The DOI matches its Crossref record, with a small difference in title or year; 222 of the 222 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Rethinking Social Desirability Scales: From Impression Management to Interpersonally Oriented Self-Control
Abstract
Social desirability (specifically, impression management) scales are widely used by researchers and practitioners to screen individuals who bias self-reports in a self-favoring manner. These scales also serve to identify individuals at risk for psychological and health problems. The present review explores the evidence with regard to the ability of these scales to achieve these objectives. In the first part of the review, I present six criteria to evaluate impression management scales and conclude that they are unsatisfactory as measures of response style. Next, I explore what individual differences in impression management scores actually do measure. I compare two approaches: a defensiveness approach, which argues that these scales measure defensiveness that stems from vulnerable self-esteem, and an adjustment approach, which suggests that impression management is associated with personal well-being and interpersonal adjustment. Data from a wide variety of fields including social behavior, affect and well-being, health, and job performance tend to favor the adjustment approach. Finally, I argue that scales measuring impression management should be redefined as measures of interpersonally oriented self-control that identify individuals who demonstrate high levels of self-control, especially in social contexts.
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
“Moreover, there is overwhelming evidence that impression management scales do not tap defensiveness but a very different construct, which has been recently labeled interpersonally oriented self-control (IOSC).”
From The Adaptive Calibration Model of stress responsivity (2011) · cites this paper as Uziel, 2010
In the citing paper
“However, subsequent research has shown that “repressive” individuals do in fact experience lower levels of negative emotion, and – contrary to predictions – do not incur increased health risks (reviewed in Uziel, 2010).”
From The Adaptive Calibration Model of stress responsivity (2011) · cites this paper as Uziel, 2010
Citations
Cites
Items 201–222 of 222
Brody, S., Veit, R., & Rau, H. (1997) · Personality and Individual Differences · doi:10.1016/s0191-8869(96)00253-x · Cited by 20
Self-control and chronic headache
Courey, L., Feuerstein, M., & Bush, C. (1982) · Journal of Psychosomatic Research · doi:10.1016/0022-3999(82)90092-7 · Cited by 19
Psychological response styles and cardiovascular health: Confound or independent risk factor?
Rutledge, T. R., Linden, W., & Davies, R. F. (2000) · Health Psychology · doi:10.1037/0278-6133.19.5.441 · Cited by 19
Defensive hostility and cardiovascular responses to stress in young men
Mente, A., & Helmers, K. F. (1999) · Personality and Individual Differences · doi:10.1016/s0191-8869(98)00268-2 · Cited by 18
Agentic and communal bias in socially desirable responding
Lönnqvist, J., Verkasalo, M., & Константиновна, Б. И. (2007) · European Journal of Personality · doi:10.1002/per.639 · Cited by 18
Kline, J. P., & Allen, S. (2008) · International Journal of Psychophysiology · doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2008.02.002 · Cited by 18
Najström, M., & Jansson, B. (2006) · Cognitive Behaviour Therapy · doi:10.1080/16506070510011566 · Cited by 18
Personality predictors of the time course for lung cancer onset
Augustine, A. A., Larsen, R. J., Walker, M. S., & Fisher, E. B. (2008) · Journal of Research in Personality · doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2008.06.006 · Cited by 17
Bybee, J. A., Kramer, A., & Zigler, E. (1997) · American Journal of Orthopsychiatry · doi:10.1037/h0080211 · Cited by 15
Personality inventory faking: A four-dimensional simulation of dissimulation
Holden, R. R., & Evoy, R. A. (2005) · Personality and Individual Differences · doi:10.1016/j.paid.2005.06.007 · Cited by 14
Contrada, R. J., Czarnecki, E., & Pan, R. L.-C. (1997) · Health Psychology · doi:10.1037//0278-6133.16.5.451 · Cited by 13
Quality of Life in Heart Transplant Candidates
Deshields, T. L., Mannen, K., Tait, R. C., & Bajaj, V. (1997) · Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings · doi:10.1023/a:1026241500433 · Cited by 12
Joiner, T. E., Vohs, K. D., Katz, J., Kwon, P. H., & Kline, J. P. (2003) · Self and Identity · doi:10.1080/15298860309020 · Cited by 12
Defensive personality effects on cardiovascular health: A review of the evidence.
Rutledge, T. R. (2006) · Cited by 12
Approval motive and self-estimates of academic performance.
Petzel, T. P. (1972) · Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology · doi:10.1037/h0033441 · Cited by 9
Associations of Social Personality Factors with Personal Habits
Joubert, C. E. (1995) · Psychological Reports · doi:10.2466/pr0.1995.76.3c.1315 · Cited by 9
Is the Neuroticism Scale of the Eysenck Personality Inventory contaminated by response bias?
McKelvie, S. J. (2004) · Personality and Individual Differences · doi:10.1016/s0191-8869(02)00348-3 · Cited by 9
Contrada, R. J., Czarnecki, E. M., & Pan, R. L.-C. (1997) · Health Psychology · doi:10.1037/0278-6133.16.5.451 · Cited by 8
Personality, Attraction, and Social Ambiguity
Johnson, C. D., & Gormly, A. V. (1975) · The Journal of Social Psychology · doi:10.1080/00224545.1975.9923342 · Cited by 7
Need for Social Approval as Related to Speech Interruption in Dyadic Communication
Natale, M. (1976) · Perceptual and Motor Skills · doi:10.2466/pms.1976.42.2.455 · Cited by 7
Response Sets as Personality Concepts
Lanyon, R. I., & Drotar, D. (1968) · Psychological Reports · doi:10.2466/pr0.1968.23.3.751 · Cited by 4
The Structure and Utility of Social Desirability Scales in Psychological Research
Smith, H. L. (1997) · Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) · Cited by 3
Research works printed but not linked: 10
- Agarwal V., 1977, Asian Journal of Psychology & Education, 2, 36
- 10.1037/0033-2909.117.3.497 · DOI · Paper page
- Eysenck H.J., 1975, Manual for the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire
- Gough H.G., 1987, California Psychological Inventory manual
- 10.1037/0022-3514.70.5.1037 · DOI
- 10.1207/s15327043hup1102&3_7 · DOI
- Rutledge T., 2006, Stress and its impact on society, 1
- Schwerdtfeger A., 2002, Journal of Psychophysiology, 16, 249
- Uziel L., 2009, Poster presented at the 10th annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP 2009)
- Uziel L., 2008, Poster presented at the 2008 conference of the Association for Research in Personality (ARP)
Cited by
Sorted by citations
The Adaptive Calibration Model of stress responsivity
Del Giudice, M., Ellis, B. J., & Shirtcliff, E. A. (2011) · Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2010.11.007 · Cited by 1,373
Duckworth, A. L., & Yeager, D. S. (2015) · Educational Researcher · doi:10.3102/0013189x15584327 · Cited by 993
Controlling social desirability bias
Larson, R. B. (2018) · International Journal of Market Research · doi:10.1177/1470785318805305 · Cited by 662
MacDonald, K. S., Thomas, M. L., Sciolla, A., Schneider, B., Pappas, K., Bleijenberg, G., Bohus, M., Bradley, B., Carpenter, L. L., Carr, A., et al. (2016) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0146058 · Cited by 374
The Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding Short Form (BIDR-16)
Hart, C. M., Ritchie, T. D., Hepper, E. G., & Gebauer, J. E. (2015) · SAGE Open · doi:10.1177/2158244015621113 · Cited by 354
Metadata
- Authors
- Uziel, L.
- Affiliations
- Bar-Ilan University (IL)
- Corresponding author
- Uziel, Liad
- ORCID
- Uziel, Liad
- Venue
- Perspectives on Psychological Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2010-05
- Volume
- 5
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 243-262
- ISSN
- 1745-6916 (ISSN-L)
- 1745-6924
- OpenAlex
- W2113634081
- Cited by
- 348
- References
- 207
- Citations by year
- 2026: 14 · 2025: 19 · 2024: 18 · 2023: 20 · 2022: 21 · 2021: 44 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 16 · 2018: 22 · 2017: 29 · 2016: 24 · 2015: 33 · 2014: 22 · 2013: 16 · 2012: 17
- FWCI
- 1.83
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Perspectives on Psychological Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Psychological Testing and Assessment
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Psychometric Methodologies and Testing
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Traits and Psychology
- Keywords
- social desirability, impression management, self-report bias, response styles, defensiveness, self-esteem, interpersonal adjustment, well-being, self-control, scale evaluation, employee performance
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