Religiosity and social desirability: impression management and self-deceptive positivity

The first aim of the present study was to replicate previous research, which has investigated the association between scores on the Francis Scale of Attitudes towards Christianity (FSAC) (Francis & Stubbs, 1987) and scores on Eysenck's Personality Questionnaire (EPQ-R Short Scale) (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1991). Further evidence is presented that higher religiosity is associated with lower scores on the psychoticism scale. The main aim of the present study, however, was to investigate the association between social desirability and religiosity. Although no association was found between religiosity and Lie scale scores in the present study, there is debate over what the Lie scale is actually measuring and so we also included, among other measures, the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR: Paulhus, 1988), which consists of two subscales, self deceptive positivity and impression management. It was found that although religiosity was not associated with self-deception it was associated with impression management.     

Predicting frequency,intensity and duration of other people's self-reported depression

Ss indicated on 5-point qualitative scales how often they felt depressed, how depressed they usually feel. and for how long their feelings of depression usually last and estimated what proportion of the group would choose each scale point. Parallel questions concerning the hypothetical ‘average person’ were included along with these ‘self’ items. The observed and mean estimated percentages of the group using the scale points were compared. The mean predictions were remarkably close to the observed values for all questions, suggesting that people possess higher-order cognitions about the intensity and duration of feelings of depression as well as about frequency. The possible social significance and functions of these sorts of cognitions are discussed in relation to recent studies of illness behaviour.     

Conditioning in the prediction of therapeutic outcome in depressions

Predictions of clinical responsiveness to tricyclic anti-depressants were studied in 25 depressed patients. A well-preserved external inhibition at the commencement of treatment was found to be the best single indicator of therapeutic success.