An Investigation Into the Relationship Between Socially Desirable Responding and Offender Self-Report

Recent research has shown that offenders high on impression management report fewer antisocial attitudes and less antisocial history and are objectively rated at less risk to commit a criminal offense. Further, impression management has been shown to be significantly and negatively related to criminal behavior. The present research investigated the hypothesis that this relationship may be due to the honest responding of offenders to items measuring relatively minor antisocial and criminal behaviors. The Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (now the Paulhus Deception Scales; D. L. Paulhus, 1994 , 1998 ) is shown to be confounded with criminal-risk variance, and it may lead to incorrect conclusions when used with correctional samples. The discussion centers on the relationship of socially desirable responding with other constructs important in the prediction of reoffending within a correctional population.