SOCIAL DESIRABILITY AND P RESPONSES ON THE SORT PHILIP LANGER

Utah State University

PROBLEM original work, the popular response

(P) has come to be considered a measure of social conformity. This study attempts to measure that part of the conformity represented by the response set variable of social desirability. Social desirability, as measured on the Gough Adjective Check- list, was correlated with P responses on the SORT. The hypothesis is that there is a positive correlation between social desirability and the magnitude of P responses on the SORT.

Although not included in Rorschach's

PROCEDURE The Gough Adjective Checklist consists of 300 self-descriptive adjectives, of

which 150 have been adjudged previously along a social desirability-undesirability continuum. The SORT is a group-objective version of the Rorschach, with the blots mounted on 35 mm. slides, administered following standard instructions.

The subjects were 73 students enrolled in the general psychology course at Utah State University. The tests were given during regular class time, with the Gough being administered first.

Using a technique proposed by Fredericksen and Messick(2), two scores were derived from the Gough. The first, or set score, gives the overall magnitude of the tendency to agree or disagree. The second, or content score, is in this case another response set variable, viz., social desirability. On the basis of the agree-disagree dimension, and sex, the subjects were divided into four groups: Male-agree set (N = 26) ; Male-disagree set (N = 10) ; Female-agree set (N = 18) ; and Female- disagree set (N = 19).l

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Spearman rhos were computed between social desirability scores and P re-

sponses on the SORT for each of the four groups. The rhos for the Male-agree (.24) and the Male-disagree (.88) groups were significant at the .05 and .01 level respect- ively (one-tailed test). The rhos for the Female-agree (- .09) and Female-disagree (.15) groups were not significant, however. The results only partially confirm the hypothesis, and also serve to reinforce Cronbach's (l) warnings concerning possible limitations of response set generalization. The research also verifies previous sex differences regarding response set, insofar as the Gough is concerned. ( 4 )

SUMMARY This study hypothesized that there was a positive relationship between social

desirability as measured on the Gough Adjective Checklist and P responses on the SORT. The hypothesis was confirmed for men, but not for women.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. CRONBACH, L. J . Response sets and test validity. Educ. Psychol. Meas., 1946,6,475-494. 2. FREDERICKSEN, N., and MESSICK, S. Response set as a measure of personality. Educ. Psychol.

3. LANGER, P. Compulsivity and response set on the Structured Objective Rorschach Test (SORT).

4. LANGER, P. Sex differences in response set. J . Psychol., in press. 5 . RORSCHACH, H. Psychodiagnostics. Berne, Switzerland: Verlag Hans Huber, 1942. 6. SIEGAL, S. Nonparamelm'c Statistics. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996.

'The decision to divide by the agree-disagree dimension is based on research which indicated that agree-disagree may represent quite dissimilar personality traits; the sex division was predicated on previous work with the Gough which indicated that this instrument reflected sex differences wit,h regard to response set.

Meas., 1959, 19, 137-57.

J . clin. Psychol., in press.