Social desirability in the Eysenck Personality Inventory

Abstract

To investigate the extent to which the social desirability of test items can bias Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI) score profiles, a group of subjects was asked to rate the items of the EPI in terms of their social desirability. Three further groups were asked to complete the inventory honestly, or in such a way as to give a good or bad impression of themselves. Test items measuring extraversion were rated as socially undesirable, whereas those measuring neuroticism were rated as undesirable. Compared with subjects asked to respond honestly, subjects attempting to give a good impression tended to endorse items rated as socially desirable and hence to respond in the direction of stable extraversion. Similarly, subjects asked to give a bad impression tended to give socially undesirable responses and hence tended to appear as neurotic introverts. The lie scale did not effectively discriminate faking subjects from honest subjects. It is concluded that a social desirability response set can consistently bias subjects’ scores on the EPI and this is not detected by the lie scale.