Work

Influence of Social Desirability on Age Differences in Self-Reports of Mood and Personality

Year: 2010

Type: article

Abstract: ABSTRACT Increased age has been found to be associated with differences in affect and personality that have been interpreted in terms of better emotional regulation and increased maturity. However, these findings have largely been based on self-report data, and the primary goal of the current research was to investigate the hypothesis that age-related differences in affect and in certain desirable personality traits might, at least partially, reflect age differences in social desirability. As expected, increased age was associated with lower levels of negative affect and Neuroticism and higher levels of positive affect, life satisfaction, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness, and scores on the social desirability scale were positively related to age and to desirable self-report characteristics but negatively related to undesirable self-report characteristics. Importantly, controlling for the variance in the social desirability measure resulted in less positive age trends in both types of self-report measures.

Source: Journal of Personality

DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-6494.2010.00700.x

Authors: Andrea Soubelet, Timothy A. Salthouse

Institutions: Université de Provence Aix-Marseille I, University of Virginia

Language: English

Topic: Personality Traits and Psychology

Subfield: Clinical Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: green

Funder: National Institute on Aging