Social Desirability Scale
A set of test items designed to detect respondents who answer in a way that makes them look good, rather than honestly. Used to flag results for cautious interpretation.
Social desirability scales (e.g., Marlowe-Crowne, Paulhus BIDR) include items few people can honestly endorse — "I have never lied", "I have never gossiped" — alongside items few people can honestly deny.
High scores on a social desirability scale do not invalidate a personality result, but they signal that other scores may be inflated toward socially-positive answers (higher Conscientiousness, higher Agreeableness, lower Neuroticism).
Many hiring assessments include embedded social-desirability checks. JobCannon's tests prioritise neutral item wording and forced-choice structure to reduce the need for separate social-desirability detection, but the underlying concept remains a useful interpretive lens for any self-report result.
Source: Paulhus, D. L. (1991). Measurement and control of response bias. In Measures of Personality and Social Psychological Attitudes.