ABSTRACT
Social desirability bias occurs in behavioural research when participants provide responses that portray themselves in a socially desirable manner rather than providing responses that reflect their true opinions, beliefs, judgments, decisions or intentions. Social desirability bias may influence the validity of behavioural research involving socially sensitive issues such as ethical decision-making. In this chapter, we review scales that prior research has used to measure and control for social desirability bias, we review accounting and auditing literature that addresses issues related to social desirability bias and we provide guidance to researchers conducting Behavioural Accounting Research about how to deal with potential social desirability bias in their research.
