Social Desirability

This paper develops a simple model of monopoly platform pricing accounting for two pertinent features of matching markets. 1) The trading process is characterized by search and matching frictions implying limits to positive cross-side network effects and the presence of own-side congestion. 2)Matched agents bargain over the division of the match surplus depending on the qualitative characteristics of both parties.

This study examined the impact of different styles of television portrayal of a young adult male with Down Syndrome upon the attitudes of 92 undergraduate students. Their attitudes were considered using measures of beliefs, feelings of comfort, behavioral intentions, volunteering intentions, social desirability and variables associated with previous contact (quality and quantity of contact and media exposure). Participants were assigned to experimental conditions based on television viewing preferences. They viewed one of three programs: “Man Alive: David” (documentary), “Life Goes On” (drama), or “My So Called Life” (control). A multiple stepwise regression yielded a number of predictors of attitudes including: gender, experimental condition, quality and quantity of previous contact, prior media exposure, and social desirability.

Context-specific personality items provide respondents with a common frame of reference unlike more traditional, noncontextual personality items. The common frame of reference standardizes item interpretation and has been shown to reduce measurement error while increasing validity in comparison to noncontextual items (M. J. Schmit, A. M. Ryan. S. L. Stierwalt. & S. L. Powell, 1995). Although the frame-of-reference effect on personality scales scores has been well investigated (e.g., M. J. Schmit et al., 1995), the ability of this innovation to obtain incremental validity above and beyond the well-established, noncontextual personality scale scores has yet to be examined. The current study replicates and extends work by M. J. Schmit et al. (1995) to determine the incremental validity of the frame-of-reference effect. The results indicate that context-specific personality items do indeed obtain incremental validity above and beyond both noncontextual items and cognitive ability, and in spite of socially desirable responding induced by applicant instructions. The implications of these findings for personnel selection are discussed.

The current study examined whether a social desirability response bias is a source of measurement error in prevention research. Six hundred and seventy-seven female students in Grade 7 (n = 345) and Grade 8 (n = 332) were divided into either an intervention condition, in which participants watched a videotape promoting body acceptance and discouraging dieting and then discussed issues related to the video, or a control condition. Questionnaires were completed at baseline, postintervention, and at 1-month follow-up. Social desirability scores were correlated at a low but significant level with baseline body dissatisfaction, drive for thinness, bulimic tendencies, intention to diet, and size discrepancy for intervention participants. Social desirability did not correlate significantly with change over time in the outcome measures. The findings suggested that changes in girls' self-reports related to a prevention program were relatively free of social desirability response bias.

There is widespread discussion both within and outside Cuba concerning what direction the Cuban economy will go under its new interim president Raul Castro. This short paper is intended to contribute two pieces of information that are needed to intelligently discuss that issue- where Cuba’s economy stands today, and what type of reforms Cuba’s political and economic leadership say they intend to implement. Its goal is to compactly present current information on some of the key economic issues Cuba faces in regards to both the present and the near future, and thereby give a solidly information-based picture of Cuba’s current economic reality. It presents two central conclusions. First, that the evidence supports that there indeed has been real and meaningful accelerated improvement in the Cuban economy in recent years, and at the same time Cuba remains far from being able to meet many of its citizens’ economic needs in accord with its own principals of human development. Second, that...

This study examined the influence of personality information on perceptions of the physical attractiveness of a range of female body sizes. A sample of 2,157 male university students were randomly assigned to one of 10 groups in which they received personality information about women they were rating, or a control group in which they received no personality information. Controlling for participants' age and body mass index, results showed no significant between-group differences in the body size that participants found most attractive. However, participants provided with positive personality information perceived a wider range of body sizes as physically attractive compared with the control group, whereas participants provided with negative personality information perceived a narrower range of body sizes as attractive. Correlations showed that participants' own Extraversion was associated with their body size ratings. These results suggest that non-physical cues have an in...

The increase of violence in present-day society calls for adequate crisis interventions for students with behavioral problems. Life Space Crisis Intervention (LSCI) is a systematic and formatted response to a student's crisis, based on cognitive, behavioral, psychodynamic and developmental theory. The following research article evaluates a LSCI Program with students referred to special schools with residential treatment because of severe behavioral problems. The evaluation was conducted using a quasi experimental pre-test-post-test control group design. Thirty-one match paired students were pre-tested before the interventions started and post-tested after a period of 11 months. Five standardized questionnaires were examined to assess the effectiveness of the LSCI Program. General Linear Model (GLM) with repeated measures was used to analyze all data. For the total group of subjects (n = 62) it was found that students' perception about their athletic competence decrease significantly after 11 months in residential care. A positive effect of LSCI was found on direct aggression and social desirability.

1. Why is it difficult to challenge oppression in your clinical practice personal lives, and community? 2. What steps are you taking to actively disrupt the cycle of oppression to reduce micro aggression in your clinical work and in your life?3. Do you actively develop friendships with people who don’t share your social identities to unearth stereotypes and to become aware of unconscious prejudice?

A large and diverse body of marketing literature suggests that well-known brands enjoy several advantages compared to less familiar brands. Specifically, brands with higher levels of familiarity appear to achieve higher levels of liking or preference among both consumers and retailers. This familiarity-liking relationship has proven to be one of marketing's most robust and reproducible empirical generalizations. However, there remains a considerable amount of uncertainty as to the conditions under which this relationship arises. In this study, we identify, conceptualize, and empirically assess three alternative hypotheses of the familiarity-liking relationship: mere exposure, information availability, and social desirability. Our results suggest that social desirability is the most powerful of these three potential mechanisms underlying the familiarity-liking phenomenon.

Perfectionistic self-presentation is proposed as a deleterious interpersonal style that has an influence in clinical contexts that involves promoting a public image of perfection and avoiding displays and self-disclosures of imperfections. A sample of 90 clinical patients taking part in a clinical interview were assessed in terms of their levels of perfectionistic self-presentation and trait perfectionism and their affective, cognitive, and physiological reactions. Perfectionistic self-presentation dimensions were associated with (1) greater distress before and after the interview, (2) negative expectations and greater threat prior to the interview, and (3) post-interview dissatisfaction. Analyses of physiological data found that perfectionistic self-presentation was associated with higher levels of heart rate when discussing past mistakes, and, as expected, the need to avoid disclosing imperfections predicted higher levels of and greater change in heart rate when discussing past mi...

Time-use studies typically have a single focus: the duration of human activities. That is, they ask respondents to report everything they did during a 24-hour period along with some indication of the starting and stopping times of those actions. This chronological reporting procedure avoids many,of the pitfalls of other survey estimation procedures and is less subject to distortion due to social desirability bias. But there are many,methodological considerations to take into account when designing a time-use survey. Decisions concerning reporting procedures and mode,of data collection may influence data quality. Likewise, the choice of follow-up probes and the treatment of simultaneous activities can determine the amount,of information available for accurate and reliable coding of activities. This paper will describe the methodological decisions our working group faced when designing a time-use survey and introduce the choices that we made. 3 Measuring How People Spend Their Time