Self-knowledge and social desirability of personality traits

✍ Scribed by Mauro Meleddu; Marco Guicciardi

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 189 KB
• Volume: 12
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0890-2070
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-0984(199805/06)12:3<151::aid-per296>3.0.co;2-c

✦ Synopsis

Research into the self-concept has shown that self-knowledge is aected by factors such as trait desirability, trait vagueness, and self-variability. Among these, social desirability appears to play a prominent role. In a multidimensional view of the self, however, several studies indicate that in special conditions people show adequate selfknowledge in speci®c personality dimensions. The present study tests this with respect to extraversion and anxiety predisposition on a sample of 160 late adolescents. The main results con®rm the prominent in¯uence of social desirability, but they also provide support for the hypothesis of the speci®city of self-perception. Despite a common pattern, the eects of desirability appeared, to some extent, to be less strong for anxiety than for extraversion. Several possible interpretations of this ®nding are discussed.