title: Does social desirability inflate the correlation between self-esteem and anxiety?
abstract: Although several authors concluded that self-esteem is negatively related to anxiety, it is an open question what role social desirability plays in this relation. In a sample of 61 German students, the correlation between self-esteem and anxiety was significantly reduced from -.59 to -.51 when social desirability was partialed out. Thus, social desirability does seem to inflate the correlation between self-esteem and anxiety when both constructs are measured with self-reports. Yet, this effect of social desirability appears so small that it is probably negligible for most research purposes.
authors.affiliation: Psychological Institute, University of Tübingen, Germany. michael.riketta@uni-tuebingen.de
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Riketta
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011594:Psychometrics; D012649:Self Concept; D012647:Self-Assessment; D012928:Social Desirability; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology