Approval Need in Self-Reports of Addicts and Family Members

Abstract

Ample evidence documents the tendency of research subjects to attribute to themselves socially desirable traits and to deny having socially undesirable qualities. This tendency is particularly marked among subjects who are defensive, lacking in self-esteem, or sensitive to status differences. Drug addicts often have all of these characteristics. This paper examines the extent to which need for social approval is reflected in methadone patients' and family members' self-reports of personal and family functioning. Results demonstrate the importance of taking the approval motive into account when conducting research with this population. Addicts tend to deny negative things about themselves and their families, while family members tend to exaggerate their own and their families' positive qualities. Implications for drug treatment programs and researchers are discussed.

Family ties of drug abusers.

“…Finally, the variables that could be abstracted from admission records may be considerably less sensitive than could be gathered from in-depth, confidential interviewing or from completing psychometric measures of family functioning. In a previous study we found that both addicts and family members may tend to give socially desirable answers in interviews similar to these social network assessments (Gibson, Wermuth, Sorensen, Menicucci, & Bernal, 1987).…”

Methodological Issues in Questionnaire Design

“…Knowles [12] reported that socially desirable responses can be increased when participants should answer the same general issue repeatedly across the items in single-dimension scale [13,14].…”