“Let Me Show You How Nice I Am”: Impression Management as Bias in Empathic Responses

Past research showed that empathic responses are confounded with social desirability. The present research aims at illuminating this confound. In a first step, it is examined how a measure typically implemented to screen, for response, biases based on social desirability (i.e., the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding) relate to classical measures of interindividual differences in empathic responses (i.e., the Interpersonal Reactivity Index). Moreover, it is investigated what happens to empathic responses under conditions of reduced opportunity to behave socially desirable. Results of two correlational studies indicate that impression management (IM) as well as self-deceptive enhancement as facets of a socially desirable response bias is related to self-reported empathic responses. Results of an additional experiment show that introducing conditions reducing opportunity for IM lowers empathic responses toward a person in need. Implications for research on self-reported empathy and empathy-induced prosocial behavior are discussed.

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The “Marital Conventionalization” Argument; Implications for the Study of Religiosity and Marital Satisfaction

Journal of Psychology and Theology ◽

10.1177/009164718201000305 ◽

1982 ◽

Vol 10 (3) ◽

pp. 236-241 ◽

Cited By ~ 22

Author(s):

Walter R. Schumm ◽

Stephan R. Bollman ◽

Anthony P. Jurich

Keyword(s):

Marital Satisfaction ◽

Response Bias ◽

Social Desirability ◽

Important Predictor ◽

Marital Happiness ◽

Empirical Relationships ◽

The Common ◽

Response Biases ◽

Religious Variable

The “marital conventionalization” argument set forth by Edmonds, Withers, and Dibatista (1972) claims that empirical relationships observed between measures of religiosity and marital satisfaction are spurious artifacts of the common contamination of such measures with social desirability/acquiescence response bias, identified by Edmonds (1967) as “marital conventionalization” and measured through the Marital Conventionalization Scale (MCS). More recently, Glenn and Weaver (1978) have adopted the “marital conventionalization” argument to discount the importance of the substantial, positive associations they observed between a religious variable and a measure of marital happiness. Data from two Kansas samples of husbands and wives were analyzed to evaluate the validity of the “marital conventionalization” argument. Results indicate that religiosity is an important predictor of marital satisfaction, at least in some samples, even among subjects who do not respond in a “conventionalizing” way to an abbreviated version of the MCS. Therefore, the limitations of the “marital conventionalization” argument should be considered prior to discounting empirical relationships found between religiosity and marital satisfaction as mere artifacts of social desirability or acquiescence response biases, as measured by the MCS.

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Impression Management

10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.013.748 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

David M. Long

Keyword(s):

Social Science ◽

Prosocial Behavior ◽

Cognitive Dissonance ◽

Impression Management ◽

Romantic Partners ◽

Scholarly Work ◽

Social Situations ◽

Job Opportunities ◽

Favorable Light ◽

Intended Effect

Impression management is defined as controlling how one is seen by others. Most of the important outcomes in life, including friends, romantic partners, job opportunities, and happiness, are contingent on how one is perceived in social situations. Since the 1950s scholars across multiple disciplines of social science have noted the importance of impression management and have developed key theoretical interpretations and taxonomies of how, why, and for whom impression management occurs and whether it is likely to have its intended effect. Virtually any behavior can be used for impression management purposes, and the desired outcomes range from positive, when the behaviors are intended to be seen in a favorable light, to negative, when the behaviors are intended to be seen in an unfavorable light. Although impression management has been relatively free of controversy as a scholarly topic, some disagreements have formed around the ethics of managing impressions, how to best measure impression management, and whether impression management explains some of the more venerable topics in social science such as prosocial behavior, cognitive dissonance, and moral judgment. A typical episode of impression management occurs when an actor performs an act in the hope of influencing targets in a certain way, and scholarly work has noted the importance of the target in this process since the target is not only the audience who judges the actors’ performances but also the critic who provides the actors with feedback that can be used in subsequent performances. Other work has investigated how easy it is to mismanage an impression, such as when “humble bragging” and giving “backhanded compliments.”

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Personality, situation, and positive–negative asymmetry in socially desirable responding

European Journal of Personality ◽

10.1002/per.2410090206 ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 9 (2) ◽

pp. 125-134 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

Marjaana Lindeman ◽

Markku Verkasalo

Keyword(s):

Impression Management ◽

Social Desirability ◽

Management Strategies ◽

Self Esteem ◽

Socially Desirable Responding ◽

Personal Ideals ◽

Public Setting ◽

Extreme Responses ◽

Private Setting ◽

Psychological Determinant

Based on previous research on socially desirable responding and positive—negative asymmetry, we hypothesized that (i) impression management is higher in public than in private settings, (ii) personal ideals linked to exemplification, ingratiation, and intimidation are related to an impression management tendency, (iii) negatively keyed social desirability items receive more extreme responses than positively keyed items, and (iv) self‐esteem is correlated higher with negatively than with positively keyed self‐deception items. Based on Jones and Pittman's (1982) model, exemplification, ingratiation, and intimidation are defined as impression management strategies that aim at presenting oneself as worthy, likable, or dangerous, respectively. Principally, the results obtained in a public setting (N=177) and a private setting (N= 165) support these hypotheses. The overall pattern of findings suggests that both context and personal ideals exert an influence on impression management scores, and that the keying direction of an item may be an important psychological determinant of a test response.

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The moderating effects of Social Desirability responding on the criterion-related validity of self-report personality inventory

The Korean Journal of Industrial and Organizational Psychology ◽

10.24230/kjiop.v28i2.151-172 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 28 (2) ◽

pp. 151-172

Author(s):

JaeYoon Chang ◽

Sanghee Nam

Keyword(s):

Impression Management ◽

Social Desirability ◽

Helping Behavior ◽

Self Report ◽

Performance Criteria ◽

Future Research ◽

Moderating Effects ◽

Moderation Effects ◽

Host Country Nationals ◽

Two Factors

This study aimed to examine how social desirability responding(SDR) affects the criterion-related validity of self-reported personality. Specifically, this study examined how SDR, impression management(IM) and self deceptive enhancement(SDE) can take distinct effects on criteria when personality traits of 91 expatriates such as empathy, cooperation, and friendliness predict their performance criteria. Although previous studies suggested either suppression or moderation effects of SDR, the results indicated that there was no suppression effects but statistically significant moderation effects of SDE on the link between each of some predictors(empathy and cooperation) and expatriate’s negative emotional expression and helping behavior in organization rated by peers(host country nationals). However, such effects were not supported in case of IM. The importance of specifying two factors of SDR and suggestions for the future research were discussed.

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Pre-print #3

10.31219/osf.io/e3p5d ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

D. Samuel Schwarzkopf ◽

Nonie J Finlayson ◽

Benjamin de Haas

Keyword(s):

Response Bias ◽

Forced Choice ◽

Perceptual Bias ◽

Confounding Factors ◽

Decision Criteria ◽

Response Modality ◽

Multiple Alternative ◽

The Mean ◽

Response Biases ◽

Perceptual Factors

Perceptual bias is inherent to all our senses, particularly in the form of visual illusionsand aftereffects. However, many experiments measuring perceptual biases may besusceptible to non-perceptual factors, such as response bias and decision criteria. Here wequantify how robust Multiple Alternative Perceptual Search (MAPS) is for disentanglingestimates of perceptual biases from these confounding factors. First our results show thatwhile there are considerable response biases in our four-alternative forced choice design,these are unrelated to perceptual biases estimates, and these response biases are notproduced by the response modality (keyboard versus mouse). We also show that perceptualbias estimates are reduced when feedback is given on each trial, likely due to feedbackenabling observers to partially (and actively) correct for perceptual biases. However, thisdoes not impact the reliability with which MAPS detects the presence of perceptual biases.Finally, our results show that MAPS can detect actual perceptual biases and is not adecisional bias towards choosing the target in the middle of the candidate stimulusdistribution. In summary, researchers conducting a MAPS experiment should use a constantreference stimulus, but consider varying the mean of the candidate distribution. Ideally,they should not employ trial-wise feedback if the magnitude of perceptual biases is ofinterest.

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Hubungan antara Empati dengan Tingkah laku Prososial dalam kalangan Pelajar Kejuruteraan Universiti

Sains Humanika ◽

10.11113/sh.v13n2-2.1890 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (2-2) ◽

Author(s):

Nur Fatin Afifah Mohd Sukeri ◽

Mastura Mahfar ◽

Mohammad Saipol Mohd Sukor

Keyword(s):

Prosocial Behavior ◽

Perspective Taking ◽

Engineering Students ◽

Sampling Method ◽

Simple Random Sampling ◽

Reactivity Index ◽

Significant Difference ◽

Prosocial Tendencies ◽

The Relationship ◽

Descriptive Statistical Analysis

Prosocial behavior is any form of act or activity that is intended to help or give another person the benefit without expecting any reward. One of the factors that can contribute to prosocial behavior is empathy. This study was conducted to identify the relationship between empathy and university students’ prosocial behaviors at one of the schools of engineering. A total of 94 fourth-year engineering students were selected by employing a simple random sampling method in this study. The Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), and the Prosocial Tendencies Measure (PTM) questionnaires were used to measure empathy and prosocial behavior. The study used descriptive statistical analysis through scores, mean and frequency to measure the level of empathy and prosocial behavior, while inferential statistics used t-test to measure differences in prosocial behavior by gender, and Pearson's correlation to identify the relationship between empathy and prosocial behavior. The findings of the study show that the levels of empathy and prosocial behavior of the respondents are moderate. There was no significant difference of prosocial behavior based on gender. Correlation analysis revealed that there was a relationship between empathy and prosocial behavior. All the dimensions of empathy which are “fantasy”, “perspective-taking”, “empathic concern” and “personal distress” have significant positive relationships with prosocial behavior.

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Impression Management and Prosocial Behavior following Transgression

Impression Management Theory and Social Psychological Research ◽

10.1016/b978-0-12-685180-9.50016-6 ◽

1981 ◽

pp. 223-244 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

JAMES T. TEDESCHI ◽

CATHERINE A. RIORDAN

Keyword(s):

Prosocial Behavior ◽

Impression Management

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Social desirability and cynicism biases in CSR surveys: an empirical study of hotels

Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Insights ◽

10.1108/jhti-01-2020-0006 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 3 (5) ◽

pp. 567-588

Author(s):

Henri Kuokkanen ◽

William Sun

Keyword(s):

Response Bias ◽

Social Desirability ◽

Purchase Intention ◽

Choice Model ◽

Tourism Industry ◽

Future Research ◽

Content Type ◽

Novel Approach ◽

Survey Results ◽

Hotel Managers

PurposePrevious studies support the notion that corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives can have a positive effect on customers in the hospitality and tourism industry. However, most of these studies have ignored response biases and none have incorporated them into their analyses numerically. This study aims at closing this research gap.Design/methodology/approachThe authors utilized a hybrid choice model to test for the hypothesized effects of social desirability (SD) and cynicism biases on reported purchase intention. The authors further compared the results with those of analyses that ignore these biases to demonstrate their distorting influence.FindingsThe results indicate that SD and cynicism biases have a moderating effect on reported purchase intention. Older generations and frequent travelers seem particularly prone to bias, and the biases have a distorting effect on the overall survey results.Research limitations/implicationsTraditional analyses that exclude biases, incorrectly, suggest several aspects of CSR that are significant (or insignificant) to purchase intention, provide unreliable results. The authors did not generalize bias-prone respondent segments but urge future research to investigate this.Practical implicationsHotel managers aspiring to gain competitive advantage through CSR investment must consider biases in their market research. Otherwise, they risk developing CSR initiatives that do not instigate positive customer behaviors, leading to the failure of the investment.Originality/valueThe authors quantified SD and cynicism as significant causes of response bias, which distorts survey results. Previous studies have conceptualized SD without quantifying its impact, while cynicism has been identified as a novel source of bias in the industry. This study further introduces hybrid choice modeling as a novel approach to address response bias that could extend itself beyond the industry studied here.

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