Personal ideals and socially desirable responding

Abstract

The effect of personal ideals on socially desirable responding (impression management or IM, and self‐deception or SDE) was examined in a study of 428 undergraduate students. The subjects indicated their endorsement of 56 values and filled in Paulhus's (1991) Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding. Three IM types, viz. ingratiators, exemplificators, and intimidators, were defined from the subjects’ personal ideals. We hypothesized that both ingratiators and exemplificators score high and that intimidators score low on IM items. These hypotheses were confirmed, but the result for intimidators was only marginally reliable. Furthermore, it turned out that high IM scorers strove for collective values but high SDE scorers strove for individual values. The results are discussed as an expression of a self‐construction process, which is based on personal, rather than social, ideals. In addition, the implications of the results for controlling the effect of socially desirable responding are discussed.