Asking for a Friend, Abby Person

28 ASKING FOR A FRIEND Abby Person

Perhaps one of the most overlooked and revealing of psychological questionnaires is the “Two-Component Models of Socially Desirable Responding.” Researchers use this measure when they want to identify participants who will say anything to be liked. The logic behind scales that measure socially desirable bias is that humans universally engage in behaviors that we all deny doing, like taking sick leave when we aren’t really sick, or voting for candidates we know little about, and that while the average participant will admit to these behaviors in the context of an anonymous questionnaire, socially desirable responders will be unable to admit to doing these things because they need to be liked and approved. In essence, this measure is trying to identify the people-pleasers.

The thing is, in writing these questions researchers are admitting what they do, too. So, instead of having only a vague image of the creator of this measure as a gray-haired and glasses-wearing professor or an aloof researcher in a lab coat, I now know that they may lie about being sick and doubt their sexual adequacy. And I wonder, if I were to write my own measure of social desirability, what items would I include? It might look something like this. 1. Do you ever steal two slices of bread from your roommate when you discover that your own has turned frosty blue with mold and proceed to make yourself feel better about the theft by telling yourself that five months ago she ate your Trader Joe’s microwavable quiche thinking it was her own and never replaced it even though she said she would? 2. Do you ever find a way to work in a story about cleaning the sink the other day, including details of the brown sludge that had worked itself into drains and spigots, in the hope that your dirty roommate will get the hint and clean something already?

3. Do you ever conspicuously place your book face-up while reading in public so that the people sitting beside you can see that you’re reading Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment (which you will later guiltily put aside, bored)? 4. Do you ever insist to your significant other that it’s only fair that you each pay for things equitably in the relationship even though he has more money, and then become secretly disappointed when he tells the waiter to split the check? 5. Do you ever watch consecutive hours of America’s Next Top Model, but when discussing the show with friends, speak as if you’re watching the show for some sort of sociological purpose—tossing out words like “consumerism” and “objectification”—instead of saying that you watch it because of the drama and destination photo shoots? 6. Do you ever abstain from recycling simply because the trash can is a little closer? 7. Do you subscribe to various news podcasts and email newsletters, knowing that you really should become more politically aware, but move those email newsletters to the trash, unread? And when, on a whim, you open your iPhone’s news app thinking you may as well use a spare minute to catch up, do you swiftly drag your finger past articles pertaining to impeachment processes and trade agreements and instead open an article about Drew Barrymore’s recent weight loss? 8. When sharing a one-room apartment that can only be described as acoustic with a roommate you’re not particularly close to, do you ever leave the apartment simply so that you can take a shit in a more discreet location? 9. Do you feel guilty in museums because while you and your friend are staring at the same artist description she seems to be reading it and you’re thinking about whether you’d rather wear your high-waisted green pants or your loose-legged yellow ones the next day?

Asking for a friend.