Self-knowledge and social desirability of personality traits

Abstract

Research into the self‐concept has shown that self‐knowledge is affected by factors such as trait desirability, trait vagueness, and self‐variability. Among these, social desirability appears to play a prominent role. In a multidimensional view of the self, however, several studies indicate that in special conditions people show adequate self‐knowledge in specific personality dimensions. The present study tests this with respect to extraversion and anxiety predisposition on a sample of 160 late adolescents. The main results confirm the prominent influence of social desirability, but they also provide support for the hypothesis of the specificity of self‐perception. Despite a common pattern, the effects of desirability appeared, to some extent, to be less strong for anxiety than for extraversion. Several possible interpretations of this finding are discussed. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.