Validating an Inventory for the Assessment of Egoistic Bias and Moralistic Bias as Two Separable Components of Social Desirability

The psychometric properties of the German adaptation of the balanced inventory of desirable responding were investigated. This 2-factor inventory taps the egoistic bias and the moralistic bias as the 2 distinguishable components of social desirability. In 2 validation studies, both subscales showed satisfactory internal consistency and temporal stability. To examine convergent and discriminant validity, the scales were correlated with those of a measure of unrealistic optimism, various measures of self-enhancement, 1-dimensional scales of social desirability, and the tendency to overclaim in a test of general knowledge.