Socially desirable response tendencies in survey research

1
Socially desirable response tendencies in survey
research

• Jan-Benedict E.M. Steenkamp
• Martijn G. de Jong
• Hans Baumgartner

2
SDR and survey research

• a frequently noted concern about self-reports
  collected through surveys is that respondents may
  not respond truthfully but simply provide answers
  that make them look good
• this phenomenon is called socially desirable
  responding or SDR (Paulhus 2002 Tourangeau and
  Yan 2007)
• SDR has been called one of the most pervasive
  response biases in survey data (Mick 1996, p.
  106), but it is often misunderstood and/or not
  dealt with correctly

3
Four common misconceptions

• SDR can be validly conceptualized as a
  unidimensional construct
• any of the SDR scales available in the literature
  can be used to assess SDR because they all
  measure the same construct
• the goal is to avoid a significant correlation
  between substantive constructs and SDR scales
  because such an association always implies
  contamination
• the biasing influence of SDR can be removed
  simply by including a measure of SDR as a control
  variable.

4
Three key issues to be addressed

• How should SDR be conceptualized and measured?
• What is the nomological constellation of
  personality traits, values, sociodemographics and
  cultural factors associated with SDR?
• Do ratings on SDR scales represent substance or
  style, and how should researchers interpret and
  deal with an association of SDR with a
  substantive marketing construct?

5
Global study

• data from 26 countries around the world
• (Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, China,
  Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany,
  Hungary, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway,
  Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovakia,
  Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Thailand, Ukraine,
  UK, and U.S)
• country samples broadly representative of the
  total population in terms of region, age,
  education, and gender
• data collection via web surveys or mall
  intercepts (laptops or hard copy)
• 12, 424 total respondents (355 to 640 1181 in
  the US)

6
The construct of SDR

• originally, SDR was conceptualized as a
  unidimensional construct (a persons enduring
  tendency to provide overly positive
  self-descriptions)
• two-factor conceptualizations
• based on degree of awareness (Paulhus 1991)
• exaggerated but honestly held self-view (alpha
  bias, self-deception, self-deceptive
  enhancement)
• deliberate attempt to project a favorable
  self-image (gamma bias, other-deception,
  impression management)
• based on domain of content (Paulhus and John
  1998)
• agency-related contexts involving dominance,
  assertiveness, autonomy, influence, control,
  mastery, uniqueness, power, status, and
  independence (egoistic response tendencies)
• communion-related contexts associated with
  affiliation, belonging, intimacy, love,
  connectedness, approval, and nurturance
  (moralistic response tendencies)

7
The construct of SDR (contd)

• four-factor conceptualizations (Paulhus 2002)
• (cross-classification by degree of awareness and
  domain of content)

8
Self-report measures of SDR

• Unidimensional scales
• Edwards SD scale (? SDE)
• Wiggins Sd scale, EPI Lie scale (? IM)
• Marlowe-Crowne SD scale (confounds SDE and IM)
• Multidimensional scales
• Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR
  Paulhus 1991)
• Self-deceptive enhancement (SDE)
• (e.g., I always know why I like things)
• Impression management (IM)
• (e.g., I always obey laws, even if Im unlikely
  to get caught)
• Self-deceptive denial (SDD)
• (e.g., I have never felt joy over someone else's
  failure)

9
Prior use of SDR scales in Marketing

• Marlowe-Crowne scale used in 26 articles in JMR,
  JM, and JCR between 1968 and 2008
• in 23 cases as a check for response bias in a
  construct of interest or to control for response
  bias when investigating the relationship between
  substantive constructs
• In 3 cases, it served as a measure of a
  substantive construct (e.g., social approval)
• BIDR used in only 7 articles between 1996 and
  2008
• 4 IM, 1 BIDR overall, 2 both SDE and IM
• with one exception, the BIDR was used to control
  for response bias

10
Evidence from the global study

• 10 SDE and 10 IM items (5 positively and 5
  negatively keyed, rated on 5-point Likert
  scales)
• ERT and MRT scores and reliabilities estimated
  using a hierarchical IRT approach
• average reliabilities for ERT and MRT of .67 and
  .73
• average correlation between ERT and MRT of .31

11
Country scores for ERT and MRT
12
SDR and personality traits

• correspondence between the Big Five (OCEAN) and
  the motives underlying SDR
• ERT (which satisfies power and achievement
  strivings as well as needs for mastery and
  control) is consistent with behavioral
  regularities reflective of openness to experience
  and extraversion
• MRT (which entails an avoidance of disapproval by
  conforming to social norms and a positive
  valuation of relationships and intimacy) is
  consistent with behavioral regularities
  reflective of conscientiousness and
  agreeableness
• issue of emotional stability and
  conscientiousness

13
Prior research on SDR and personality
14
SDR and values
Openness to change
Self-transcendence
Universalism
Self-direction
Stimulation
Benevolence
MRT
ERT
Hedonism
Conformity
Tradition
Achievement
Self-enhancement
Conservation
Security
Power
15
Prior research on SDR and values

• Lalwani et al. (2006 see also Shavitt et al.
  2006) studied cultural dimensions at the
  individual level and found, based on research
  with U.S. respondents, that
• horizontal individualism (horizontal
  collectivism) was consistently positively
  correlated with ERT (MRT)
• vertical individualism and vertical collectivism
  were not consistently related to either ERT and
  MRT

16
SDR and national culture

• since agency (communion) traits are socially
  desirable in individualistic (collectivistic)
  cultures, exaggerated self-perceptions on these
  qualities are likely to be beneficial therefore,
  ERT (MRT) should be higher in individualistic
  (collectivistic) cultures
• masculine cultures, which value assertiveness,
  achievement, and success, should be more likely
  to exhibit ERT, whereas feminine cultures, which
  value relationships, nurturance, and the welfare
  of people and nature, should be more likely to
  exhibit MRT

17
Prior research on SDR and national culture

• some evidence that MRT is higher in
  collectivistic countries than in individualistic
  countries (Van Hemert et al. 2002) the findings
  about the relationship between ERT and
  individualism are equivocal
• Van Hemert et al. (2002) reported a
  nonsignificant correlation of -.17 between
  masculinity/femininity and MRT

18
Evidence from the global study

• hierarchical IRT modeling was used to compute
  latent scores for ERT/MRT and the personality and
  value constructs dimensions of cultural
  variation based on Hofstede
• the hypotheses were tested based on the following
  multi-level model
• Level 1 SDRij ?0j ?1jOij ?2jEij ?3j
  ESij ?4jCij ?5jAij ?6j SEij
• ?7j OPENij ?8j STij ?9j CONSij
  ?10jGENDERij
• ?11jAGEij ?12jEDUCij ?13jSocClassij rij
•  
• Level 2 ?0j ?00 ?01 IND/COLj ?02 MAS/FEMj
  u0j
• ?qj ?q0 uqj for q 1, , 13

19
Evidence from the global study

• based on a model with a random intercept but no
  individual-level or country-level covariates, 32
  (13) percent of the variation in ERT (MRT) was
  between countries
• the individual-level covariates explained 27 (25)
  percent of individual differences in ERT (MRT)
• the cultural variables explained 29 (18) percent
  of the cross-national variation in ERT (MRT)

20
Evidence from the global study
21
Evidence from the global study
22
Do SDR scales capture substance or style?

• a high score on an SDR scale may indicate one or
  more of the following (see Tourangeau and Yan
  2007)
• although the self-descriptions given are
  seemingly overly positive, the respondent
  actually engages in the socially desirable
  behaviors, and refrains from engaging in the
  socially undesirable behaviors, reported
• the respondent provides exaggerated
  self-descriptions, but the self-reports are
  sincere and
• the respondent deliberately presents an inflated
  self-view in order to manage a certain impression

23
Prior correlational attempts to separate
substance from style

• Criterion-discrepancy measures
• if an SDR scale assesses distortion, it should be
  positively correlated with the extent to which a
  self-report exceeds a hypothesized unbiased
  criterion for the self-report
• S a0 a1 O a2 SDR
• Problems
• truly objective criteria are rare or cumbersome
  to collect
• observer ratings may not be unbiased
• positively biased self-ratings may not indicate
  self-favoring

24
Prior correlational attempts to separate
substance from style

• criterion-related validity of S for predicting
  O
• O b0' b1' S
• O b0 b1 S b2 SDR
• a significant relationship between S and SDR is
  attributed to style or substance by comparing b1'
  with b1
• if b1 gt b1' , SDR measures primarily style
• if b1 lt b1', SDR measures primarily substance
• research has usually shown that the coefficient
  of S remains unchanged or decreases in magnitude
  when SDR is included as a control (e.g., McCrae
  and Costa 1983)
• if the association between S and O is influenced
  by style, this method is problematic

25
Prior correlational attempts to separate
substance from style

• if partial correlation approaches are used to
  check whether relationships between different
  constructs are influenced by socially desirable
  responding, the problems are exacerbated
• O is no longer a (presumably unbiased) criterion
  but now refers to a measure of another construct
  collected from the same respondent
• if one assumes that the association between O and
  S is due to substance and SDR measures substance,
  b1 lt b1' implies that SDR incorrectly removed
  substantive variance from S and O
• if one assumes that the initial association
  between O and S was inflated by style and SDR
  measures style, b1 lt b1' suggests that
  controlling for SDR successfully removed the
  confounding effect of stylistic variance

26
Prior experimental attempts to separate substance
from style

• the degree of demand for self-presentation is
  manipulated and respondents scores in standard
  (low demand) and fake good (high demand)
  conditions are compared (see Paulhus 2002)
• asking respondents to fake good should
  encourage deliberate misrepresentation, so if
  scores on socially desirable constructs increase
  relative to the standard (control) condition,
  this provides evidence that conscious SDR can
  contaminate scores
• in particular, prior research has shown that SDR
  scales are sensitive to demand manipulations,
  which suggests that they can capture deliberate
  distortion

27

28
Effects of ERT and MRT on ethnocentrism
29
Conclusions

• SDR should be assessed using separate scales for
  ERT and MRT
• ERT and MRT are nomologically related to certain
  personality traits, values, and
  sociodemographics, as well as dimensions of
  cultural variation
• the assumption that a correlation between a
  marketing scale and an SDR measure invariably
  indicates contamination is unwarranted
• for certain scales and certain countries,
  relationships with ERT or MRT are nontrivial
  whether this reflects SDR bias is less clear

30
Universal value types (Schwartz 1992)
social power
POWER
SECURITY
preserving public image
national security
sense of belonging
wealth
authority
ACHIEVEMENT
social recognition
accepting portion in life
reciprocation of favors
clean
moderate
ambitious
social order
TRADITION
healthy
obedient
influential
family security
devout
honor parents
successful
capable
respect for tradition
HEDONISM
politeness
pleasure
detachment
intelligent
CONFORMITY
self- discipline
enjoying life
humble
responsible
loyal
BENEVOLENCE
exciting life
true friend- ship
STIMULATION
meaning in life
honest
self-respect
varied life
mature love
wisdom
forgiving
helpful
daring
choosing own goals

world at peace
world of beauty
spiritual life
protecting environment
social justice
independent
unity with nature
creativity
inner harmony
curious
equality
SELF-DIRECTION
freedom
UNIVERSALISM
broadminded