Social Desirability Scale

Technical Manual

Script Author: Katja Borchert, Ph.D. (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Created: January 04, 2018

Last Modified: January 09, 2023 by K. Borchert (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Script Copyright © Millisecond Software, LLC

Background

This script implements a computerized version of the Social Desirability Scale (SDS) by:

Crowne, D.P. & Marlowe, D.A. (1960). A new scale of social desirability independent of pathology, Journal of Consulting Psychology, 24, 351.

Duration

3 minutes

Overview

33 true-false questions, self report
The social-desirable behavior is scored with 1 point:
true = 1, false = 0 (reversed scored questions with R: true = 0; false = 1)

Instructions

see section Editable Parameters

Summary Data

File Name: sds_summary.iqdat' (Inquisit Lab: one data file per participant)

Data Fields

NameDescription
inquisit.version Inquisit version number
computer.platform Device platform: win | mac |ios | android
startDate Date the session was run
startTime Time the session was run
subjectId Participant ID
groupId Group number
sessionId Session number
elapsedTime Session duration in ms
completed 0 = Test was not completed
1 = Test was completed
sdsScore The total score (Range: 0 - 33)
the higher the score, the more social-desirable behavior was reported
+ individual responses

Raw Data

File Name: sds.iqdat

Data Fields

NameDescription
date Date the session was run
time Time the session was run
subject, group, session With the current subject/groupnumber/session id
build Inquisit version number
q*_response Response given (in assigned values: 0 (false)-1 (true))
questions marked with 'R' are automatically reversed scored
q*_latency How much time (in ms) the participant spent on the surveyPage with this
particular question (the last time this particular surveyPage was visited)

Parameters

The procedure can be adjusted by setting the following parameters.

NameDescriptionDefault
pageInstructions The instructions that appear at the top of each surveyPage