Worry and social desirability: opposite relationships for socio-political and social-evaluation worries

The present article investigates the relationship between social desirabili ty and worry. In particular, it addresses the question of whether socio-pol itical worries (i.e. worries about societal or environmental problems) show a different relationship with social desirability than worries related to one's social-evaluative self-concept (i.e. worries about one's own relation ships, future, work, or finances). A sample of 155 students responded to se lf-report questionnaires on worry and social desirability, first under stan dard instructions and then under social desirability-provoking instructions (imaginary job-application instructions). As expected, results showed oppo site relationships for socio-political and social-evaluation worries. First , socio-political worries showed positive correlations with scores from the social desirability questionnaire, whereas social-evaluation worries showe d negative correlations. Second, endorsements of sociopolitical worries inc reased under social desirability-provoking instructions, whereas those of s ocial-evaluation worries decreased. However, all correlations between self- reported worry and social-desirability scores were rather small. Moreover, in absolute terms, socio-political worries did not show any greater social- desirability bias than social-evaluation worries. Implications for self-rep ort measures of socio-political worries (e.g. environmental worry, worry ab out technological risks) and directions for future research are discussed. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.