Content area
Full text
We assessed the impact of two distinct forms of socially desirable responding-self-deceptive enhancement and impression management-on sexuality self-reports (n = 504) under anonymous testing conditions. Results revealed significant positive relationships between self-deceptive enhancement and sexual adjustment variables for both sexes. Impression management was significantly negatively related to a number of intrapersonal (e.g., unrestricted sexual fantasies, sexual drive) and interpersonal (e.g., sexual experience, virginity status) sexual behaviors for females, and to unrestricted sexual attitudes and fantasies for males. We calculated correlations were first calculated between self-deceptive enhancement, impression management, and personality and conservatism scores. Self-deceptive enhancement and impression management were significantly associated with personality for males and females, and with conservatism for females only. When personality and conservatism variance were partialed out, associations between self-deceptive enhancement and sexuality variables were eliminated, but associations between impression management and sexuality measures remained significant. These findings highlight the importance of a two-factor approach to assessing socially desirable responding, and provide modest support for the view that response bias may intrude in self-report sex data, even under anonymous testing conditions.
Socially desirable responding, the tendency to tailor responses for the purpose of looking good, has been a topic of concern in self-report assessment for over six decades (e.g., Bernreuter, 1933). The influence of socially desirable responding on self-report measures of sexual behavior has been of particular concern given the private nature of sexual activity, and the fact that people often feel embarrassed or threatened when asked to provide information on their sexual encounters (e.g., Herold & Way, 1988). The tendency for respondents to present themselves in a favorable light can undermine the validity of self-report indices of sexuality by leading respondents to (a) underreport or overreport certain sexual acts, (b) deny having engaged in or falsely claim participation in certain sexual acts, and (c) omit answers to questions they believe will reflect negatively on their character. The assumption that socially desirable responding and other response styles invariably distort the accuracy of self-report sexual measures has led some reviewers to question whether self-report data can in fact provide any meaningful information about human sexuality. For example, in response to the recently published survey Sex in America (Michael, Gagnon, Laumann, & Kolata, 1994), one reviewer concluded:
. . . we cannot avoid...