Social desirability describes the tendency of respondents to distort self-reports in a favorable direction (i.e., give answers that make the respondent look good when completing a self-report instrument) (Paulus 1991).

At the beginning, socially desirable response reflected only a response style (Pauls and Stemmler 2003). However, soon it emerged that social desirability could be conceptualised as a personality style (D.P. Crowne and Marlowe 1964). Recall Raymond in “Everybody loves Raymond”. He loved being called ‘a nice man’ and brought yummy snack to clubs always even when his wife told him it’s no so fair if other didn’t do so. Or Bree in Desperate Housewives who wants to be perfect all the time desperately.

Social desirability can cause bias in research, especially in psychological and medical research. Social desirability often manifests in the overestimation of desirable traits or behaviors and the underestimation of undesirable traits or behaviors (Paulus 1991).

For example, there is significant comorbidity between alcohol abuse and anxiety disorders. However, the prevalence of anxiety disorders in alcoholic samples has been found to be higher than the occurrence of alcohol abuse in anxiety disorder samples. (Cox et al. 1994). One of possible reasons is alcoholism is less socially acceptable than anxiety disorders. People also intend to overreport their physical activities, particularly when they know investigators are experts in health since physical activity has been considered to be a socially desirable behavior (Motl et al. 2005).

Social desirability bias also can affect research in sexual behavior. If investigators are sexual health workers other than column writer from Cosmopolitan, it’s very likely people will underreport the number of their sexual partners and overreport their protected sexual intercourse, such as condom use. Well, the problem here is how likely it is.

In my study, sex workers may overreport their use of male condoms. There is no existed evidence so far as I know in the UK to prove that they did so definitely. I am thinking there are several possible solutions to this issue. ……

Cox BJ, Swinson RP, Direnfeld DM, Bourdeau D (1994) Social desirability and self-reports of alcohol abuse in anxiety disorder patients. Behaviour Research and Therapy 32:175-178

D.P. Crowne, Marlowe D (1964) The approval motive. Wiley, New York

Motl RW, McAuley E, DiStefano C (2005) Is social desirability associated with self-reported physical activity? Preventive Medicine 40:735-739

Pauls CA, Stemmler G (2003) Substance and bias in social desirability responding. Personality and Individual Differences 35:263-275

Paulus DL (1991) Measurement and control of response bias. In: J.P. Robinson PRSaLSW (ed) Measures of personality and social psychological attitudes. Academic Press, San Diego (CA) pp 17-59