Stoeber (2001) has noted in the European Journal of Psychological Assessment that social desirability bias is when people respond to interview questions in ways that will be viewed favourably by others. Usually it occurs when an individual under reports a bad behaviour or over reports a good behaviour. In these instances, the social desirability bias poses a big problem to researchers who rely on self-reports, and more so for the researchers who depend solely on questionnaires.
When individuals realize that they are being watched or are being observed, they will tend to act in ways that are socially acceptable and socially desirable. In this way people will be able to impress when they are confronted with a situation where they have to exhibit a behavior that is socially desirable. However, social desirability bias affects the interpretation of the social data collected by social researchers and thus exposes the data to distortion. Moreover it interferes with the individual differences in data collection since every person will want to respond in ways that are viewed favorably by others. For instance, on personality and self reports questions, the interviewees will be influenced to respond in ways that will take the form of over reporting good behavior. Furthermore, when other sensitive topics like sexual behavior are questioned, the respondents will hardly respond in ways that jeopardies and undermines their social status, forcing them to under-report a bad behavior. Whether a respondent over-reports or under-reports it leads to distortion of the information which is not good and should be avoided (McBurney, 1994), in the book of Research Methods.
Social desirability bias results to distortion of data and people are likely to differ in the manner to which they engage in social desirability bias. Thus, to the social researcher’s social desirability bias is a big concern particularly on the aspect of individual difference when it comes to self reporting, because, a social researcher will hardly tell respondents who are factual and full of good traits from those who are distorting their answers to seek for positive accolade.
Owing to the fact that I am a student in the University where the research is intended, I am likely to respond in favorable ways. For instance I will prefer to leave behind a picture where the researchers are assured that the Master students are usually determined and committed to the research they do. Since the research question is open, I am highly placed to distort the response in ways that I over report good practices only. Also, based on the assumption that Master students are usually busy and hardworking people, I will be influenced to report that they spend the entire study time in academic work and even sometimes spill the free time at their disposal to do research and prepare for thesis. Since I am also associated to the university, and I also interact with these students, in my response I will be bias, and mostly I will over report good behavior, where I am likely to imply that the time is well spread for the academic work (Paulhus, 1998), in the article Paulhus Deception Scales.
Another aspect of social desirability bias in this study is likely to results from the social researchers themselves. They are more likely to underreport a bad behavior since they report to the university which in this case is their employer. For instance, when I am to advise that the students hardly concentrate and commit their time to academics, but instead employ this time on personal works and activities, I am convinced that the team would want to put it in a light note where they don’t report a poor image of the university to the administration. And these kinds of favors culminate to social desirability bias which should be addressed for better, unbiased and standard results.
Another reason why the social desirability bias is likely to culminate in my response is the lack of anonymity and confidentiality since I am going to feel directly involved in the answers that I am going to give. In this interviewing approach employed by the research team, there is no anonymous self administration which is usually good for reassurance, detachment and neutrality. Thus the researchers and the university should use a better approach where the questions are administered through a questionnaire and probably given to many students in the university through random selection, and then responses returned through mail to affirm to the respondents that their anonymity and confidentiality is factored in.
Crowne & Marlowe (1960) have noted in the Journal of Consulting Psychology that social desirability bias usually takes place when the administrator fails to neutralize the administered questions. And since the questions that I am to advise the research team over are broad and very open, I may be forced to tell the team anything which is pleasing so that I avoid being judged. Thus, the team and the university should use a better way to administer the questions by wording the questions in a neutral way or by using forced choice questions where the responses expected have been equated for their social desirability.
Crowne, D. P., & Marlowe, D. (1960) A new scale of social desirability independent of psychopathology. Journal of Consulting Psychology
McBurney D.H. (1994) Research Methods. California: Brooks/Cole, Pacific Grove.
Paulhus D.L. (1998) Paulhus Deception Scales (PDS) Toronto: Multi-Health Systems Publishers.
Stoeber, J. (2001). The social desirability scale-17 (SD-17). European Journal of Psychological Assessment
