Associations between Hofstede’s Cultural Constructs and Social Desirability Response Bias

Abstract

This paper examines the associations among social desirability response bias, cultural constructs and gender. The study includes the responses of 1537 students from 12 countries including Australia, Canada, China, Colombia, Ecuador, Hong Kong, Ireland, Japan, Nepal, South Africa, Spain, and the United States. The results of the analysis indicate that, on average, social desirability response bias decreases (increases) as a country’s Individualism (Uncertainty Avoidance) increases. The analysis also indicates that women scored significantly higher on Paulhus’ Image Management Subscale on an overall basis and for seven of the 12 country comparisons. This research serves as a caution when considering the research findings of prior international survey-based ethics research that do not include a direct measure of social desirability response bias. For example, the finding that women score higher on Paulhus’ measure of social desirability response bias calls into question prior research that does not control for social desirability response bias indicating women are more ethically sensitive than men. Copyright Springer 2006Hofstede’s cultural constructs, Social desirability response Bias,

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“…Method bias occurs when validity is reduced by instrument administration related factors, for instance, acquiescence or social desirability. From literature, we know that the tendency to respond in a socially desirable way is higher in collectivistic cultures (Bond & Smith 1996;Van Hemert et al 2002;Bernardi 2006). We found a much higher percentage of respondents agreeing with more than three items of the Infrequency scale than other studies (Hojat et al 2005(Hojat et al , 2013Rossier et al 2008), which may be attributable to the collectivistic culture in Saudi Arabia.…”

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