Edwards Social Desirability Scale (SD)

Abstract

The Edwards Social Desirability Scale (ESD or SD) is a foundational psychometric instrument developed by Allen L. Edwards in 1957. Its primary function is to measure an individual’s characteristic tendency toward providing socially desirable responses in self-description, reflecting a general level of self-presentation without specific instructions to deceive. The scale was rigorously constructed by having ten expert judges rate 79 potential items derived from the K, F, and Lie scales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). The final scale comprises 39 items on which the judges achieved unanimous agreement regarding the most socially desirable response. Scores range from 0 to 39, with higher scores indicating a greater degree of social desirability in responding.

Keywords

Social Desirability, Edwards Scale, Response Bias, Self-Presentation, MMPI, Personality Assessment, Response Set, Faking Good.

Authors

Allen L. Edwards

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Edwards Social Desirability Scale (ESD) is to assess the degree to which an individual attempts to present themselves in a favorable, culturally approved light during psychological self-report assessments. Edwards (1957) defined the SD as capturing the “tendency to give socially desirable responses in self-description,” which reflects a pervasive, trait-like level of self-description.

Identifying this characteristic response style is essential for the valid interpretation of scores on other personality inventories. Because the item content often overlaps significantly with measures of adjustment and psychopathology, the ESD is used by researchers to statistically control for or analyze the impact of social desirability variance on substantive personality traits.

Construct

The core construct measured by the SD scale is Social Desirability (SD). This is viewed as a stable, individual difference variable reflecting a consistent disposition to describe oneself in ways perceived as socially or culturally appropriate. The scale is designed to capture the individual’s baseline level of self-presentation rather than transient, situationally motivated deception.

However, the interpretation of the SD construct has been subject to considerable debate. While initially treated as a methodological response set, later research suggested that high SD scores might reflect a substantive personality trait. Notably, Block (1965) argued forcefully that the SD scale reflects ego resiliency—a measure of psychological adjustment and competence—rather than merely a bias. This perspective maintains that the scale captures a general disposition, though the precise nature of that disposition remains a topic of ongoing discussion (Paulhus, 1986).

Validity

The validity of the ESD has been extensively studied, focusing on both its correlation with similar measures and its distinction from other psychological constructs.

Convergent Validity: The ESD is considered robust in its ability to correlate highly with other scales designed to measure desirability, particularly those assembled from items with extreme desirability ratings (Edwards, 1970). For instance, the scale correlates strongly (r = .71) with the Desirability scale of Jackson’s (1967) Personality Research Form (PRF), demonstrating that it effectively taps into the broad domain of desirable personality characteristics (Holden & Fekken, 1989).

Discriminant Validity and Construct Debate: Early critics noted significant item overlap with measures of anxiety, such as the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale (Taylor, 1953), and argued that the scale was intrinsically confounded with psychopathology due to the high number of items referencing psychological distress. Edwards and Walsh (1964) addressed this by demonstrating that replacing the psychopathology-laden items did not alter the pattern of correlations with other measures, thereby supporting the scale’s distinction from pure measures of distress.

Furthermore, Edwards consistently distinguished the ESD construct from deliberate lying or impression management scales, a distinction that has been empirically sustained by later data (Paulhus, 1984; Wiggins, 1964). The controversy surrounding the high correlation between the SD scale and the first major factor of the MMPI continues to highlight the complex relationship between social desirability responding and underlying personality structure.

Reliability

The Edwards Social Desirability Scale demonstrates acceptable levels of reliability, indicating good internal consistency and temporal stability.

• Internal Consistency: Measures of internal consistency, typically reported using alpha coefficients, consistently fall within the robust range of .83 to .87 across various samples.
• Test-Retest Reliability: Studies measuring the stability of the scale over time have shown moderate reliability. Rorer and Goldberg (1965) reported test-retest reliabilities after a 2-week interval of .66 for male respondents and .68 for female respondents.

Factor Analysis

Factor analytical studies involving the ESD have centered on its relationship with large, multi-scale inventories, particularly the MMPI. A major finding is the very high correlation reported between the SD score and the first principal factor extracted from the MMPI (Jackson & Messick, 1962). This correlation led some researchers to propose that the primary variance captured by the MMPI scales was, in fact, Social Desirability Responding (SDR).

While this factor is widely recognized, its interpretation remains ambiguous: whether it represents a purely methodological artifact (response style) or a substantive dimension of personality (such as psychological adjustment or ego resiliency) continues to be debated in psychometric literature.

Instrument

Test Type: Response Bias Scale / Personality Trait Measure

Format: Self-report, Dichotomous (True/False)

Language Available: English (Original)

Population Group: Adults and College Students

Age Group: Typically late adolescence through adulthood.

Population Details: Initial normative data (Edwards, 1957) reported means for 192 college students (Males: 28.6, Females: 27.1). Subsequent samples have included paid student volunteers and clinical groups (e.g., depressed samples reported by Tanaka-Matsumi and Kameoka, 1986, mean score of 20.9).

Test Methodology: The scale consists of 39 items, 9 keyed “True” and 30 keyed “False.” Responses are scored dichotomously, with 1 point awarded for each answer that matches the socially desirable key. Possible total scores range from 0 to 39, with higher scores reflecting greater socially desirable responding.

Keywords

Socially Desirable Responding, SDR, Ego Resiliency, Response Style, Psychometrics, Personality Research Form, MMPI K Scale.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: N/A (Allen L. Edwards)

Affiliation Email addresses: N/A

Correspondence Address: The source material for the items is the copyrighted MMPI, available from University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Test Year: 1957

Permissions and Fees: The Edwards Social Desirability Scale is constructed entirely of items extracted from the copyrighted Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). Users wishing to administer the complete 39-item scale must obtain proper licensing and permissions for the use of the source items from the MMPI copyright holder, the University of Minnesota Press.

Reference’s

• Block, J. (1965). The challenge of response sets: Unconfounding meaning, measurement, and content. Appleton-Century-Crofts.
• Crowne, D. P., & Marlowe, D. (1960). A new scale of social desirability independent of psychopathology. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 24(4), 349–354.
• Edwards, A. L. (1957). The social desirability variable in personality assessment and research. Dryden Press.
• Edwards, A. L. (1970). The social desirability variable: A review of the evidence. California Test Bureau.
• Edwards, A. L., & Walsh, J. A. (1964). The relationship between the Edwards Social Desirability scale and the Taylor Manifest Anxiety scale. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 24(2), 273–278.
• Holden, R. R., & Fekken, G. C. (1989). A note on the correlation between the Edwards Social Desirability Scale and the Desirability scale of the Personality Research Form. Journal of Research in Personality, 23(1), 127–130.
• Jackson, D. N. (1967). Personality Research Form manual. Research Psychologists Press.
• Jackson, D. N., & Messick, S. (1962). Response styles and the structure of personality. Psychological Bulletin, 59(6), 468–478.
• Paulhus, D. L. (1984). Two-component models of socially desirable responding. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46(3), 598–609.
• Paulhus, D. L. (1986). Self-deception and impression management in personality assessment. In A. Angleitner & J. S. Wiggins (Eds.), Personality assessment via self-report (pp. 143–165). Springer.
• Rorer, L. G., & Goldberg, L. R. (1965). Acquiescence and the social desirability variable in the MMPI. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 25(3), 801–811.
• Tanaka-Matsumi, J., & Kameoka, V. A. (1986). Social desirability in cross-cultural personality assessment. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 54(1), 131–135.
• Taylor, J. A. (1953). A personality scale of manifest anxiety. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 48(2), 285–290.
• Wiggins, J. S. (1964). Convergences among social desirability scales. Psychological Reports, 15(3), 947–953.

Items of the Edwards Social Desirability Scale (SD)

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

Sample Items

• True False 1. 1 am happy most of the time. (T)
• True False 2. My hands and feet are usually warm enough. (T)
• True False 3. No one cares much what happens to you. (F)
• True False 4. 1 sometimes feel that 1 am about to go to pieces. (F)

Complete Scale (MMPI Booklet Numbers)

The MMPI booklet numbers for the 9 items keyed “True” are as follows: 7, 18, 54, 107, 163, 169, 257, 371, 528. The 30 items keyed “False” are 32, 40, 42, 43, 138, 148, 156, 158, 171, 186, 218, 241, 245, 247, 252, 263, 267, 269, 286, 301, 321, 335, 337, 352, 383, 424, 431, 439, 549, 555.