Masters Theses

Date of Award

5-2000

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Major

Psychology

Major Professor

Warren H. Jones

Abstract

Social desirability reflects the tendency of individuals to present themselves favorably, or in a desirable light, with respect to social norms and standards. The Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale is perhaps the best known index of socially desirable responding (SDR), but it has proven to be a dual measure of social desirability and the approval-dependent personality. Paulhus's Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR) sought to improve upon the BIDR by representing SDR as a dual component construct. Specifically, the BIDR measures two facets of social desirability: self-deception, underlying, overly positive, unconscious self-images and impression management, self-presentation to create a positive social image. Despite the various conceptualizations of socially desirable responding {e.g., lying, faking good, need for approval), no extant SDR scale includes the conception of deliberate deception which can be defined as a purposeful misrepresentation of the self aimed at external gain. The Item Response Inventory (IRI) was designed to measure three facets of social desirability: self-deceptive positivity, impression management, and deliberate deception. Study 1 assessed the psychometric properties {e g, internal reliability) of the IRI. Both IRI subscales and combined scores were found to be reliable {e.g., for combined scores Coefficient alpha = 0.81 and mean inter-item correlation = 0.14). Study 2 explored the convergent and discriminant validity of the revised IRI by comparing the IRI with extant measures of social desirability and other conceptually-related measures. Mixed results were found regarding the utility of including deliberate deception into the broader conceptualization of SDR.

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