Perceptions of Social Desirability and Frequency of Occurrence of Traits and the Probability that the Traits Will Be Endorsed

Abstract

One group estimated the percentage of their fellow students characterized by each one of 100 traits while another group responded True or False to each trait. The correlation between the social desirability values of the traits and probability of endorsement was .80 while the correlation between the perceived frequency of occurrence of these traits and the probability of endorsement was .86. The multiple correlation of frequency of occurrence and social desirability with probability of endorsement was .88 and .10 of the variance in the endorsement variable was directly associated with variance in the social desirability variable while .37 of the variance in the endorsement variable was directly associated with variance in the frequency of occurrence variable.