Variables Influencing the Judged Desirability of Personality Traits

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Abstract
The judged desirability of personality traits is shown to be influenced (1) by the sex of the judge, (2) the context of the judgment, and (3) by the valence and (4) the word frequency of the traits. Thus, female Ss make more extreme social desirability judgments than males, the sexual context of the traits leads to differential judgments, more extreme judgments are made to negative than to positive traits, and, finally, more familiar traits receive more extreme judgments than less familiar ones. In addition, these findings were qualified by various significant interactions. It is hypothesized that these results are mainly a function of differential emotive responsiveness of males and females and differential growth functions of positive and negative connotations of traits.

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