformity were uncorrelated; and (h) the set responses had little generality over different kinds of content or item format. The implications of these findings for the conceptualization, alternative conceptualizations of acquiescent and social desirability response sets, and the generality of these response sets were discussed.