Social desirability in measures of subjective well-being: Age comparisons

The present investigation evaluated the relationship between measures of psychological well-being and social desirability in three age groups: 21–40, 41–60, and 61–82 year-old samples. Data on 330 people, consisting of community and clinical groups, yielded high correlations between three measures of well-being (the MUNSH, the LSI-Z, and the PGC) and the Edwards Social Desirability Scale for all age groups, but only moderate ones between well-being scales and the Marlow-Crown Social Desirability Scale. Partial correlations between well-being measures and an external criterion of happiness, controlling for social desirability, failed to improve on the 0-order criterion/well-being relationship. Controlling for social desirability, therefore, does not enhance the construct validity of well-being scales in adult populations at any age. These results, combined with those on the factor structure of scale totals and on the discriminant validity of the well-being measures, suggest that the high 0-order correlations between measures of well-being and the Edwards scale are more readily attributed to content similarity between the Edwards scale and measures of well-being than to a social desirability response bias in well-being measures.