Socially desirable responding and motivational context: A test of process level of Paulhus' model

Čudina, Andrea. (2013). Socially desirable responding and motivational context: A test of process level of Paulhus' model. Diploma Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of Psychology. [mentor Jerneić, Željko].

Preview

PDF (Croatian) Download (539kB) | Preview

Abstract

Socially desirable responding is a tendency to give overly positive self-descriptions. The aim of this study was to test the basic assumption of Paulhus’ model (Paulhus, 2002), which splits socially desirable responding into unconscious enhancement and conscious impression management. In this study independent samples of participants were questioned in three motivational conditions: anonymous/honest (N=98), simulated selection (N=103) and real selection (N=88). The participants in the simulated selection and the honest condition were students, while job applicants participated in real selection. A five-factor personality questionnaire IPIP-100 and a social desirability inventory CIDR-40, a Croatian adaptation of Comprehensive Inventory of Desirable Responding, were used in each of the three conditions. The results have shown that enhancement, just as impression management, increased with the increase of motivation for favourable self-presentation. Paulhus’ model also assumes relations between socially desirable responding and personality traits, so we investigated them and found that the correlations of personality traits and impression management scales, as well as those of personality traits and enhancement scales increase in accordance with the motivational context. The results reject Paulhus’ model and it seems it is not possible to distinguish conscious and unconscious socially desirable responding by this kind of operationalization of the model.

Actions (login required)

View Item