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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Social desirability does not confound reports of wellbeing or of socio-demographic attributes by older women | | Author(s) | Sharron E Dawes |
| Journal title | Ageing and Society, vol 31, part 3, April 2011 |
| Pages | pp 438-454 |
| Source | http://www.journals.cambridge.org/aso |
| Keywords | Quality of life ; Life satisfaction ; Well being ; Older women ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | This California-based study assessed the relationship of social desirability response bias with self-reported physical, mental and cognitive health, successful ageing, and socio-demographic attributes among 1,860 older women. The women were aged between 57 and 91 years and lived in the San Diego community. Measures included a ten-item Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, and self-report scales of physical, mental and cognitive health, successful ageing and wellbeing, as well as standard socio-demographic attributes. Bivariate correlation and multiple regression models indicated that social desirability scores negatively associated with self-reported levels of hostility, anxiety, perceived stress and self-reported cognitive failures, and that they predicted additional variance in multiple regression analyses above models containing socio-demographic predictors alone. On the other hand, even the strongest associations were what are generally considered `small effects'. Overall, while the findings support the general validity of most of the self-report measures in studies of normal and successful ageing, consideration of social desirability response bias in the interpretation of self-reports of low levels of some key constructs (anxiety, hostility, stress, self-perceived cognitive deficits) is warranted. (JL). |
| Accession Number | CPA-110505007 A |
| Classmark | F:59: F:5HH: D:F:5HH: BD: 7T |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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