Social Quotient and Social Desirability among Young Adults

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the gender differences and relationship between social quotient and how people present themselves in social situations i.e., social desirability. The research study consisted of 25 males and 75 female participants. The participants were asked to complete the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (MC-SDS) and the Measuring Social Intelligence-The MESI Methodology (MESI) scale. The factors of Social Quotient (Empathy, Manipulation, and Social Irritability) were analysed with Social Desirability. The data was analysed using IMB SPSS for Correlation, Simple Linear Regression and Independent Sample t-test. The results showed that there is a weak negative relationship between Manipulation and Social Irritability with Social desirability. Empathy has a positive influence on Social Desirability while Manipulation, and Social Irritability have a negative influence. There was no significant difference in gender between male and female for Social Desirability however in Social Quotient for manipulation, males had a higher score in comparison to females.

Introduction

I. INTRODUCTION

Social desirability- Need for subjects to respond in culturally sanctioned ways and also need for social approval (Crowne & Marlowe, 1960). Thorndike (1920) defines Social Intelligence as the ability to understand and manage other people and act wisely in interpersonal relationships. Refers to the extent of an individual’s ability to understand and respond to social situations effectively.

The reason for conducting the present study was to find out gender differences between how people present themselves in social situations and its relationship with their social quotient. After reviewing a number of research articles, I realised that there were not many studies which assessed social desirability and social quotient but just one of them. Thus, it would be interesting to see how the two aspects correlated with each other and also if there were any gender differences between them.

II. LITERATURE REVIEW

Socially Desirable responding has been widely studied in regards to personality assessments due to fears that it may reduce the value of the predictive validity of decisions that are made using such assessments. A study titled social desirability: the role of over-claiming, self-esteem, and emotional intelligence by Magnus et.al., used the Marlowe- Crowne scale to assess social desirability, the Rosenberg Self- Esteem scale to assess self- esteem, and a 10-item measure which was established by Randall and Fernandes in 1991 was used to assess Over- Claiming. The survey results (n= 198) yielded a significant positive correlation between Socially Desirable Responses and self-esteem and emotional intelligence. Over- claiming was found to be negatively related to self- deceptive enhancement which is a form of socially desirability but not in its entirety. Regression analyses revealed emotional intelligence explains significant variance in SDR, over and above that which is explained by self-esteem and over-claiming alone (?R2 = .16, p < .01).

The main aim of the study Gender Differences In Empathizing-Systemizing: The Influence Of Gender Stereotype, And Socially Desirable Responding by Neckar and Szlachta was to investigate the influence of social and cultural factors on gender differences in empathizing-systemizing. Study 1 was designed to control for the socially desirable responding to gender differences in empathizing-systemizing. The Empathy Quotient assessment was used to assess empathy quotient area and the Systemizing Quotient was used to assess systemizing, and the Paulhus’ Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding. Study 2 was done to investigate whether the activation of gender stereotypes would influence gender differences in the questionnaire and the ability test that measured empathizing-systemizing. Consistently across the two studies and the two measurement methods used (the questionnaire and the ability test), women scored higher in empathizing and the size of the effect was medium. Socially desirable responding had no effect on the size of gender differences in empathizing.

However, the activation of the gender stereotype made respondents, especially women, present themselves as more empathetic persons. In addition, the stereotype activation produced a performance boost on the systemizing ability test in men, whereas no effect was observed in women.

A study titled Trait emotional intelligence, personality traits and social desirability in dangerous driving was done by Smorti et.al. The aim of this study was to analyse the relationship between impulsiveness, sensation seeking, social desirability, trait emotional intelligence (trait EI) and self-reported dangerous driving behaviours, as measured by both the Dula Dangerous Driver Index (DDDI) and the number of tickets for dangerous driving. A sample of 285 Italian university students (aged between 20 and 46 years) completed an online survey. Results showed that trait EI did not contribute significantly to the prediction of the DDDI dimensions over and above gender, personality traits and social desirability, while it was the sole incremental predictor of a lower number of tickets for dangerous driving. The role of trait EI on dangerous driving behaviour and intervention programs aimed to reduce dangerous driving is discussed.

A study titled Theory of Mind, Social Desirability, and Unlikely Symptom Reporting in Offenders with and Without Psychopathy was done by Nentjes et.al. The study investigated the relationship between psychopathy and theory of mind, by comparing the performance of non- psychopathic offenders (n = 40), psychopathic offenders (n = 42), and nonoffender controls (n = 26) on Happe's test of theory of mind (Happe, 1994). In addition, the study investigated whether offenders' theory of mind skills would moderate the association between the antisocial psychopathy component (Factor 2) and self-presentation (i.e., the tendency to report social desirability and unlikely symptoms). Results showed groups did not differ in theory of mind performance. As expected though, theory of mind moderated the association between psychopathy and self-presentation: only for offenders relatively high in theory of mind, Factor 2 was strongly related to less social desirability and more unlikely symptom reporting. These results could indicate that offenders who are high in both theory of mind and Factor 2 exaggerate their mental dysfunction to express their need for clinical attention. Results are used to critically evaluate the interpretation of occurrences in which offenders overplay their psychopathology.

In a study by Kleumper et.al, titled Trait emotional intelligence: The impact of core-self evaluations and social desirability, introduced social desirability and core-self evaluations as an even greater hurdle for trait EI. In a field study of 180 employees, these two variables predict 62% of the variance in trait Emotional Intelligence (compared to 29% from the Big-5). With the Big-5 dimensions of personality and IQ controlled, trait Emotional Intelligence predicts coping, stress, and life satisfaction. When core-self evaluations and social desirability are added as additional control variables, the incremental validity coefficients between trait Emotional Intelligence and the three criteria are largely reduced. However, trait Emotional Intelligence significantly predicts incremental variance in coping, stress, and life satisfaction even after controlling for the Big-5, IQ, core-self evaluations, and social desirability.

A study titled The Effects of different types of social desirability on the identification of repressors by Furnhan et.al., investigated whether different types of social desirability have an impact on the identification of repressors. In addition, it explored the relationship between the repressive coping style and various affect-related measures. Participants completed the Marlowe–Crowne Social Desirability Scale [Crowne, D.P. & Marlowe, D.A. (1964). The approval motive: Studies in evaluative dependence and the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding [Paulhus, D. (1984). Two-component models of socially desirable responding. These, in conjunction with scores on the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale [Taylor, J.A. (1953). A personality scale of manifest anxiety. Participants also completed measures of trait emotional intelligence (trait EI), rumination, self-esteem, life satisfaction, and coping. A series of ANOVAs showed that the repressor group scored significantly higher on trait EI, self-esteem, life satisfaction, and ‘‘healthy’’ coping styles, but lower on rumination and ‘‘unhealthy’’ coping styles. In almost every analysis, repressors were significantly different from the non-defensive/high anxious group. There was, however, little evidence to support the notion that different social desirability measures have differential impact on the identification of repressors. 

In a study by Downey et.al., titled The Impact of Social Desirability and Expectation of Feedback on Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace, investigated the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) as measured by the Workplace version of the Swinburne University Emotional Intelligence Test (SUEIT), and a new social desirability scale designed specifically for the Workplace – the Social Desirability Questionnaire (WSDQ) in 79 participants. A weak relationship between EI and social desirability was observed, and this relationship was stronger with the SUEIT dimensions of Emotional Control and Emotional Management than with the other dimensions. Social desirability was experimentally manipulated by examining the relationship between EI and WSDQ in two groups. The first group (N=34) completed the questionnaires anonymously and were told that no feedback was to be provided.

The second group of participants (N=45) were informed that they would receive detailed feedback about their EI. EI did not significantly differ between the two feedback conditions. The results indicated that there are not significant or substantial relationships between self-report EI and social desirability. 

A study conducted by Kuokkanen et.al., titled Social Desirability and Cynicism: Bridging the Attitude-Behavior Gap in CSR Surveys how social desirability and cynicism contribute to the discrepancy between consumers’ attitudes and their actual purchase behavior, and analyzes why consumer choices indicated in surveys do not consistently convert into actions. a conceptual framework based on hybrid choice modelling to estimate the impact of two new variables, Corporate Social Desirability and Corporate Social Cynicism, on CSR research. The model presented synthesizes research findings from the fields of CSR and psychology with a discrete choice methodology that allows inclusion of psychological aspects as latent variables. The goal of the framework is to bridge the gap between choices stated by consumers in CSR surveys and their actual choices by quantifying and extracting the effects of biases that otherwise threaten the validity of such survey results. As the next step, the practical value of the model must be evaluated through empirical research combining a CSR choice study with social desirability and cynicism measurement.

In a study titled The Relationship between Social Desirability, Responsibility, Self-Efficacy and Communication Skills of Students by Nasab et.al., the relationship between social desirability, self-efficacy, and responsibility and communication skills of high school students in Ahvaz city was studied. The sample of this study consisted of 360 participants that have been selected by cluster sampling method. This research is a descriptive and correlational study. The tools that have been used in this research are: Social Desirability questionnaire of Crowne and Marlowe (1960), the responsibility questionnaire of Harrison (1999), general self-efficacy questionnaire of Scherer et al. (1982) and communication skills questionnaire of Harjy and Marshall (1986). The data was analyzed by using the statistical methods of Pearson correlation and multiple regressions. The results have shown that there is a positive relationship between social desirability, self-efficacy, responsibility and communication skills of students. The results of multiple regression analysis have shown that social desirability and responsibility and self-efficacy are respectively the best predictors of communication skills.

A study was conducted by Rasuli et.al., titled Social Intelligence and Business Performance of Managers at Agriculture Banks in Ardabil province. The study has been done in order to determine the relationship between social intelligence dimensions (social information processing, social skills, social awareness, and social desirability) as independent variables and business performance (behavioural performance, in-role performance, extra-role performance, results-based performance) of managers as dependent variables. This has been done by the Agriculture Bank in Ardabil province. We determined the amount of the sample size with the use of the Cochran sampling method with a statistical sample of 102 of these Bank managers which have been selected through the simple random sampling method. To gather the data, we used questionnaires with 43 items. Questionnaire’s reliability was estimated by calculating Cronbach’s Alpha. In order to analyze the data resulting from collected questionnaires, deductive and descriptive statistical methods are used.

The results on the Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test shows the test distribution is Normal. So, we can use Pearson Correlation coefficients to test the hypothesis of the research. In order to determine the relationship between the variables of the study, the SPSS tool has been used. Findings show the relationship between social intelligence dimensions and business performance of managers at Agriculture Bank in Ardabil province

III. METHOD

A. Aims and Objectives:

To investigate the gender differences in social quotient and social desirability among young adults. 

To investigate the relationship between social quotient and social desirability among young adults.

B. Hypothesis: 

H1: There is no significant relationship between Social Quotient and Social Desirability among young adults. 

H2: There is no significant influence of Social Quotient on Social Desirability.

H3: There is no significant gender difference on Social Quotient and Social Desirability among young adults.

C. Variables:

Independent Variable – Social Quotient

Dependent Variable – Social Desirability

D. Operational Definition: 

Social Quotient - An ability to understand others and their social interactions and apply this knowledge in leading and influencing other people for their mutual satisfaction (Marlowe, 1986).

Social Desirability - The bias or tendency of individuals to present themselves in a manner that will be viewed favourably by others (APA Dictionary of Psychology). 

E. Sample:

The sampling method used was Non-Probability Sampling method i.e., Convenient Sampling method as it is cost effective and the sample was easily accessible to the researcher. The participants should be residing in the country of India. The participants should be able to understand sentences spoken in English. The age range of participants should be between 18-25. The research study consisted of 25 males and 75 females. The mean age was 21.5 years. The responses were taken from the population that met the standards for the above-mentioned criteria. 

F. Research Design:

The research is a quantitative correlational design. 

G. Ethics:

All data will be kept confidential, and participants will not be identified by name in any publications. Informed consent was obtained from all participants, and the study was conducted in accordance with the ethical guidelines of the American Psychological Association. Any concerns were debriefed at the end of data collection.

H. Procedure:

Participants were provided with an online link to the Google form, which included the informed consent. Participants were asked to complete the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (MC-SDS) and the Measuring Social Intelligence-The MESI Methodology scale in a single sitting. The Google form automatically recorded the participants’ responses onto an excel sheet. 

I. Tools used:

Measuring Social Intelligence-The MESI Methodology Scale was developed by Frankovsky et.al., in 2013. It was aimed to detect social intelligence. This methodology was developed for the peers or their teachers and was used to detect the degree of perceiving social intelligence as a performance characteristic. The MESI methodology contains 21 items evaluated on a 5-point scale, where the response of Never is given a score of 0, 1 for Hardly Ever, 2 for Sometimes, 3 for Often, 4 for Very Often. 

Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (MC-SDS) was developed by Douglas P. Crowne and David Marlowe in 1960 in an effort to measure social desirability bias. It is a 33-item questionnaire regarding if someone produces socially desirable answers. Items are scored through answering on a ‘True’ or ‘False’ basis. One point for yes and zero points for no. The total score is found from the sum of the true statements. On the basis of the total score obtained, participants are placed in either of the three categories of Low Scorers (0-8), Average Scorers (9-19), and High Scorers (20-33). Certain items of the tool had reverse scoring.

IV. RESULTS

Table 1

Descriptive Statistics and Pearson’s Correlation Coefficients

** Correlations Significant at 0.01 level (Two Tailed)

*Correlations Significant at 0.05 level (Two Tailed) 

The data collected from the population (n=100) was evaluated to identify the relationship between social quotient and social desirability as shown in the table. There is a weak negative relationship found between manipulation and social desirability (p=0.05). There is no relationship identified between empathy and social desirability. There is a weak negative relationship between social irritability and social desirability (p=0.01). The hypothesis is rejected for Manipulation and Social Irritability as there is a negative relationship identified with Social Desirability. The hypothesis is accepted for Empathy as there is no relationship identified with Social Desirability.

Table 2

Model Summary

Pearson’s correlation coefficient was calculated to evaluate the overall relationship between social quotient and social desirability. A significant correlation between the variables was identified R2 =2.11.

Table 3

Regression Analysis Coefficient

Simple Linear Regression analysis was used to identify the influence of social quotient on social desirability. Manipulation and Social Irritability has a negative influence on Social Desirability whereas Empathy has a positive influence on Social Desirability. Therefore, Social Quotient has an influence on Social Desirability. The hypothesis is rejected as Social Quotient influences Social Desirability.

Table 4

Mean Differences between Males and Females for Social Desirability and Social Quotient

 Independent Sample t-test was conducted to evaluate the gender differences within the variables. No significant gender difference was identified between males and females for the variable of Social Desirability (p= 0.227).

Within the variable of social quotient, a significant difference in gender was identified between males and females for Manipulation (p= 0.01). No significant differences in gender differences were identified for Empathy (p=0.61), and Social Irritability (p=0.94).

The hypothesis is accepted for Social Desirability as there are significant differences identified between males and females. For the variable of Social Quotient, the hypothesis was accepted for Empathy and Social Irritability as no difference was identified between males and females. However, the hypothesis is rejected for Manipulation as a significant difference was identified between males and females.

V. DISCUSSION

The current study aimed to investigate the relationship, influence and gender differences of the participants in social quotient and social desirability. The MESI methodology shows 3 factors of social quotient i.e., empathy, manipulation and social irritability. While empathy is a positive trait, manipulation and social irritability is identified as negative traits.

No relationship was identified between empathy with social desirability, there was a weak negative relationship between Manipulation and social irritability with social desirability. Manipulation is the ability to persuade others to do almost anything they want. This includes getting people to do things they may not prefer or may be inconvenient. As such people with higher scores in manipulation may not be very socially desirable. Social Irritability causes individuals to be nervous and tense around others and makes it difficult for them to adapt with or get along with other people. As such, an increase in social irritability can decrease their social desirability.

Overall, social quotient has an influence on social desirability however the direction of influence differs based on its factors. As negative traits, manipulation and social irritability have a negative influence on social desirability where increase in either factor will decrease the social desirability of the individual. As a positive trait, empathy has a positive influence on social desirability with increase in empathy leading to increase in social desirability.

Responses vary across the gender dimensions. For social irritability, there were no differences between the male and female respondents. Furthermore, no significant differences between males and females were identified for empathy and social irritability. Possible reason for this could be the small sample size that was undertaken for the study. There were differences between males and females for manipulation with males having a higher score in comparison to females.

Conclusion

The study talks about the relationship of Social Quotient and variables of Empathy, Manipulation, and Social Irritability on Social Desirability in Young Adults. Social Quotient is a vital trait in humans as social beings as it encompasses our ability to exist in society. Social desirability creates a closeness and increases bonds with fellow people. The two have an interplay between each other influencing each other. Enabling tactics to improve one’s social quotient will ultimately help them improve on their overall social desirability. This study being a statistical analysis however lacks the identification of causal aspects and as such has scope for improvement in both quantitative and qualitative aspects.

References

[1] Marlowe, D. (1960). Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (MCSDS). [2] Frankovský, M., & Birknerová, Z. (2014). Measuring social intelligence-the MESI methodology. Asian Social Science, 10(6), 90. [3] Thorndike, E. L. (1920). Intelligence and its use. Harper\'s Magazine, 140, 227-235. [4] Crowne, D. P., & Marlowe, D. (1960). A new scale of social desirability independent of psychopathology. Journal of consulting psychology, 24(4), 349. [5] Mesmer-Magnus, J., Viswesvaran, C., Deshpande, S., & Joseph, J. (2006). Social desirability: The role of over-claiming, self-esteem, and emotional intelligence. Psychology Science, 48(3), 336. [6] Neckar, J., & Lazaro Szlachta, M. (2019). Gender differences in empathizing-systemizing: The influence of gender stereotype and socially desirable responding. Studia Humanistyczne AGH, 18(1), 95-111. [7] Smorti, M., Andrei, F., & Trombini, E. (2018). Trait emotional intelligence, personality traits and social desirability in dangerous driving. Transportation research part F: traffic psychology and behaviour, 58, 115-122. [8] Nentjes, L., Bernstein, D. P., Arntz, A., Slaats, M. E., & Hannemann, T. (2015). Theory of mind, social desirability, and unlikely symptom reporting in offenders with and without psychopathy. The Journal of nervous and mental disease, 203(8), 596-603. [9] Kluemper, D. H. (2008). Trait emotional intelligence: The impact of core-self evaluations and social desirability. Personality and Individual Differences, 44(6), 1402-1412. [10] Furnham, A., Petrides, K. V., & Spencer-Bowdage, S. (2002). The effects of different types of social desirability on the identification of repressors. Personality and Individual Differences, 33(1), 119-130. [11] Downey, L. A., Godfrey, J. L., Hansen, K., & Stough, C. (2006). The impact of social desirability and expectation of feedback on emotional intelligence in the workplace. E-Journal of Applied Psychology, 2(2), pp-12. [12] Kuokkanen, H., & Sun, W. (2016). Social desirability and cynicism: Bridging the attitude-behavior gap in CSR surveys. In Emotions and organizational governance 12, 217-247. [13] Nasab, S. M. M., & Makvandi, B. (2016). The relationship between social desirability, responsibility, self-efficacy and communication skills of students. Rev. Eur. Stud., 8, 29. [14] Rasuli, F., Ebrahimpour, H., & Hassanzadeh, M. (2013). Social intelligence and business performance of managers at agriculture banks in Ardabil province. Singaporean Journal of Business Economics, and Management Studies, 2(2), 96-104. [15] Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the adolescent child. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. [16] Randall, D. M., & Fernandez, M. F. (1991). The social desirability response bias in ethics research. Journal of Business Ethics, 10, 805-817 [17] Paulhus, Deyroy L. 1989. Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR-6), Preliminary unpublished scale, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. [18] Happe FG (1994) An advanced test of theory of mind: Understanding of story characters\' thoughts and feelings by able autistic, mentally handicapped, and normal children and adults. J Autism Dev Disord. 24:129–154. [19] Crowne, D. P., & Marlowe, D. A. (1964). The approval motive: Studies in evaluative dependence. New York: Wiley. [20] Paulhus, D. (1984). Two-component models of socially desirable responding. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46, 598–609. [21] Taylor, J. A. (1953). A personality scale of manifest anxiety. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 48, 285–290.

Copyright

Copyright © 2023 Daniel Mathew Thattil, Prof. Shruthi Rose. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.