Socially desirable responding and sexuality self‐reports

Abstract

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.