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Social Desirability in Spouse Ratings.
Vaka Vésteinsdóttir1, Eva D Steingrimsdottir1, Adam Joinson2
1Department of Psychology, University of Iceland, Iceland.
Psychological Reports
|April 13, 2018
Summary
Socially desirable responding affects both self-reports and spouse ratings in personality assessments. This challenges previous findings suggesting that correcting for this bias is unnecessary in personality research.
Area of Science:
- Psychological assessment
- Personality psychology
- Social psychology
Background:
- Socially desirable responding (SDR) in personality assessment is debated.
- McCrae and Costa suggested correcting for SDR is unnecessary, based on spouse ratings.
- Their conclusion assumes spouse ratings are unbiased.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if spouse ratings are also susceptible to socially desirable responding.
- To re-evaluate the necessity of correcting for SDR in personality assessments.
Main Methods:
- Replicated McCrae and Costa's study using the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale.
- Measured SDR in both self-reports and spouse ratings from 70 couples.
Main Results:
- Both self-reports and spouse ratings demonstrated susceptibility to socially desirable responding.
- This finding questions the validity of previous conclusions regarding SDR correction.
Conclusions:
- Spouse ratings are not an unbiased external criterion for personality assessment.
- The necessity of measuring and correcting for socially desirable responding in personality assessments should be reconsidered.
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