The more like me, the better : Individual differences in social desirability ratings of personality items

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1 The more like me, the better : Individual differences in social desirability ratings of personality items Kenn Konstabel Department of Psychology, Estonian Centre of Behavioural and Health Sciences University of Tartu, Estonia Abstract. Agreement between self-ratings and social desirability (SD) ratings on personality traits was studied using two questionnaires based on the five-factor model. For the majority of items, there was a positive correlation between self- and SD ratings; the correlations were higher for less evaluative items, indicating that a self-based heuristic was used when an item's desirability was difficult to judge. At the scale level, the correlations were the highest for Agreeableness and Openness to Experience, lower for Extraversion and Conscientiousness, and non-significant for Neuroticism. This pattern of results can partly be explained by the self-based heuristic, and partly by the moralistic and interpersonal dimension inherent in Agreeableness and the "other-oriented" subscales of Conscientiousness (e.g., dutifulness). The withinindividual correlations between self-ratings and SD ratings were, for a majority of participants, positive and were higher for people with high self-esteem and low neuroticism, consistently with the hypothesis that persons higher in self-esteem tend to self-enhance more. Keywords: Social desirability, self-enhancement, five-factor model INTRODUCTION The average person's self-description of personality is socially desirable in at least two senses: firstly, on most of the items, the modal response falls on the favorable side of the response scale; secondly, people tend to rate themselves higher on items that are regarded as higher on social desirability (Edwards, 1957; Konstabel, Aavik & Allik, in press; cf. Hofstee & Hendriks, 1998: ). The ratings of social desirability (SD) of traits are highly consensual, and are thus typically averaged for portraying the items or traits. On the other hand, there are also systematic individual differences in trait desirability ratings; Sinha and Krueger (1998) have related these differences to self-enhancement tendencies. There are multiple reasons to expect that high scorers on a given trait would also think of this trait as more desirable. Traits, as beliefs, can be regarded as "mental possessions" (Abelson, 1986); it is a well known result that people tend to value their possessions over the objects that they do not have

2 Social desirability ratings 2 (e.g., Bar-Hillel & Neter, 1996; Beggan, 1992). Closer to the present issue, Dunning and McElwee (1995) have found a tendency to use self-serving definitions of personality traits: for instance, people who describe themselves as "dominant", emphasize the desirable characteristics of dominance over undesirable ones. On the other side, in research on person perception it has often been found that people's self-ratings correlate with the "perceiver effect" the tendency to regard all others as similar on a given trait. Summarizing four previous studies, Kenny (1994, pp ) found a mean correlation of 0.40 between selfratings and the perceiver effect. Ready and colleagues (2000) showed that the degree to which raters' own personalities influence their ratings is dependent on the trait's ratability. In other words, raters use a "self-based heuristic" for traits that are difficult to rate. In the case of social desirability ratings of personality items, the self-based heuristic may play a role when there are no clear social norms concerning the behavior mentioned in the item. Finally, people show a tendency to self-enhance over a variety of contexts. This tendency is somewhat more pronounced for people with higher self-esteem (e. g., Kwan et al., 2004). In addition, Brown, Dutton, and Cook (2001) have argued that claiming to possess socially desirable qualities is one way of maintaining self-worth. From this perspective, one would expect normative beliefs to have an impact on self-ratings. In the present study we examine the relationships between self-ratings and social desirability ratings on two personality questionnaires based on the fivefactor model (McCrae & John, 1992). The correlations will be analyzed at two levels: between items and traits, and within individuals. Because the social norms are likely to be clearer for evaluative than neutral items, people would have a reason to use the self-based heuristic in their SD ratings of neutral items, but not of highly evaulative items. It can thus be expected that the self-sd correlations would be the highest for neutral items and traits, i.e., items and scales whose average social desirability ratings fall in the neutral range. For within-individual correlations, we follow the study by Sinha and Krueger (1998) who used within-individual correlations between self-ratings and average desirability ratings as an index of self-evaluation ("normative selfevaluation"), and a correlation between self-ratings and individual ratings of social desirability (controlling for the respective average ratings) as an index of self-enhancement ("idiographic bias index"). It should be noted, however, that the normative self-evaluation index is confounded with the mean differences between desirable and undesirable items: the index is expected to be higher when at least some of the items are keyed in a socially undesirable direction. Accordingly, the following predictions can be made about the within-individual correlations: (a) both normative self-evaluation and idiographic bias indices are

3 Social desirability ratings Item social desirability values Z r NEO PI R EPIP NEO Item social desirability values Z r Figure 1. Z-transformed correlations (Z r ) between self-ratings and social desirability ratings plotted against the average social desirability ratings (SD). N = 240 items. The prediction formula for the NEO PI-R is Z r = SD SD 2, and for the EPIP-NEO: Z r = SD SD 2. positive for a majority of people; (b) the normative self-evaluation index [but not the idiographic bias] is considerably reduced when the items keyed in an a priori socially undesirable direction are reflected before computations; and (c) both normative self-evaluation and idiographic bias are correlated with selfesteem and (negatively) with neuroticism. METHOD Participants. Sample 1 (NEO PI-R) included 123 persons (37 men and 86 women, mean age 35.6, sd=13.8, min=15, max=86), 110 of which had complete data on both self-ratings and social desirability ratings. Sample 2 (EPIP-NEO) included 134 first-year students (42 men and 92 women, mean age 19.4, sd = 1.1) of social sciences, participating for a partial fulfillment of a course credit. Of them, self-ratings on EPIP-NEO were obtained for 62 students (15 men and 47 women). (Because of incomplete data, the actual number of cases varies from 59 to 61 in the following analyses). Measures. The Estonian version (Kallasmaa et al., 2000) of the NEO-PI-R (Costa & McCrae, 1992) consists of 240 items forming 30 facet scales and 5 domain scales (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness). The subscales of the EPIP-NEO are similar in content to those of the NEO PI-R, but the items are shorter and easier to read. The factor structure of the EPIP-NEO is almost identical to that of the Estonian version of the NEO PI-R (Mõttus, Pullmann & Allik, in press).

4 Social desirability ratings 4 Table 1. Correlations of the self-ratings with the social desirability ratings NEO PI-R EPIP-NEO Correlations between aggregate scores Subscales with significant correlations Correlations between aggregate scores Neuroticism 0.04 N N2 N5 Subscales with significant correlations Extraversion 0.20 * E1 E3 E * E2 E3 E5 E6 Openness 0.55 *** O1 O *** O1 O6 Agreeableness 0.49 *** A1 A *** A1 A6 Conscientiousness 0.14 C2 C3 C ** C2 C3 C6 Note. Due to missing responses on some of the items, the N varies from 110 to 112 for the NEO PI-R, and from 59 to 61 for the EPIP-NEO. * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < Participants in the second sample also responded to the Estonian version of the Rosenberg self-esteem scale (Pullmann & Allik, 2000). Procedure. In the first sample, the order of the self-report and social desirability rating questionnaires was counterbalanced. The social desirability ratings were made using a scale ranging from 1 to 7, which in the following analyses was transformed to range from -3 to +3, with 0 as a neutral option. In the second sample, the participants could freely choose the time to fill in the questionnaires; the social desirability ratings were made in the web on a scale ranging from -3 to +3. RESULTS Item social desirabilities and their correlations with self-reports First, we computed the average social desirability ratings for all items in both questionnaires. The mean of these averages was close to 0 in both cases, but the ratings tended to be more extreme in the case of EPIP-NEO: standard deviation of the averages was 0.84 for the NEO PI-R, and 1.39 for the EPIP-NEO. Next, the correlations between the self-ratings and social desirability ratings were computed for each items; in both cases, a majority of these correlations were positive (230 in the case of EPIP-NEO, and 205 in the case of NEO PI-R). The mean correlation between self- and SD ratings (computed via r-to-z transformation) was 0.20 for the NEO PI-R items, and 0.28 for the EPIP-NEO items. To see whether the correlations between self- and social desirability ratings vary with item social desirability, the z-transformed correlations were predicted from the items' average SD values. For both instruments, it appeared

5 Social desirability ratings 5 Table 2. Quartiles of within-individual correlations between self-ratings and social desirability ratings Quartiles 25% 50% 75% % >0 a NEO PI-R (240 items; N=110) Untransformed items Self-ratings with individual desirability ratings Normative self-evaluation Idiographic bias All items keyed in a SD direction Self-ratings with individual desirability ratings Normative self-evaluation Idiographic bias EPIP-NEO (240 items; N=62) Untransformed items Self-ratings with individual desirability ratings Normative self-evaluation Idiographic bias All items keyed in a SD direction Self-ratings with individual desirability ratings Normative self-evaluation Idiographic bias Note: a Percentage of the correlations greater than zero. "Normative self-evaluation" is the correlation between self-ratings and average social desirability ratings; "idiographic bias" is bipartial correlation between an individual's self-ratings and SD ratings, controlling for the respective averages (see text for further details). Table 3. The correlations of self-evaluation and bias indices with neuroticism and self-esteem NEO PI-R EPIP-NEO N N SE Untransformed items Self-ratings with individual desirability ratings Normative self-evaluation Idiographic bias All items keyed in a SD direction Self-ratings with individual desirability ratings Normative self-evaluation Idiographic bias Note: N=110 for NEO PI-R, and for EPIP-NEO. Significant correlations are shown in bold type. N = Neuroticism; SE = self-esteem.

6 Social desirability ratings 6 that the squared SD value was a significant predictor of the correlation; the R- squares from the models containing linear and quadratic predictors were 0.065for the NEO PI-R, and for the EPIP-NEO (the corresponding nonlinear correlations are and 0.249). The linear term was not significant in either of the models, and the quadratic term was significantly negative (ps < 0.001) in both of the models (the relationships are shown graphically on Figure 1). In other words, there was a slight but significant tendency that the self-sd correlations were higher for relatively neutral items, and lower for evaluatively more extreme items. Aggregate-level correlations between self- and social desirability ratings The correlations between aggregated scores of self- and SD ratings are shown in Table 1. The correlations were non-significant for Neuroticism and its subscales (except for N3: Depression in NEO PI-R, and N2: Angry Hostility and N5: Impulsiveness in EPIP-NEO). Small but significant correlations were obtained for Extraversion, and for three subscales of Conscientiousness (C2: Order, C3: Dutifulness, and C6: Deliberation), as well as the total score of Conscientiousness for the EPIP-NEO. The self SD correlations were the highest for Openness to Experience and Agreeableness, where all subscales showed significant correlations. Within-individual correlations between self- and social desirability ratings The within-individual correlations between self- and social desirability ratings are shown in Table 2. For each individual, three correlations were computed: (a) between self-ratings and in individual desirability ratings, (b) between selfratings and average desirability ratings, and (c) a bipartial (Cohen, 1982) correlation between self-ratings [with average self-ratings partialled out] and individual desirability ratings [with average desirability ratings partialled out]. The correlation (b) corresponds to the "normative self-evaluation" in Sinha and Krueger's (1998) terminology, and the correlation (c) corresponds to their "index of idiographic bias". To eliminate the influence of mean differences between desirable and undesirable items to the correlations (a) and (b), these calculations were repeated after reflecting the items to which an affirmative answer was a priori socially undesirable (i.e., all neuroticism items were recoded so that a higher number would indicate emotional stability, and the reverse-scored items for the remaining scales were reflected). From the results in Table 2 it can be seen that for a majority of participants, these within-individual correlations were positive. This was not completely explainable by the effect of average ratings, because for most of the participants (85 95% for different indices and samples), the correlations remained positive even after controlling for the averages. Both the idiographic bias and self-evaluation indices were correlated positively with self-esteem,

7 Social desirability ratings 7 and, in most cases, negatively with neuroticism. DISCUSSION The present research revealed several relationships between the ratings of self and social desirability. For the majority of items, there was a positive correlation between self- and SD ratings. The average SD ratings of personality items predicted about 5% of the variance in correlations between self- and SD ratings; the correlations were higher for the evaluatively more neutral items. At the aggregate level, there was a consistently positive self SD correlation for three dimensions of the five-factor model (Openness, Agreeableness, and Extraversion), and for three subscales of Conscientiousness. The correlations were the highest for Openness and Agreeableness. Finally, the within-individual correlations between self- and SD ratings were positive in a large majority of cases, even when controlling for the respective averages. The within-individual indices were also correlated with self-esteem and (negatively) with Neuroticism. In the following, each of these findings will be discussed in turn. The correlations between self- and SD ratings on single items were mostly positive, and, on average, small to moderate. The most likely explanation for the relationship with item social desirability values (less evaluative items showed higher correlations between self- and SD ratings) is the usage of "self-based heuristic" (Ready et al., 2000): to the degree that an item's favorability was difficult to judge, or to the degree that the social norms with regards to the desirability of a given item were unclear, people favored the items that were true for themselves. It would be more difficult to explain this relationship by positing an influence of item desirabilities on self-ratings. Although social norms may provide a cue for judging one's own qualities and less evaluative items might therefore be slightly easier to rate, it is also known that people tend to boost themselves more on more desirable items (Asendorpf & Ostendorf, 1998; Konstabel et al., in press). If the correlations between self- and SD ratings showed self-enhancement, one would thus expect an opposite relation (higher correlations for more evaluative items) or no relation at all if people both selfenhance and use a "norm-based heuristic" for difficult to judge items. A further complication is that even if people find it more difficult to rate themselves on less normative items, using a "norm-based heuristic" would not help much because social norms concerning these items are by definition unclear. The correlations between aggregate scores followed partly a similar pattern: the correlations between self- and SD ratings were low for the most evaluative traits (Neuroticism and Conscientiousness), and highest for Openness, which is evaluatively the most neutral. An important exception was Agreeableness, which is a highly socially desirable trait but which showed

8 Social desirability ratings 8 almost as high correlation between the self- and SD ratings as Openness. This cannot be explained by the usage of a self-based heuristic; the explanation must be related to the characteristics of the trait of Agreeableness rather than the process of judgment. Conceptually, Agreeableness reflects a tendency to value others' welfare and social relationships. In Schwartz' model of values, only Agreeableness is related to the group of values that emphasize the "requirements of successful interaction among people" (Roccas et al., 2002). Because the value of cooperation and, possibly, expectations of reciprocity are an important part of Agreeableness (cf. Ashton & Lee, 2001), it is only natural that this dimension is also expressed in social perception. For example, in Kenny's (1994, p. 184) review, the correlations between self-ratings and perceiver effects were the highest for Agreeableness (averaging 0.65, but less than 0.4 for other "big five" traits). Agreeableness is also the only trait on which there has been found positive "generalized reciprocity", i.e., people who perceive others as agreeable, are perceived by others as agreeable (Kenny, 1994, p ; Paulhus & Reynolds, 1995). Paulhus and Reynolds (1995) argue that the (likely positive) social experiences of agreeable people lead them to perceive others as generally agreeable (and the other way round for disagreeable people); this reasoning can be extended to the valuing of agreeable behavior. It is also notable that the three subscales of Conscientiousness (C2: Order, C3: Dutifulness, and C6: Deliberation) on which we found significant self SD correlations, are the same that have been labeled "other-centered" (as opposed to "self-centered") in previous research (Moon, 2001; cf. Roccas et al., 2002, p. 798). Both Agreeableness and these aspects of Conscientiousness have a moral dimension (Paulhus & John, 1998); there is evidence to suggest that this moral value is perceived with more emphasis by high scorers on Agreeableness, whereas less agreeable people would describe agreeable behaviors more on a strong-weak dimension (Beggan, Messick & Allison, 1988). The within-individual correlations between self- and SD ratings were positive in a large majority of cases even when controlling for the average ratings. It can be conjectured that these correlations ([normative] selfevaluation, and idiographic bias, to use Sinha and Krueger's [1998] terminology) at least partly reflect the tendency to self-enhance, as their magnitude could be predicted by self-esteem and neuroticism. The present data do not allow inferences about the source of influence: in other words, whether people self-enhanced by claiming to possess desirable qualities, or by describing their own qualities as desirable. In the light of evidence at hand, both possibilities seem equally likely. In conclusion, the present study demonstrated that there are both interand intraindividual correlations between self-ratings and social desirability ratings of personality items. The interindividual correlations at the level of

9 Social desirability ratings 9 single items were higher for evaluatively neutral traits, which can be explained by the usage of self-based heuristic for difficult-to-judge social desirabilities. A result at the aggregate level that could not be explained by the usage of selfbased heuristic was the high correlation between self- and social desirability ratings for Agreeableness and for the "other-centered" aspects of Conscientiousness. These findings probably point at the moralistic dimension of these traits: claiming oneself to be "morally good" (e.g., caring for others' welfare) is conceptually almost the same as valuing these moral qualities; on the other hand, it is quite conceivable that a person is anxious or gregarious without thinking of it as something desirable. Finally, it was shown that the intraindividual correlations between self- and social desirability ratings were positive for a large majority of participants, even when controlling for the average ratings; these correlations are likely a manifestation of selfenhancement. Experimental evidence could be used to determine whether people self-enhance by rating item desirabilities in an egocentric way, or by shifting their self-descriptions toward the social norm, or both. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Jüri Allik and Toivo Aavik for useful discussions and comments on earlier drafts of this paper. REFERENCES Abelson, R. P. (1986). Beliefs are like possessions. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 16, Asendorpf, J. B., & Ostendorf, F. (1998). Is self-enhancement healthy? Conceptual, psychometric, and empirical analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, Ashton, M. S., & Lee, K. (2001). A theoretical basis for the major dimensions of personality. European Journal of Personality, 15, Bar-Hillel, M., & Neter, E. (1996). Why are people reluctant to exchange lottery tickets? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, Beggan, J. K. (1992). On the social nature of nonsocial perception: The mere ownership effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62, Beggan, J. K., Messick, D. M., & Allison, S. T. (1988). Social values and egocentric bias: Two tests of the might over morality hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55, Brown, J. D., Dutton, K. A., & Cook, K. E. (2001). From the top to down: Self esteem and selfevaluation. Cognition and Emotion, 15, Costa, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (1992). Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI). Professional manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources. Dunning, D., & McElwee, R. O. (1995). Idiosyncratic trait definitions: Implications for selfdescription and social judgment. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 68,

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