What is social desirability in psychology?

Most of us are naturally motivated to dedicate ourselves to print management because our external identity is at stake. However, when it comes to managing our outer identity, one particular type of distortion jumps to the top of the table: the social desirability bias. This desire refers to the need for approval and social acceptance.

It's a nice way of saying that we tend to say things to others that help us to be seen in a good light. A strategy that is part of a family of cognitive distortions that try to control the way the world sees us. In this Psychology-Online article, we tell you what is social desirability in psychology.

Index

1. What is the social desirability bias?
2. Theory of social desirability
3. Example of social desirability
4. How to control social desirability?

Social desire refers to the need for social approval and acceptance that some people live. It also refers to the belief of individuals that they can obtain them through appropriate and culturally accepted behaviors (Crowne and Marlowe, 1961). If you ask what is social desirability in psychology, then we will see how different authors describe this phenomenon.

In the 1970s, the aforementioned authors developed the Marlowe and Crowne Social Desirability Scale to measure social desirability. A social desirability test wanted to show that the responses on attitudes and social values may be biased due to people's tendency to give the most socially desirable responses. Currently, this is the most widely used test to calculate social desirability bias.

Another famous definition of social desirability comes from the hand of the psychologist Michele Roccato. In 1993, Roccato defined social desirability as the tendency to give untrue answers, but destined to appear better than they are. People pretend to be worthy of being positively sanctioned at the social level because of their dispositions, their moods, their attitudes, their opinions or their behaviors.

In 1996, Mick defined the concept of social desirability as follows: "tendency to make oneself look good in terms of prevailing cultural norms." In this case, social desire is defined as the tendency to give answers in line with the dominant thought. In this article, you will find information about the types of thinking according to psychology.

The theory of social desirability developed by Crowne and Marlowe in 1964 states the following: People differ greatly in the extent to which they request or appreciate approval of others. People who need a high degree of approval will use broader impression management strategies for this purpose than people who have a limited need. These authors designed the social desirability scale to measure this characteristic.

Still, people with high social desirability are not necessarily good impression managers. These types of individuals tend to remain calm and conformist in groups, and rarely begin social interaction with others for fear of being rejected. People with low social desirability are less concerned with using strategies to be accepted by others. In this article you will see how to overcome the fear of rejection.

In the previous section, we have seen what social desirability is. Next, we will see the meaning of social desirability through an example.

The first to empirically experience the phenomenon was the sociologist Richard Lapiere in the 1930s. Lapiere toured the United States for three months with two Chinese friends, spending the night in dozens and dozens of hotels and eating in hundreds of restaurants. At that time, American prejudice against Asians was very high.

When he returned home, he sent all the places where he had stayed a short questionnaire asking if they had problems hosting Asian citizens. Almost all of the answers that he got, according to social desire of that time, they were negative, except in a couple of cases. Thus, all those who had welcomed their Chinese friends declared that they would never do so.

With this example of social desirability, we see that for decades, the “virus” of social desirability has seriously threatened the reliability of survey results. In this article, we tell you more about the desire to be loved and accepted by others.

Psychosocial survey research has identified some means to reduce and measure the distorting effect of social desirability in surveys or questionnaires. Here's how to control social desirability:

• Anonymous self-compilationConsidering what social desirability is in psychology, one of the ways to reduce this phenomenon can be the use of anonymous autofill. In random surveys, where it is not necessary to know the identity of the subject, it seems to be a valid method, it allows the respondent more detachment and tranquility.
• Neutralized administration: Since 1996 it has been claimed that computer testing has the advantage of being impersonal, so that social desirability can be reduced. Therefore, the use of a computer compared to the more prepared interviewer would give a greater sense of neutrality. The person does not feel judged, does not remember figures from his own unconscious and, of course, there is an emotional detachment.
• Psychometric test: The falsehood scale, whose name is Paulhus Deception Scales (PDS), comes from a previous inventory that measured the Responses considered socially more acceptable and more desirable: the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR).

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to What is social desirability in psychology?, we recommend that you enter our category of Social psychology.

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