Abstract
D. Phil. (Industrial Psychology)
This study focused on the measurement of social desirability from a cross-cultural perspective. In applied settings industrial psychologists use social desirability scales to eliminate sources of bias or systematic error that are not relevant to the measured attribute, to identify applicants who are deliberately presenting themselves in a positive manner, to adjust personality scale scores or to flag potentially invalid personality profiles. Socially desirable responding on personality measures continues to be an important concern for researchers and practitioners due to the potentially serious consequences of response distortion in personnel selection contexts.
The effect of socially desirable responding on the validity and utility of personality testing in employment settings has been extensively debated and researched internationally. However, depending on the operational definition of social desirability used and the choice of research design, research results have been mixed and at times contradictory. In addition, there is growing recognition that the cross-cultural transferability of the social desirability construct needs to be empirically examined. Furthermore, the influence of potential race and ethnic group differences in social desirability scale scores, which can lead to disproportional selection ratios, has not been sufficiently researched in South Africa. This study therefore focused on the systematic analysis of theoretical and scientific evidence relating to socially desirable responding in occupational settings across different cultures and across different personality instruments currently in use in South Africa.