Social Desirability Effects Research Articles

Testing the validity of telephone interviews to assess chronic pain in children and adolescents: A randomized cross-over trial.

Telephone surveys are intended to reduce attrition in longitudinal studies. For paediatric chronic pain patients, the comparability of pain-related information gathered using telephone interviews and postal surveys remain unknown. Furthermore, it remains unknown how social desirability may influence answers. To compare data from telephone interviews and postal surveys, a randomized cross-over design with two measure points 2weeks apart and four conditions (combinations of telephone interviews (T) and postal surveys (P): P-T, T-P, P-P, T-T) was conducted in a sample of N=323 paediatric chronic pain patients. In the inter-group comparison, pain-related information did not differ between telephone interviews and postal surveys except for the information on pain location (back and extremities). Agreement measures of the intra-group comparisons suggest substantial to excellent agreements for all items and did not differ between the groups. The internal consistency of a disability scale was excellent for both assessment modes; the number of missing values did not differ. Participation rate was higher for telephone interviews compared to the postal surveys. Across both time points, attrition was lowest for the groups without a switch in assessment mode compared to the groups with a switch in assessment mode. Except for pain-related school absence, no effect of social desirability occurred. Telephone interviews are a useful method to achieve a high response rate. Pain locations should be asked for separately and not in an open question when interviewing children and adolescents on the telephone. Telephone interviews are a good method to achieve a high response rate and obtain valid data in studies with paediatric chronic pain patients.

How response biases affect the factor structure of Big Five personality questionnaires

<p>Several studies have shown that personality self-reports may be affected by response biases, and that this may have consequences on their factor structure, especially in samples with little education or in adolescents. The current study aims to understand the effect of social desirability and acquiescence on the factor structure of three questionnaires based on the Five Factor Model of personality: the Big Five Inventory, the Five Factor Personality Inventory and the Overall Personality Assessment Scale. The data was analysed using a new method that removes the effects of both social desirability and acquiescence from the inter-item correlation matrix used for factor analysis. These effects were assessed in a sample of 392 university students, which contained no individuals with low educational levels, children or adolescents. The results showed that, even in samples with no individuals with low educational levels, controlling for social desirability and acquiescence led to a simpler factor structure that is more congruent with the theoretical solution expected from the five factor model. It also seems that in the domain of inventories based upon the five factor model, this effect may be specially due to acquiescence.</p>

The Emotionally Intelligent Officer? Exploring Decision-Making Style and Emotional Intelligence in Hostage and Crisis Negotiators and Non-Negotiator-Trained Police Officers

The research described in this article explores decision-making styles and levels of emotional intelligence displayed by police hostage and crisis negotiators in the UK. One hundred and seventeen negotiators from 21 police forces took part in the research, and their data were compared with 118 non-negotiator-trained police officers and 203 university students. Participants completed the General Decision-Making Style Questionnaire (Scott and Bruce Educ Psychol Meas 55(5):818-831, 1995) and the Emotional Intelligence Inventory (Gignac 2008), with data analysed using multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) and t tests. When controlling for the effects of age and social desirability, significant differences were found between both police samples and the student sample. All police officers displayed significantly lower levels of avoidant decision-making and significantly higher levels of overall emotional intelligence than students and these findings were also reflected within certain facets of emotional intelligence, specifically. These findings provide support for the existence of a unique ‘police officer profile’, but fail to support the premise of a distinct ‘hostage and crisis negotiator profile’ within the UK police population. The findings are discussed with relevance to the practice of hostage and crisis negotiation and future research directions.

Social Desirability and Undesirability Effects on Survey Response latencies

This article looks at paradata in the form of response latencies to identify socially desirable response behaviour. Response latencies are used as proxies to infer information processing modes. So far, evidence is conflicted as to whether socially desirable responding is indicated by shorter or longer response latencies. Our results show that faster responses are associated with the reporting of desirable attitudes and behaviour while slower responses are linked with those that are undesirable. Trait desirability measures that do not take this difference in direction into account may be responsible for the often contradictory results of various researchers who have employed the method in the past.

The Trust Broker Game: A Three-Player Trust Game with Probabilistic Returns and Information Asymmetry

This paper experimentally investigates and trustworthiness in a repeated and sequential three-player game with probabilistic returns and information asymmetry. It adds to the existing literature by combining experimental features from recent work in the game. We use random variations in the multiplier value, a third player without an initial endowment, undisclosed termination rules, and variations in information availability related to transactions. Our framework is novel in that the game continues even if the first player transfers no amount to the second player. Using participants from India, the results are broadly consistent with past evidence on the game. All players are more trusting when information of their transfers and earnings are made available to other players. The third player (termed the trust broker) transfers a larger amount when information on transfers is disclosed to other players. We find that information availability leads to a significant increase in the broker’s reciprocity, as defined by the amount that is returned to Player 2. Social desirability, cultural contexts, and learning effects are discussed in terms of scope for future research.

Examining Social Desirability in Measures of Religion and Spirituality Using the Bogus Pipeline

A primary concern in the psychology of religion is the distinct possibility that responses to empirical assessments of individuals’ degree and type of religiosity and spirituality are exaggerated owing to social desirability bias. In spite of increased secularization in American culture and a growing distrust of organized religion, religious involvement, personal religiosity, and spirituality are still viewed as highly desirable characteristics. This study estimates the extent of social desirability biases that affect self-reports of religion and spirituality by utilizing a bogus pipeline procedure. In this procedure, participants are convinced that experimenters can detect disingenuous responses to individual items on questionnaires through the use of physiological measures, although no physiological data are actually collected. If the self-reports of participants in the bogus pipeline condition indicate greater religiosity or spirituality than those in the control condition, self-report bias is indicated. The bogus pipeline procedure has been used in other areas of study to increase veracity of self-reports when social desirability effects are present (such as reporting sexual behaviors or prejudice). The results indicate that social desirability biases influence multiple constructs including religious orientations, religious coping, and daily spiritual experiences. Implications for future research relying on self-reports of religion and spirituality are discussed.

Eating behaviour among nutrition students and social desirability as a confounder

IntroductionThe study of eating behaviour should consider the presence of potential sources of bias, including social desirability. This is particularly relevant among students of Nutrition Sciences, since they have a higher risk of eating disorders. ObjectiveTo analyse the effect of social desirability in the assessment of eating behaviour dimensions among nutrition students. MethodsIn this cross-sectional study, we analysed data from 149 students of Nutrition Sciences. Participants completed a questionnaire assessing social desirability and eating behaviour dimensions (emotional, external and binge eating, flexible and rigid control, and eating self-efficacy). ResultsAmong males, social desirability had a negative association with binge eating, while among women it had a negative association with emotional, external and binge eating and a positive association with eating self-efficacy. In both subsamples, social desirability showed no significant association with any of the two types of dietary restraint (rigid and flexible control). DiscussionOverall, the association between social desirability and eating behaviour dimensions among students of Nutrition Sciences occurs in the same direction as found in students from other areas. However, alongside these similarities, there is a stronger association between social desirability and binge eating among male students of Nutrition Sciences. We hypothesize that this may be related with the different knowledge of students from different areas, and the way they perceive and face the treatment of eating disorders. ConclusionOur study shows that social desirability should be considered while assessing eating behaviour among nutrition students, particularly when studying external eating, binge eating and eating self-efficacy. Moreover, when tailoring interventions to reduce the possible effects of eating behaviour on nutritionists and dieticians' practice, we should consider the influence of social desirability.

Survey method matters: Online/offline questionnaires and face-to-face or telephone interviews differ

Self-report inventories enable efficient assessment of mental attributes in large representative surveys. However, an inventory can be administered in several ways whose equivalence is largely untested. In the present study, we administered thirteen psychological questionnaires assessing positive and negative aspects of mental health. The questionnaires were administered by four different data collection methods: face-to-face interview, telephone interview, online questionnaire, and offline questionnaire. We found that twelve of the questionnaires differed in survey methods. Although, some studies showed that social desirability tends to be highest for telephone survey and lowest for web survey. Furthermore, the effects of social desirability should be the same for the online and offline samples. However, there were no statistically significant differences between the face-to-face and telephone samples for the anxiety scale, the stress scale, and the tradition scale. We also found that for eight scales, the online sample was statistically different from the offline sample in the respondent answers. Moreover, the survey method effects were only moderated by age. Finally, measurement invariance across the four survey methods was tested for each self-report measure. There was full strong measurement invariance established for nine of thirteen scales and partial strong measurement invariance for the remaining four scales across the four survey methods. These findings indicated that measurement invariance was affected by different survey methods.

Male College Students Using Sexually Aggressive Strategies: Findings on the Interpersonal Relationship Profile.

Limited interpersonal skills and relationship deficits are recognized as risk factors for sexual aggression as committed by convicted sexual offenders. Yet, less severe forms of sexual aggression are frequently perpetrated by nonforensic samples, including highly educated samples. This study was aimed at characterizing a sample of male college students reporting sexually aggressive strategies as a means to initiate sexual intercourse according to a set of interpersonal relationship factors, thus extending the knowledge on the role of interpersonal dimensions to the distinct contexts of sexual violence. Three hundred eight male college students completed a web survey assessing adult attachment styles, intimacy perception, interpersonal style, and psychosocial adjustment. Findings showed that 162 students (>50%) reported to have used some form of sexually aggressive strategy against women to initiate sexual contact. After controlling for the effects of social desirability, participants reporting sexually aggressive strategies presented significantly less confidence trusting others, more lack of perceived personal validation (within relationships), a more aggressive interpersonal style, and higher levels of hostility. Findings suggest that sexual violence, as measured in the context of college samples, may have an interpersonal nature, reflecting deficient social and intimacy skills; preventive programs are thus expected to enhance interpersonal relationship strategies as well as target individuals' perceived interpersonal vulnerability.

Entropy Measure to Compare the Internet and Face to Face Surveys

Technological improvements are utilized in data collection methods as in all areas of life. The expansion of computer and Internet use make it possible to conduct a survey on Internet. Today, many researchers take advantage of this opportunity. This paper seeks to answer whether there is any significant difference between data collection methods as Internet and face to face. To reach this objective response patterns from two data collection methods and from two different scales (Cetscale and Self-Efficacy) are investigated by using an entropy measure. Findings reveal that internet based survey provides less dispersed responses for selfefficacy scale in which social desirability effect is less than Cetscale. Furthermore our results provide evidence that scales have also influences over dispersion of responses.

Are the results of questionnaires measuring non-cognitive characteristics during the selection procedure for medical school application biased by social desirability?

Introduction: A stronger consideration of non-cognitive characteristics in Medical School application procedures is desirable. Psychometric tests could be used as an economic supplement to face-to-face interviews which are frequently conducted during university internal procedures for Medical School applications (AdH, Auswahlverfahren der Hochschulen). This study investigates whether the results of psychometric questionnaires measuring non-cognitive characteristics such as personality traits, empathy, and resilience towards stress are vulnerable to distortions of social desirability when used in the context of selection procedures at Medical Schools.Methods: This study took place during the AdH of Lübeck University in August 2015. The following questionnaires have been included: NEO-FFI, SPF, and AVEM. In a 2x1 between-subject experiment we compared the answers from an alleged application condition and a control condition. In the alleged application condition we told applicants that these questionnaires were part of the application procedure. In the control condition applicants were informed about the study prior to completing the questionnaires.Results: All included questionnaires showed differences which can be regarded as social-desirability effects. These differences did not affect the entire scales but, rather, single subscales.Conclusion: These results challenge the informative value of these questionnaires when used for Medical School application procedures. Future studies may investigate the extent to which the differences influence the actual selection of applicants and what implications can be drawn from them for the use of psychometric questionnaires as part of study-place allocation procedures at Medical Schools.

How response bias affects the factorial structure of personality self-reports.

Various studies have shown that acquiescence can distort the factor structure of personality questionnaires based on the five-factor model.  In the present study, we analysed how acquiescence and social desirability affect the factor structure of a measure based on this personality model and a measure of aggression. We analysed the factor structures of both tests before and after removing both biases in a sample of 532 adolescents aged between 11 and 18 (M= 14.75, SD= 2.1). The factor structure of both tests presented a worse fit to the expected model when response bias was not controlled, and the congruence indexes for the personality and aggression measures showed a moderate (from C= .948 to C= .872) or great (from C= .931 to C= .475) decrease, respectively. Furthermore, acquiescence was largely responsible for these effects, and social desirability effects were only shown on the aggression measure.   Response bias, and especially acquiescence, should be controlled during the development of personality measures to avoid distorting them, especially with samples of people with a high level of acquiescence (for example, those with little education, the young or the elderly). Furthermore, the use of response bias loadings as a criterion for choosing the items minimizes those distortions.

Self-reports of information seeking: Is social desirability in play?

ABSTRACTSocial desirability, the likelihood of individuals to overreport behaviors they perceive to be approved by others, is often cited as a limitation in research but rarely controlled in a systematic manner. Social desirability can influence self-reported behaviors (e.g., voting behavior) and communication variables (e.g., argumentativeness). Information seeking may be susceptible to the effects of social desirability as knowledge and information are generally desired, and thus may be prone to overreporting. This article presents results from two online, information-seeking tracking studies investigating the influence of social desirability on self-reported information seeking. Participants indicated how much time they actually spent seeking information on a website. Unbeknownst to participants, their website use was being tracked using Google Analytics. This article compares actual time spent seeking information to reported information-seeking time. Results suggest that participants overreport information seeking in these two studies; social desirability may explain this result.

Understanding the Effects of Social Desirability on Gambling Self-Reports

Gambling self-reports may be subject to several types of bias, including social desirability bias, which may undermine their utility for capturing gambling behaviour in both research and clinical practice. Retrospective self-reports of gambling are frequently used to assess patterns of behaviour over specific periods of time, but may not be as reliable as experience sampling (ES) methods, which involve multiple assessments of gambling over the course of several days. The purpose of the current study was to examine the impact of two aspects of social desirability, impression management (IM) and self-deceptive enhancement (SDE), on the correspondence between reports of gambling assessed via ES and retrospective recall using the Gambling Timeline Followback (G-TLFB; Weinstock et al. Psychological Assessment, 16, 72–80, 2004). Participants were 81 emerging adult gamblers who completed a 30-day ES study and a retrospective assessment of their gambling. Although the overall association between social desirability and gambling reports was minimal, the correspondence between retrospective and ES reports was lower for those with higher scores on IM (for money won-lost) and SDE (for money intended to risk). Gamblers who wish to present themselves in a favourable way – either intentionally (IM) or unintentionally (SDE) – may be less reliable in their reports of gambling when asked to reflect on an extended period of time compared to when asked to provide an in-the-moment account of their gambling behaviour. These findings have important implications for understanding the circumstances under which individuals bias their retrospective self-reports of gambling and highlight the utility of more fine-grained assessments of gambling behaviour.

6. The effects of cognition and affect based trust on organization identification

This study aims to investigate the effects of cognition and affect-based trust on organizational identification and test whether the predictive power of these two trust dimensions differs for male and female employees. Data were collected from 161 white-collar employees of a Turkish public organization. The results of path analysis did not support the hypotheses indicating that affect and cognition-based trust positively predicted organizational identification. However, the effects of affect and cognition-based trust on identification were found to be significant after controlling the effects of demographic variables and social desirability. In multi-group path analysis, the differential effect of gender was not found to be significant. That is, the effects of affect and cognition-based trust on identification were not stronger for women and men employees respectively. Despite the insignificant effects of trust dimensions, this study demonstrated the importance of overall supervisory trust on the development of identification. In line with Social Exchange Theory, employees tend to reciprocate their supervisors’ trustworthiness by being identified with their organization. Alternatively, employees may feel identification because existence of trustworthy supervisors within the organization could help them to portray good image to both themselves and other people. Key words: Supervisory-trust, cognition-based trust, affect-based trust, identification, gender. JEL Classification: M10, M12, M54

Emotional Arousal and Regulation: Further Evidence of the Validity of the "How I Feel" Questionnaire for Use With School-Age Children.

The ability to understand and manage emotional experience is critical to children's health. This study confirmed the validity of the How I Feel (HIF) Questionnaire, a measure of children's emotional arousal and regulation, exploring its associations with measures of emotional and social functioning. The sample was comprised of 1379 Italian students (aged 8 to 12 years) who attended schools interested in the study aims. Participants completed the 30-item HIF scale, and measures of emotional self-efficacy and social desirability (SD). Factor structures were assessed using confirmatory factor analysis. Invariance by age and gender, internal consistency, temporal stability, and concurrent validity were also tested. A 3-factor model was identified: frequency and intensity of (1) positive emotion--PE (8 items, α = .82), (2) negative emotion--NE (12 items, α = .86), and (3) positive and negative emotion control--EC (10 items, α = .77). This factor structure was invariant across age and gender groups. The HIF displayed moderate longitudinal stability over a 15-month period and a low social desirability effect. Positive emotion was positively associated with social acceptance and visibility, and negatively with social withdrawal. The HIF is a reliable and valid measure for research and school intervention promoting students' emotional and mental health.

Antecedents, outcomes, and mediating role of internal reference prices in pay-what-you-want (PWYW) pricing

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the mediating role of internal reference price (IRP) in a pay-what-you-want (PWYW) price setting. Specifically, it examines the effects of altruism, social desirability and price consciousness as the antecedents of IRP and consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP), future purchase intention and attitude toward the seller as the outcomes of IRP. Design/methodology/approach – The data for the study were collected from 272 respondents through a structured survey and analyzed through structural equation modeling technique using AMOS 22.0. Findings – Altruism and social desirability positively influence IRP whereas price consciousness influences IRP negatively. IRP mediates the effects of altruism, social desirability and price consciousness on WTP, future purchase intention and attitude toward the seller. Research limitations/implications – PWYW pricing strategy can help attract consumers with self-less characteristics or a desire to behave in a socially appropriate manner but not those who are highly price conscious as reflected by the differences in the way in which their IRPs influence their WTP, future purchase intention and attitude toward the seller. Originality/value – This paper introduces a parsimonious framework to explain how three consumer characteristics influence consumers’ pricing decisions in PWYW context. The finding that the effects of antecedent variables on WTP, attitude and future purchase intention are mediated by IRP provides new insights that have not been explored earlier.

Обобщенные шкалы контент-анализа проективных рассказов теста социальной мотивации (ТСМ). Описание и критериальная валидность. Часть 1

Projective stories possess some advantages in comparison to the questionnaires. They provide considerable amount of additional information about subjects’ current state and the motives. Nevertheless, they are also not free from the effects of censorship and social desirability. The list of content analysis scales in this study was the following: 1) “Affiliation”, 2) “Frustration of Affiliation”, 3) “Long-term relationships”, 4) “Rivalry”, 5)”Loyalty”, 6) “Achievement”, 7) “Hope”, 8) “Egoistic benefit”, 9) “Impulse control”, 10) “Struggle of motives”, 11) “Negative emotions”, 12) “Negative events”, as well as the three scales for detection of desire to avoid projection: a)”Abandon of the task” (stories shorter than 20 words), b) “Description”, c) «Either, or». Also some of the indicators were adopted: “Fear to live” – sum of “Negative events” and “Negative emotions” scales; “Hardness” that is subtraction of “Negative emotions” from “Negative events”; “General avoidance of projection” that is the sum of “Abandon”, “Description” and “Either, or”. Validity of the scales was checked and proofed through the multiple comparisons within the three samples: students of Humanities, students of the Moscow Aviation University and MosEmerCom dispatchers. This work was supported by grant RFH №12-06-00647.

What factors of prosocial behavior evoke recipients’ gratitude and indebtedness? An experimental examination

We examined two psychological processes of prosocial behavior: feeling gratitude and indebtedness. First, we asked if the value of the behavior for the receiver promotes gratitude; and second if the cost of the behavior for the giver promotes indebtedness. Gratitude and indebtedness were measured as behavioral indices of a quid pro quo (indirect reciprocity and direct reciprocity) to avoid social desirability effects in self-report measures. In Study 1, 119 undergraduates recalled a past experience in which they had been the recipients of prosocial behavior while emphasizing the value, cost, or situation (control) of the event. The level of gratitude was higher, and indirect reciprocity was observed more frequently, in the value condition than in the cost and control conditions. Indebtedness, however, did not differ across the conditions. In Study 2, 59 participants received a gift (the value and cost of which were manipulated) from an imaginary confederate. The value manipulation promoted indirect reciprocity, and both value and cost manipulations encouraged direct reciprocity. Implications for adaptive functions of gratitude in social selection processes are discussed.

Факторный опрос: преимущества, область применения, практические рекомендации

The article focuses on the application of the factorial survey design to social- psychological studies. The factorial survey is an experimental technique that allows testing hypotheses about causal relations. The key advantages of factorial survey are (1) higher external validity compared to classical laboratory experiments, (2) lower susceptibility to social desirability effects compared to classical survey approach, and (3) its ability to detect implicit determinants of social perception. Nevertheless, facto- rial survey design is rarely used in psychology. This work gives an introduction to the factorial survey design, describes its benefits and areas of application. Moreover, it gives practical guidelines on how to plan, conduct, and analyze the results of a factorial survey study, accompanied by examples from our own research. The research was supported within the framework of the Program for Basic Research of National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) in 2014- 2015.