Relationship between Social Desirability and Probability of Endorsement of Items in the Yatabe-Guilford Personality Inventory

Abstract

According to Edwards (1953) the probability of obtaining the crue response to a personality test item is a rectilinear and increasing function of the social desirability (SD) scale value of that item. The present work examines this conclusion for responses to the Yatabe-Guilford personality inventory (YGPI) which is used widely in Japan. Wi th the standard YGPI instruction, all 120 items were administered to 74 male students and 50 females, and the probability of endorsement was determined. Furrher, the same males and 30 other females were asked to rate each item on a 9-point Socialdesirability ( S D ) continuum. The value thus obtained is referred to as the SD scale value of the item. About 70% of [he YGPI items were rated as socially undesirable by both males and females; SD scale values ranged from 2.0 to 7.7 for males and from 1.7 to 8.6 for females. The product-moment correlation of these values for the groups was .94, showing good concordance. The correlation for probability of endorsemenr for male and female groups was .64, much lower than .95 of Edwards (1957) who used ICL items. In the male group the probability of endorsement increased rectilinearly with the shift of items from socially undesirable to neutral, but decreased thereafter as the S D value increased furthec. The correlation between the probability of endorsement and the SD scale value was ,.30 for this group. For females the probability of endorsement increased gradually as the SD value increased ( s = .56) . The difference in correlation values suggests that .females are more susceptible than males to S D when they must make self-evaluations, ahhough the value .56 is significantly lower than .87 of Edwards (1953) who employed EPPS items. These findings suggest that the probability of obtaining a crue response to any item of YGPI has no primary relation to the scale value of SD.