title: Socially desirable responding on the web: investigating the candor hypothesis.
abstract: The investigation presented here explores the hypothesis that participants are less likely to respond in a socially desirable fashion on self-report questionnaires completed on the Web relative to those completed in the laboratory--the candor hypothesis. A battery of social desirability questionnaires (i.e., Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding [Paulhaus, 1984], Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale [Crowne & Marlowe, 1964], Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Revised Lie Scale [Eysenck & Eysenck, 1994]) was administered to 3 groups: 2 groups consisted of undergraduate participants who were randomly assigned to complete the measures either in the laboratory (n = 60) or on the Web (n = 60), and 1 group consisted of self-selected participants who visited our experimental Web page and completed the measures online (n = 284). This design allowed us to assess the role of Web administration while controlling for differences in sample type, an oft-neglected issue in the Web literature. Results do not support the claim that administering self-report measures over the Web results in a decrease in socially desirable responding. Furthermore, these findings highlight the problems associated with confounding sample and medium. Implications for the use of Web as a research tool are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. efrisko@watarts.uwaterloo.ca
authors.forename: Evan F
authors.initials: EF
authors.lastname: Risko
authors.forename: Lena C
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: Quilty
authors.forename: Jonathan M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Oakman
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008297:Male; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012650:Self Disclosure; D012925:Social Conformity; D012928:Social Desirability; D012931:Social Environment; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires