The role of self-deceptive enhancement and impression management in adolescents’ self-reported attitudes toward drinking, willingness to drink and risky alcohol consumption

Abstract

ABSTRACT Objective This study focuses on self-deceptive enhancement (SDE) and impression management (IM) as socially desirable responding tendencies influencing adolescents’ self-reported measures of alcohol consumption. Specifically, it aims at examining their associations with basic demographics (gender, age, and socio-economic status) and drinking attitudes and behaviors, as well as testing potential interaction effects on risky use. Methods One hundred and sixty Italian students (45.6% females), 13–17 aged (M = 14.82, SD = 1.11), completed basic demographics and measures of social desirability responding, attitudes toward drinking, willingness to drink, and risky alcohol consumption. Pearson’s correlations, T-tests and hierarchical regression analyses were conducted. Results SDE and IM are not associated with basic demographics. Overall, IM is associated with attitudes toward drinking, willingness to drink, and risky alcohol consumption, while no association is found for self-deception. Some interaction effects emerge showing that the problem of underreporting affects especially impression managers with more positive attitudes toward drinking. Instead, self-deceivers who are more prone to drinking could inflate their consumption levels. Conclusion This study can expand our understanding of the underlying processes involved in socially desirable responding, which could allow the development of effective strategies to minimize measurement biases in assessing hazardous drinking in adolescent samples.