BACKGROUND Studies of HIV often use self-reported surveys to measure sexual knowledge, attitudes, and practices. However, the self-reported data are vulnerable to social desirability (SD), a propensity of individuals to report favorable responses. The Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (MC-SDS) was developed as a measure of the effect of social desirability, but it has not been adapted fo...

In authoritarian regimes election polls can be vastly polluted by measurement error, namely the social desirability bias, which can contribute to substantial inflation in the publicized estimates of an autocrat’s electoral support and voter turnout. This study provides an in-depth analysis of the magnitude of social desirability bias in polling estimates released before and after the 2012 Russi...

The present chapter presents two studies examining the differential effects of acquiescence and social desirability on value scores across cultures. In the first study, culture-level acquiescence indexes were extracted from data in eight multinational surveys, and culture-level social desirability scores were obtained from a meta-analysis of the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale. Both ty...

Scholars have long suggested that as a particular view or perspective becomes the social norm, we run the risk of overestimating the prevalence of this perspective due to social desirability bias. In this manuscript we address this possibility of this effect in one of the most fundamental measures in American politics: the measure of partisanship. In particular, we argue that social desirabilit...

Attempts to measure and analyze public opinion attitudes toward racial/ethnic minorities often confront the "social desirability" problem: those who have prejudiced attitudes are rarely willing to admit them to surveyors. Instead, they may be more likely to give a socially acceptable answer rather an accurate reflection of their views. Previous research has clearly established that this effect ...

The aim of this meta-analysis was to compare social desirability scores between paper and computer surveys. Subgroup analyses were conducted with Internet connectivity, level of anonymity, individual or group test setting, possibility of skipping items, possibility of backtracking previous items, inclusion of questions of sensitive nature, and social desirability scale type as moderators. Subgr...