The DOI matches its Crossref record.
A note on socially desirable responding.
Abstract
Socially desirable responding is a construct that has been included in many studies in counseling psychology, however many of these applications are dated and out of agreement with more current research. This article includes a brief review of the extensive research in socially desirable responding. The questions addressed are (a) what is socially desirable responding and (b) how is it manifest in social desirability scales with respect to bias and substantive variance? Prominent examples of how social desirability is used in counseling research are included along with comments regarding how these applications can be improved. Finally there are recommendations made regarding the incorporation of socially desirable responding in counseling psychology research.
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“First, the self-report nature of the surveys introduces the possibility of socially desirable responding (SDR). SDR was not measured in our study; however, a recent article demonstrated that SDR is not always a problem (Tracey, 2016).”
From The development and evaluation of a brief form of the Normative Male Alexithymia Scale (NMAS-BF). (2019) · cites this paper as Tracey, 2016
In the citing paper
“Similarly, the included self-report measures are vulnerable to social desirability bias, although this may be less of an issue within a fully remote RCT [124].”
From Testing the efficacy of a multicomponent, self-guided, smartphone-based meditation app: Three-armed randomized controlled trial (2020) · cites this paper as [124]
Citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Items 101–110 of 110
Liu, J., Chenghai, Y. A. N., & Zhang, J. (2024) · PSYCHOLOGIA · doi:10.2117/psysoc.2023-a219
“SD is considered to be both a unidimensional variable and a multifactorial structure (Perinelli & Gremigni, 2016; Tracey, 2016).”
Construct Validity and Reliability of the ‘Lifestyle (PAHO) in the Adult Population’ Questionnaire
Barajas-Lizarazo, M. A., Gómez-Acosta, A., & Escobar-Velásquez, K. D. (2025) · Global Advances in Integrative Medicine and Health · doi:10.1177/27536130251340403
“31 Future research should address these limitations through a new study with a probabilistic sample and incorporate Item Response Theory (IRT) analysis to investigate differential item functioning (DIF) across subgroups.”
Development and Initial Validation of the Racial Allyship Characteristics Scale (RACS)
Hinger, C. L., & DeBlaere, C. (2025) · The Counseling Psychologist · doi:10.1177/00110000251352575
Asking about bias: Managing the sensitivities of voir dire questioning
Clayman, S. E., & Fox, M. P. (2025) · Language in Society · doi:10.1017/s0047404525101565
Yajima, N., Kawaguchi, T., Takahashi, R., et al. (2023) · Figshare · doi:10.6084/m9.figshare.22615079
Morais, M. D. F., & Miranda, L. C. (2021) · Dialnet (Universidad de la Rioja)
Intégration des interactions sensori-motrices et affectives dans le comportement d'achat
François, C. (2020) · theses.fr (ABES) · doi:10.70675/1513012bzb2a7z434az9734z11e833c54b41
Kelderer, F., Holmlund, S., Silfverdal, S., Domellöf, M., Mogren, I., & West, C. E. (2026) · BMC Public Health · doi:10.1186/s12889-026-27441-x
“It is uncertain how socially desirable responding would manifest in a context like this study, where responses were anonymous and there was no obvious benefit in reporting adherence more positively [28].”
Bartholdson, C., Bennesved, A., Wenemark, M., Grönlund, C. F., Bremer, A., Brännström, M., Pergert, P., & Svantesson, M. (2026) · BMC Medical Ethics · doi:10.1186/s12910-026-01573-6
Adverse Experiences in Brief Meditation Practices: Randomized Controlled Trial
Simonsson, O., Jiwani, Z., Ruiz, M., Narayanan, J., Osika, W., Hirshberg, M. J., & Goldberg, S. B. (2026) · JMIR Mental Health · doi:10.2196/95628
Metadata
- Authors
- Tracey, T. J. G.
- Affiliations
- Arizona State University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Tracey, Terence J. G.
- Venue
- Journal of Counseling Psychology
- Published
- 2016-03
- Volume
- 63
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 224-232
- ISSN
- 0022-0167 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-2168
- OpenAlex
- W2204457280
- Cited by
- 110
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 13 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 7
- FWCI
- 11.21
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Counseling Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Psychometric Methodologies and Testing
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Psychological Testing and Assessment
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Survey Methodology and Nonresponse
- Keywords
- social desirability bias, Social Desirability Scale, response bias, counseling psychology research, self-report measures
- MeSH terms
- Counseling, Humans, Social Desirability
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
