Social Desirability Bias in self-reported wellbeing Measures: Evidence from an online survey

Abstract

Social desirability seems to enhance well-being measures because individuals tend to increase the degree of their satisfaction and happiness resulting in response artifacts and in a serious threat to the validity of self-reported data. This paper explores social desirability bias in self-reported subjective well-being, controlling for several sociodemographic variables such as gender, age, education, marital/relationship status, and employment status. This is in order to test whether social desirability has incremental validity in predicting some well-being measures. Three different facets of well-being are proposed which deal with subjective happiness, general life satisfaction, and gratitude and loneliness, respectively regarded as a positive and negative emotional response. Through a web-based survey a convenience sample of 170 participants completed an online questionnaire including measures of social desirability, subjective happiness, life satisfaction, gratitude, and loneliness. Correlation analyses and two-step hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted. All well-being measures show modest significant correlations with social desirability ranging from 0.235 to 0.309, except subjective happiness. Social desirability accounted for from about 3% to 6% of the variance of these measures, after controlling for socio-demographic variables. Social desirability seems thus to play little role in well-being self-report measures, as revealed by previous studies. Some limitations are discussed, as well as issues about social desirability bias in online investigation.

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| Universitas Psychologica | Colombia | V. 16 | No. 2 | Abril-Junio | 2017 | ISSN 1657-9267 |
a 
Autora de correspondencia. Correo electrónico:
andrea.caputo@uniroma1.it
How to cite: Caputo, A. (2017). Social desirability bias
in self-reported well-being measures: evidence from
an online survey. Universitas Psychologica, 16(2), 1-13.
https://doi.org/10.11144/Javeriana.upsy16-2.sdsw
DOI: http://doi.org/10.11144/Javeriana.upsy16-2.sdsw
Social Desirability Bias in self-reported well-
being Measures: Evidence from an online
survey *
Sesgo de deseabilidad social en las medidas de bienestar por
autoinforme: evidencia de una encuesta en línea
Received: 24 February 2015 | Accepted: 25 January 2017
Andrea Caputo
University “Sapienza” of Rome, Italia
ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3516-8332
a
ABSTRACT
Social desirability seems to enhance well-being measures because
individuals tend to increase the degree of their satisfaction and
happiness resulting in response artifacts and in a serious threat to
the validity of self-reported data. This paper explores social desirability
bias in self-reported subjective well-being, controlling for several socio-
demographic variables such as gender, age, education, marital/relationship
status, and employment status. This is in order to test whether
social desirability has incremental validity in predicting some well-being
measures. Three different facets of well-being are proposed which deal
with subjective happiness, general life satisfaction, and gratitude and
loneliness, respectively regarded as a positive and negative emotional
response. Through a web-based survey a convenience sample of 170
participants completed an online questionnaire including measures
of social desirability, subjective happiness, life satisfaction, gratitude,
and loneliness. Correlation analyses and two-step hierarchical multiple
regression analyses were conducted. All well-being measures show modest
significant correlations with social desirability ranging from 0.235 to
0.309, except subjective happiness. Social desirability accounted for from
about 3% to 6% of the variance of these measures, after controlling for
socio-demographic variables. Social desirability seems thus to play little
role in well-being self-report measures, as revealed by previous studies.
Some limitations are discussed, as well as issues about social desirability
bias in online investigation.
Keywords
social desirability bias; psychological well-being; web-based survey; happiness;
gratitude
RESUMEN
La deseabilidad social parece mejorar las medidas de bienestar, pues los
individuos tienden a aumentar el grado de satisfacción y felicidad que
resulta en artefactos de respuesta y en una seria amenaza para la validez de
los datos por autoinforme. Este artículo explora el sesgo de deseabilidad
social en el bienestar subjetivo autodeclarado, controlando variables
sociodemográficas, como el género, la edad, la educación, el estado civil/
familiar y la situación laboral, con el fin de probar si la deseabilidad
social tiene un incremento en la validez para predecir algunas medidas de

| Universitas Psychologica | V. 16 | No. 2 | Abril-Junio | 2017 |
Andrea Caputo.
bienestar. Se proponen tres facetas del bienestar que tratan
de la felicidad subjetiva: 1. la satisfacción general con
la vida, 2. la gratitud y 3. la soledad, respectivamente,
consideradas como una respuesta emocional positiva
y negativa. A través de una encuesta en línea, una
muestra de conveniencia de 170 participantes completó un
cuestionario en línea que incluía medidas de deseabilidad
social, felicidad subjetiva, satisfacción con la vida, gratitud
y soledad. Se realizaron análisis de correlación y análisis de
regresión jerárquica de dos etapas. Todas las medidas de
bienestar muestran modestas correlaciones significativas
con deseabilidad social que van desde 0.235 a 0.309,
excepto la felicidad subjetiva. La deseabilidad social
representó entre 3 y 6 % de la varianza de estas medidas,
después de controlar las variables sociodemográficas. Por
tanto, la deseabilidad social parece desempeñar un papel
pequeño en las medidas de autorreporte de bienestar,
como lo revelaron estudios previos. Se discuten algunas
limitaciones y cuestiones sobre el sesgo de deseabilidad
social en la investigación en en línea.
Palabras clave
sesgo de deseabilidad social; bienestar psicológico; encuesta en
línea; felicidad; gratitud
Validity and interpretation of self-reports of
subjective well-being represent two relevant
research issues which have led to a critical debate
(Brajsa-Zganec, Ivanovic, & Lipovcan, 2011). As
stated by Kozma and Stones (1988), an important
consideration for anyone employing self-report
questionnaires or scales is the extent to which
such measures are free from response bias, even
more so in health psychology. Indeed, measures
of subjective well-being can be influenced by
current situational factors, individual’s mood
and, particularly, by social desirability response
bias (Diener, 2000). In more detail, social
desirability refers to the individual’s tendency to
respond in a more socially desirable manner in
certain situations (Richman, Weisband, Kiesler,
& Drasgow, 1999) and reflects what one believes
will lead to approval from others or avoiding
their disapproval (Crowne & Marlowe, 1960).
It is typically characterized by the tendency of
respondents using self-report questionnaires to
answer in such a way as to make themselves
look good, to give positive self-descriptions,
often at the expense of honesty and/or accuracy
(Holtgraves, 2004; Paulhus, 2002). In this
regard, the strong discrepancy between the
typical findings of positive psychology and
observations of human behavior in several
environments seem to confirm that socially
desirable responding may undermine the validity
of measures of positive subjective well-being
(Holder, 2012). It is common for societies
to emphasize that their members act in an
agreeable and pleasant manner, even when an
individual is experiencing a negative mood or
an adverse situation (Eysenck, 1990). In this
sense, social desirability seems to enhance well-
being (McCrae, 2002), because individuals tend
to increase the degree of their satisfaction and
happiness through their self-reports resulting in
response artifacts (Penezić & Ivanov, 1999).
Socially desirable responding can account for
anywhere from 10% to 75% of the overall
variance of individuals’ responses (Nederhof,
1985) and thus it is a serious threat to the
validity of self-reported data (Tan & Grace,
2008). Indeed, important information is lost
when social desirability is removed from life
satisfaction measures (Diener, Sandvik, Pavot, &
Gallagher, 1991; Forgeard, Jayawickreme, Kern,
& Seligman, 2011). However, most researchers
of subjective well-being do not include measures
of social desirability (Gallagher & Vella-Brodrick,
2008) and it is thus impossible to evaluate
the same shared source of variance existing
between social desirability and subjective well-
being (McCrae, 1986).
Theoretical Framework and Aim of the
Study
Subjective well-being can be defined as optimal
psychological functioning that refers to three
basic characteristics (Diener, 1984): it is
subjective and depends on experience; it includes
not only absence of negative affects but positive
affects as well; and it refers to subjective
evaluation of all aspects of an individual’s life.
According to Ryan and Deci (2001), it is
conceptualized as relying on perceived happiness,
judgments of good and bad elements of life, and
pleasant versus unpleasant experiences. In order
to make realistic evaluations of subjective well-

Social Desirability Bias in self-reported well-being Measures: Evidence from an online survey *
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being, it is thus necessary to use both cognitive
and affective measures (Kaliterna-Lipovčan &
Prizmić-Larsen, 2006). At the cognitive level,
subjective well-being refers to life satisfaction,
regarded as the cognitive evaluation of life as
a whole (Pavot, Diener, Colvin, & Sandrik,
1991); while at the affective level it includes
the presence of positive emotions, as well as the
absence of the negative ones (Diener, 1984).
However, as stated by Eysenck (1990), many
societies place an emphasis on behaving in an
agreeable and pleasant manner, regardless of a
person’s current mood or circumstances. The
current definition of well-being, thus, fosters
a strong cultural expectation that unhappiness
is not acceptable and should be hidden, and
unhappy people may attempt to imitate the
behaviors of those who are genuinely happy,
in order to fit in. Research on other positive
socially desirable behaviors and attitudes, such
as the over-reporting of ethical behavior at
work (Randall & Fernandes, 1991) and church
attendance (Presser & Stinson, 1998), as well as
the over-reporting of the rejection of patriarchal
beliefs (Burris & Jackson, 1999), suggests
that self-reports of happiness and subjective
wellbeing may also be over-reported. These
discrepancies raise the possibility that people
may be responding to measures of happiness
in a socially desirable manner. In this regard,
it is demonstrated that both life satisfaction
(Steel & Ones, 2002) and well-being-related
emotional responses may be biased by social
desirability (Brajsa-Zganec et al., 2011; Fastame
& Penna, 2013), defined as the tendency of
individuals to regulate their answers to establish
a positive impression, avoid criticism, or satisfy
a need for social approval (Crowne & Marlowe,
1960). For example, Chen, Dai, Spector, and
Jex (1997) found that items designed to assess
positive affect were much more likely to be
endorsed by people who score high on a measure
of social desirability. Furthermore, personality
traits judged more desirable are also much more
likely to be endorsed by people who score high
on measures of social desirability (Bäckström,
Björklund, & Larsson, 2009; DeYoung, Peterson,
& Higgins, 2002; Konstabel, Aavik, & Allik,
2006; Kuncel & Tellegen, 2009).
This paper aims at exploring the relationship
between social desirability and subjective well-
being, controlling for several socio-demographic
variables which could affect this relationship
(Brajša-Žganec & Kaliterna-Lipovčan, 2006;
Diener & Biswas-Diener, 2002; Diener, Suh,
& Oishi, 1997; Kaliterna-Lipovčan & Prizmić-
Larsen, 2006; Pavot & Diener, 2004), such
as gender, age, education, marital/relationship
status, and employment status. This is in
order to test whether social desirability has
incremental validity in predicting some well-
being measures. Indeed, there are known socio-
demographic differences in rates of subjective
well-being, which is higher in males (Piccinelli
& Wilkinson, 2000; Sigmon et al., 2005) and
tends to decline with age and to increase with
higher standards of education (Watson, Pichler,
& Wallace, 2010). Then, married people are
consistently shown to be happier than those
who are divorced, widowed, or single (Myers,
2000); while unemployed people generally have
permanent and significant decreases in life
satisfaction levels (Lucas, Clark, Georgellis, &
Diener, 2004).
Consistently with this theoretical framework,
our study proposes three different facets of well-
being which deal with subjective happiness,
general life satisfaction, and gratitude and
loneliness, respectively regarded as a positive and
negative emotional response. Indeed, gratitude
is demonstrated to be a positive affect that is
strongly related to well-being and life satisfaction
(Caputo, 2015; Wood, Froh, & Geraghty, 2010);
on the other hand research suggests that
loneliness contributes negatively to well-being
(Ben-Zur, 2012; Feng, 2011).
We decided not to use general measures on
positive and negative affects (such as anger,
joy, fear, etc.) because the existing scales
do not succeed in thoroughly sampling the
emotions involved in well-being experience
and do not consent to adequately differentiate
the desirability of different feelings (Diener,
2009). Therefore, we preferred to focus on two
complex emotions (i.e. gratitude and loneliness)

Andrea Caputo.
| Universitas Psychologica | V. 16 | No. 2 | Abril-Junio | 2017 |
whose interpersonal nature better grasps the
feeling of connectedness as central component
of subjective wellbeing in terms of efficient
interaction with the world and social integration
(Karademas, 2007).
Method
Participants and Procedure
A Web-based survey was promoted via
social media to study the relationship
between subjective well-being and other related
psychological constructs. It was conducted
according to online survey design, development,
and implementation guidelines suggested by
Andrews, Nonnecke and Preece (2003). Online
survey was chosen because of its widespread
use for quality of life, health-related, and well-
being research (Vereecken & Maes, 2006) and its
easy access to geographically diverse respondent
groups across the national context (Evans &
Mathur, 2005). In addition, the validity and
reliability of Internet research for subjective
well-being surveys were demonstrated to be
comparable to those of the paper-based versions
(Howell, Rodzon, Kurai, & Sanchez, 2010).
For the recruitment process two Italian
forums were detected. They are popular and
nationally widespread online sites where people
communicate around several common sets of
interests, without specific regard to quality of life,
health-related, and well-being issues. This was in
order to reduce the potential self-selection bias
of individuals who share information and discuss
for specific purposes related to the topic of our
research study. An invitation to participate in a
survey about psychological wellbeing was posted
in the forums and respondents clicking a link
were directed to a questionnaire. A convenience
sample of 170 participants was recruited (138
women and 38 men) whose mean age was 29.98
(SD = 10.39). A questionnaire was administered
which included socio-demographic information
and social desirability, subjective happiness, life
satisfaction, gratitude, and loneliness measures.
Participants were guaranteed anonymity. For the
present study 100% of the respondents filled in
the complete questionnaire without missing data.
Measures
Subjective happiness.
The Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS)
(Lyubomirsky & Lepper, 1999) is a widely
used four-item scale, measuring global subjective
happiness. The scale required participants to
use absolute ratings to characterize themselves
as happy or unhappy individuals on a 7 point
Likert scale; it asked as well as to what extent
they identify themselves with the description of
happy and unhappy individuals. The score was
calculated as the mean of items, ranging from
1 to 7. Higher scores mean greater perceived
happiness. The Italian version of the scale was
used (Duncan & Grazzani-Gavazzi, 2004) and
showed a Cronbach’s alpha of .85.
Life satisfaction. As a measure of global life
satisfaction, a three-item scale was specifically
developed and used for the purpose of the study.
Subjects had to rate how much they were satisfied
with three dimensions respectively regarding
socio-economic status, general health status, and
life style and conditions, using a 10-point scale
where 1 meant 'totally disagree' and 10 meant
'totally agree'. The score was calculated as the sum
of items, ranging from 3 to 30. Higher scores
mean better life satisfaction. The scale showed
good psychometric properties, with a one-factor
solution explaining 68.1% of the total variance
and a Cronbach’s alpha of .72.
Gratitude. The Gratitude Questionnaire-Six-
Item Form (GQ-6) (McCullough, Emmons,
& Tsang, 2001) is a six-item self-report
questionnaire designed to assess individual
differences in the proneness to experience
expressions of gratefulness and appreciation in
daily life, as well as feelings about receiving from
others. Respondents endorsed each item on a
7-point Likert-type scale (where 1 = strongly
disagree and 7 = strongly agree). The score was
calculated as the sum of items, ranging from 6
to 42. Higher scores mean higher proneness to

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experience gratitude in daily life. For the purpose
of this study, the scale was adapted to the Italian
language through translation, back translation
and equivalence evaluation, and showed a one-
factor solution explaining 46.2% of the total
variance and a satisfactory internal consistency
(α = .74).
Loneliness. The Three-Item Loneliness Scale,
developed by Hughes, Waite, Hawkley and
Cacioppo (2004) from the revised UCLA
Loneliness Scale (Russell, Peplau, & Cutrona,
1980), was used to assess loneliness consisting of
feelings of isolation, disconnectedness, and not
belonging. The response categories were coded 1
(hardly ever), 2 (some of the time), and 3 (often)
on a 3-point scale. Each person’s responses to
the questions are summed, with higher scores
indicating greater loneliness. For the purpose of
this study, the three items were derived from the
Italian version of the revised UCLA Loneliness
Scale (Solano & Coda, 1994). The 3-item scale
showed a one-factor solution explaining 78%
of the total variance and a very good internal
consistency (α = 0.86).
Social desirability. The Italian adaptation
(Manganelli Rattazzi, Canova, & Marcorin,
2000) of the short 9‐item version of the
Marlowe‐Crowne Social Desirability Scale (MC-
SDS) (Crowne and Marlowe, 1960) was used
to measure social desirability. Participants were
requested to respond to each item on a 7‐point
scale ranging from 1 = Absolutely false to 7 =
Absolutely true. A total score is derived from the
sum of all items, ranging from 7 to 63. Higher
scores indicate higher levels of social desirability.
Internal consistency was sufficient (α = .61). The
relatively low Cronbach’s alpha seems to be in
agreement with other studies using the Italian
short version of the MC-SDS (Maino & Aceti,
1997; Manganelli Rattazzi et al., 2000).
Statistical Procedures
To explore the relationship between
social desirability and each well-being
measure considered (subjective happiness,
life satisfaction, gratitude, and loneliness),
correlation analyses were performed. Given the
sample size equal to 170, power to detect a
hypothesized effect size of .02 (from small to
medium effect) for two-tailed correlations at
the .05 level was .84.
Then, in order to test whether social
desirability bias could explain unique variance
in well-being dimensions after controlling for
the effects of socio-demographic characteristics,
four two-step hierarchical multiple regression
analyses were conducted. Socio-demographic
characteristics were entered in the first step and
social desirability in the second one so as to see
the amount of variance explained independently
by socio-demographic characteristics and
together with social desirability, and thus to
assess whether social desirability had incremental
validity. Power to detect a hypothesized
incremental effect size of .05 (a small effect) at
the .05 level in the final step of this regression
was .83. With regard to socio-demographic
predictors, a dummy for gender (male, female)
and three dummies respectively for marital/
relationship status (married/cohabitant, in a
relationship, single) and employment status
(employed, unemployed, others) were created.
On the other hand, age and education were
inserted as continuous variables. Power analyses
were performed using the Gpower computer
program and all other analyses using SPSS 16.0.
Results
In Table 1 socio-demographic variables of our
sample are reported, as well as descriptive
characteristics of subjective well-being measures.

Andrea Caputo.
| Universitas Psychologica | V. 16 | No. 2 | Abril-Junio | 2017 |
TABLE 1
Socio-demographic variables and descriptive
characteristics of subjective well-being measures of
the sample (N = 170)
* Others include homemakers, students, or retired
Source: own work.
As shown in Table 2, higher level of social
desirability was found to be related to higher
levels of life satisfaction and gratitude, and
a lower level of loneliness. Despite these
correlations being statistically significant, their
effect size is quite modest (ranging from .235
to .309). Instead, no correlation between
social desirability and subjective happiness was
detected.
TABLE 2
Correlations between social desirability and
subjective well-being measures
** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level
Source. own work.
The results of hierarchical multiple regression
analyses (Table 3) indicated that socio-
demographic variables together accounted for
9.7% of the variance of subjective happiness,
10.1% of life satisfaction, 12.8% of gratitude, and
16.9% of loneliness.
TABLE 3
Summary of hierarchical multiple regression
analyses of socio-demographic characteristics and
social desirability for subjective well-being measures
β values refer to standardized
regression coefficients.
* Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level
** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level
*** Correlation is significant at the 0.001 level
Source: own work.
In more detail, males showed lower
gratitude than females, greater education was
associated to higher life satisfaction, married/
cohabitant subjects had lower level of loneliness,
and unemployed subjects reported lower life
satisfaction and gratitude. These results show
that, although socio-demographic factors are
associated to measures of subjective well-being,
their effect is not constant. Moreover, they do
not seem to account for a significant amount of
variance of well-being measures.
The inclusion of social desirability into
analyses increased prediction for additional
almost 3% of variance on life satisfaction
and loneliness and 6% on gratitude, whereas
no association was detected between social
desirability and subjective happiness.

Social Desirability Bias in self-reported well-being Measures: Evidence from an online survey *
| Universitas Psychologica | V. 16 | No. 2 | Abril-Junio | 2017 |
Discussion
Our study reveals a quite modest relationship
between social desirability and measures of well-
being, consistent with findings from Diener’s
(1984) review of the literature. The highest
correlation is with gratitude, probably recognized
by the respondents as a pro-social and
altruistic disposition that is culturally agreeable,
as suggested by previous research (Bono,
Emmons, & McCullough, 2004; Emmons &
Crumpler, 2000; Lyubomirsky, Sheldon, &
Schkade, 2005; Watkins, 2004; Wood et al.,
2010; Wood, Joseph, & Linley, 2007). On
the contrary, social desirability is negatively
correlated with loneliness, consistent with our
theoretical framework, because of the self-
deceptive tendency to hide undesirable feelings
related to low emotional well-being (Lasgaard,
Goossens, & Elklit, 2011). However, this
association could be also due to the influence of
social desirability regarded as a personality trait,
because people with low social desirability are
generally less affiliative and thus more vulnerable
to loneliness (Powling & Hopes, 1988).
Then, our study confirms the lack of
correlation between social desirability and
subjective happiness, as emerged in other
studies (Veenhoven, 1991) which did not
find any problem of social desirability bias in
literature reviews on happiness measures. In
this regard, Konow and Earley (2008) presented
experimental evidence which showed that
overall happiness measures were not significantly
correlated with the score of the Marlowe-
Crowne scale (Crowne & Marlowe, 1960),
probably because they could be less affected by
social approval bias compared to other positive
emotions such as gratitude.
With regard to the results of hierarchical
multiple regression analyses, socio-demographic
variables show that being female, not married/
cohabitant, less educated, and unemployed tend
to lower subjective well-being, as demonstrated
in previous studies (Lucas et al., 2004; Myers,
2000; Piccinelli & Wilkinson, 2000; Sigmon et
al., 2005; Watson et al., 2010). Instead, age
does not seem to play any role. However, these
factors do not explain the variance of well-being
measures as successfully as expected (Inglehart,
2002; Inglehart & Klingemann, 2000).
Overall, the contamination of social
desirability bias invalidating research results can
be considered as minimal (from 3% to 6% of
explained variance), in line with previous works
on the topic (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin,
1985; Kozma & Stones, 1988). In this regard,
a study by Konow and Earley (2008) found
that 11 of 14 well-being measures correlated
significantly with social desirability, although
social desirability accounted for no more than
10% of the variance in any of the well-being
measures.
Conclusions
The aim of this study was to explore the
relationship between social desirability and
subjective well-being measures, controlling for
several socio-demographic variables, as well as to
test whether social desirability had incremental
validity in predicting these well-being measures.
Overall, results suggest a significant positive
association between social desirability and life
satisfaction and gratitude, whereas there is a
negative correlation with loneliness. However, a
negligible and non-systematic social desirability
effect (Diener, 1984) was detected. The
correlations were modest and social desirability
accounted for from about 3% to 6% of the
variance of these measures, after controlling for
socio-demographic variables. Social desirability
seems thus to play little, if any role, in well-being
self-report measures, as revealed by previous
studies (Kozma & Stones, 1988).
However, there is controversy regarding
whether social desirability scales assess a response
style or bias that may distort self-reports, or
whether they assess a personality trait which
actually enhances well-being (McCrae & Costa,
1983; Smith & Ellingson, 2002). Indeed, there
is considerable evidence that social desirability is
correlated with stable disposition such as the Big
Five dimensions (Li & Bagger, 2006), higher self-
esteem, ego-resiliency, and conscientiousness

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(Paulhus, 2002), lower levels of depression,
social anxiety, neuroticism, and empathic distress
(Holden, Starzyk, Mcleod, & Edwards, 2000).
Therefore, correlations between measures of
well-being and social desirability could be more
readily attributed to content similarity between
these constructs than to a social desirability
response bias in well-being measures (Kozma
& Stones, 1988). As stated by Soubelet and
Salthouse (2011):
To the extent that social desirability scales
measure a stable disposition to behave in a
particular manner, and not merely to produce
favorable self report responses, partialling
variance associated with social desirability scales
may be removing meaningful variance from the
relevant trait, and may not increase the validity
of personality measures or subjective well-being
measures (p. 742).
Personality assessment could thus be helpful
to determine how much of the variance in
subjective well-being measures is accounted for
by social desirability over and above the variance
accounted for by personality (Costa & McCrae,
1984; DeNeve & Cooper, 1998; Li & Bagger,
2006). In this regard, social desirability measures
should not include some types of items which
refer to both, stable traits or psychopathological
conditions (e.g. “I sometimes feel that I am about
to go to pieces”) and overlapping constructs
such as life satisfaction or happiness (e.g. “I am
happy most of the time”) i . Indeed, on the one
hand, it may not be clear whether answers are
really affected by social desirability or by the
lack of symptoms and psychological distress; on
the other hand, problems of multicollinearity
and variance inflation could emerge in statistical
analyses.
Another recommendation could be to use
social desirability measures including both
impression management and self-deception
dimensions in order to further disentangle
the relationship between social desirability and
subjective well-being facets. We can hypothesize
that well-being self-reports in online surveys
may be mostly affected by self-deception, as
unintentional propensity to portray oneself in
a favorable light, rather than by intentional
falsification (mostly assessed by traditional social
desirability measures, such as the Marlowe-
Crowne Scale). In more detail, we should
focus on the agentic or egoistic bias which
involves exaggerating one’s social or well-being
status, whereas the moralistic or communal bias
involves denying socially deviant impulses and
claiming pious attributes.
In addition, some forms of control and
demand reduction (Paulhus, 1991) could
be employed with specific regard to online
investigation. They may include methods which
mitigate the situational demands for desirable
responding, such as guaranteeing the anonymity
of the respondents or using a set of instructions
which provide respondents with tacit permission
to report honest levels of subjective well-being
(for instance, by indicating that non-optimal
well-being reports in the general population are
quite common, and therefore, acceptable).
Some limitations regarding this study need
to be taken into account in order to put the
findings into perspective. The study used a
sample of convenience which was not a national
representation and was not randomly chosen.
Issues regarding self-selection bias may thus exist
which do not allow generalization. However,
according to the Gosling, Vazire, Srivastava, and
John (2004) study, this bias would be equally
present with any form of recruitment beyond
that of random sampling. Then, the nature of
this research does not enable conclusions on
causal relations between examined variables,
because correlation analyses and self-report
measures also have inherent limitations.
Another limitation refers to the relatively low
internal consistency of the social desirability
measure used (the short version of the MC-
SDS), as also revealed by previous Italian
studies (Maino & Aceti, 1997; Manganelli
Rattazzi et al., 2000). Results have thus to
be interpreted cautiously and need further
investigation. However, this may also depend
on the scarce adequateness of commonly used
social desirability scales in web-based surveys.
Indeed, socially desirable responding tends to be
reduced in computer testing formats (Dwight &
Feigelson, 2000; Peck, Olsen, & Devore, 2011)
than in traditional ones, because respondents to
online questionnaires may have the perception
of being more anonymous (Lautenschlager &
Flaherty, 1990). For this reason, further social
desirability measures should be developed and
validated with better appropriate psychometric
properties also for online investigation. This

Social Desirability Bias in self-reported well-being Measures: Evidence from an online survey *
| Universitas Psychologica | V. 16 | No. 2 | Abril-Junio | 2017 |
could improve research on well-being and
quality of life because valid and reliable web
surveys could offer a quick, simple, and cost-
effective solution to collect good quality data
from large samples.
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Notes
*Research article
iThe sample items mentioned are derived
from the Edwards Social Desirability Scale
(1957).