Social-desirability bias and the validity of self-reported values

Unlike prior research that treats social-desirability bias (SDB) as measure contamination, the present research asserts that significant associations between measures of SDB and value self-reports are evidence of measure validity. The degree to which value self-reports are influenced by SDB also reflects the relative importance of values within a culture. Values that are most important have the greatest self-presentational implications and therefore should be most affected by SDB. Moreover, differences between raw and SDB-corrected value self-reports indicate the extent to which values are personal (i.e, private) or public in nature. The research is based on two national samples of American adults 18 years of age and older. Implications for research on values are discussed. (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.