Overall, these results suggest that the short German scale is a valid measure of socially desirable responding and support the case for continuous rather than dichotomous scoring of BIDR scales. Tests of criterion validity yield expected results. Internal consistency is significantly higher for the continuously scored scales in one of two Waves. No significant differences in test-retest reliability are found for the SDE subscale and the combined scale the IM subscale attains significantly higher test-retest reliability when scored continuously. Data are taken from a post-stratified national probability sample of German family doctors (n = 166). Tests of criterion validity are also presented. This paper compares the two methods with respect to test-retest reliability (stability) and internal consistency using a short German version of the BIDR (Winkler, Kroh, & Spiess, 2006). An open question is whether these scales should be scored dichotomously (counting only extreme values) or continuously (taking the mean of the answers). The Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR Paulhus, 1991) is a widely used instrument that measures two components of socially desirable responding: self-deceptive enhancement (SDE) and impression management (IM). Survey researchers often include measures of social desirability in questionnaires. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0)

Dichotomous variable valid reliable