Social desirability and the clinical self-report inventory: methodological reconsideration

Area of Science:

• Psychological Assessment
• Personality Research
• Clinical Psychology

Background:

• Social desirability bias is a known confound in self-report measures.
• Quantifying the precise impact of social desirability on clinical inventories requires further investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the influence of social desirability on responses within clinical self-report inventories.
• To develop and validate a new questionnaire (EMHQ) that accounts for social desirability.

Main Methods:

• Adapted items from four personality questionnaires to create a pre-experimental questionnaire (pre-EMHQ).
• Administered Ko's Mental Health Questionnaire (KMHQ) and the pre-EMHQ to determine item response proportions (P(t)) and social desirability scale values (SDSV).
• Developed the Experimental Mental Health Questionnaire (EMHQ) by matching P(t) and SDSV values, then conducted concurrent administration with KMHQ for factor analysis.

Main Results:

• A linear relationship was observed between SDSVs and P(t) for KMHQ items.
• Polynomial regression analysis indicated scoring tendency as a quadratic function of SDSVs.
• Factor analysis revealed similar primary factors (Factor 1) in both KMHQ and EMHQ, highlighting the role of social desirability.

Conclusions:

• Social desirability is a critical factor influencing responses in clinical self-report inventories.
• The developed EMHQ demonstrates the significant impact of social desirability, providing a basis for future research and improved assessment tools.