Social Desirability of Dissent: an IAT Experiment with Chinese University Students

Abstract

Researchers have been wary about social desirability of approval in authoritarian countries, namely, the tendency for people to overreport their regime support. Few have studied the social desirability of dissent, the reverse tendency for people to underreport their regime support. This paper argues that social desirability of dissent exists among Chinese university students because 1) the Chinese government has loosened its control on speech, 2) Chinese university students experience peer pressure to be aloof from the government, 3) blatant propaganda gives regime supporters a negative image, and 4) open expression of regime support may associate one with the infamous Fifty Cent Party. We conducted an implicit association test (IAT) among 306 Chinese university students and found distinct social desirability of dissent among them. We also found that the effect of social desirability of dissent is stronger among firm regime supporters identified by the IAT than among weak supporters.