A Factor Analysis Of Individual Social Desirability Scale Values

Area of Science:

• Psychological Measurement
• Social Psychology
• Personality Assessment

Background:

• Social desirability is a key construct in personality and psychological assessment.
• Understanding the structure of social desirability judgments is crucial for interpreting scale scores.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the factorial structure of individual judgments of social desirability scale value (SDSV).
• To compare the results of factoring by item (R technique) versus factoring by subject (Q technique).

Main Methods:

• Factor analysis of a 112x100 data matrix of individual SDSV judgments from college students.
• Employed both R technique (item factoring) and Q technique (subject factoring).

Main Results:

• A significant general social desirability (SD) factor emerged when factoring subject intercorrelations (Q technique).
• No comparable general SD factor was identified when factoring item intercorrelations (R technique).
• The identified general SD factor strongly correlated with mean or normative SDSVs.

Conclusions:

• The structure of social desirability judgments differs depending on the analysis technique.
• Subject-based analysis (Q technique) effectively captures a general social desirability factor.
• Findings support the robustness and normative basis of the general social desirability factor.