Not too little, but not too much: The perceived desirability of responses to personality items

• Published in: Journal of research in personality Vol. 46; no. 1; pp. 8 - 18
• Main Authors: Dunlop, Patrick D., Telford, Amelia D., Morrison, David L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Inc 01.02.2012
• Subjects: Faking; HEXACO; High stakes; Impression management; Likert scale; Personality; Response desirability; Likert scale; HEXACO; Impression management; Personality; Faking; High stakes; Response desirability
• ISSN: 0092-6566; 1095-7251
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jrp.2011.10.004

► Participants rated the desirability of Likert responses to personality items. ► Four occupational selection contexts were considered. ► Perceived desirability was not linearly related to trait level. ► Perceived desirability for some items varied with job type. Paradigms typically employed to investigate socially desirable responding in personality assessment implicitly assume linear relationships exist between trait level and desirability but recent research has called this assumption into question. In this study, participants rated the desirability of a hypothetical applicant to one of four jobs on the basis of which five-point Likert-type scale option he/she selected when responding to personality items. Results generally indicated that the most extreme option, on the desirable side of the response scale, was rated as most desirable, but perceived desirability asymptotes with the penultimate option. The middle (neutral) option, however, was consistently regarded as being much less desirable. The occupational context also significantly moderated the patterns of desirability ratings for many items.