Skip to main content

Lund University Publications

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

Accounting for the evaluative factor in self-ratings provides a more accurate estimate of the relationship between personality traits and well-being

Kallio Strand, Kalle ; Bäckström, Martin LU and Björklund, Fredrik LU orcid (2021) In Journal of Research in Personality 93.
Abstract
Social desirability may cause spurious relations in self-rating measures. The present study sought to disentangle socially desirable responding and content in the relation between measures of personality traits and well-being. Social desirability was operationalized as the evaluative factor (the tendency to react to evaluative content in questionnaire items). We collected self- and peer-ratings of personality and self-ratings of well-being from 219 participants. The evaluative factor in personality self-ratings significantly predicted well-being and explained more variance than all Big Five traits combined. The evaluative factor in personality peer-ratings had no unique relation to well-being. These findings suggest that previous estimates... (More)
Social desirability may cause spurious relations in self-rating measures. The present study sought to disentangle socially desirable responding and content in the relation between measures of personality traits and well-being. Social desirability was operationalized as the evaluative factor (the tendency to react to evaluative content in questionnaire items). We collected self- and peer-ratings of personality and self-ratings of well-being from 219 participants. The evaluative factor in personality self-ratings significantly predicted well-being and explained more variance than all Big Five traits combined. The evaluative factor in personality peer-ratings had no unique relation to well-being. These findings suggest that previous estimates of the relationship between personality traits and well-being have generally been exaggerated. Different methods of accounting for social desirability are discussed. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
personality, well-being, social desirability, self-ratings, peer-ratings
in
Journal of Research in Personality
volume
93
article number
104120
pages
8 pages
publisher
Elsevier
external identifiers
  • scopus:85108078250
ISSN
0092-6566
DOI
10.1016/j.jrp.2021.104120
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
8a2bda18-9ec5-4359-8435-68b5761ceaa3
date added to LUP
2021-06-18 09:50:14
date last changed
2022-04-27 02:31:01
@article{8a2bda18-9ec5-4359-8435-68b5761ceaa3,
  abstract     = {{Social desirability may cause spurious relations in self-rating measures. The present study sought to disentangle socially desirable responding and content in the relation between measures of personality traits and well-being. Social desirability was operationalized as the evaluative factor (the tendency to react to evaluative content in questionnaire items). We collected self- and peer-ratings of personality and self-ratings of well-being from 219 participants. The evaluative factor in personality self-ratings significantly predicted well-being and explained more variance than all Big Five traits combined. The evaluative factor in personality peer-ratings had no unique relation to well-being. These findings suggest that previous estimates of the relationship between personality traits and well-being have generally been exaggerated. Different methods of accounting for social desirability are discussed.}},
  author       = {{Kallio Strand, Kalle and Bäckström, Martin and Björklund, Fredrik}},
  issn         = {{0092-6566}},
  keywords     = {{personality; well-being; social desirability; self-ratings; peer-ratings}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{06}},
  publisher    = {{Elsevier}},
  series       = {{Journal of Research in Personality}},
  title        = {{Accounting for the evaluative factor in self-ratings provides a more accurate estimate of the relationship between personality traits and well-being}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2021.104120}},
  doi          = {{10.1016/j.jrp.2021.104120}},
  volume       = {{93}},
  year         = {{2021}},
}