ABSTRACT
Individuals are often hesitant to reveal they have socially undesirable traits even when they have nothing directly to gain by being deceitful. There are three basic approaches to reducing social desirability as a factor in participants' responses. First, by administering personality measures anonymously, researchers may reduce this tendency. Another approach is to observe behavior unobtrusively and rate selected characteristics such as aggressiveness. A third approach is to use projective techniques. For instance, a test administrator might infer that participants whose responses to ink blots contain numerous references to aggressiveness are themselves aggressive. For attitude toward school, a researcher might have several statements concerning attitudes in each of these areas: learning in academic areas, relationships with classmates, relationships with teachers and staff, participation in extracurricular activities. In short, when researchers measure personality traits, they want respondents to indicate what they are typically like, not how good they can make themselves look.
