Impact of social desirability response sets on the self-report of marital adjustment in alcoholics

The role of social desirability response sets on self-reported marital satisfaction in 143 male alcoholics and their wives was assessed in a factor analytic study of the combined Locke-Wallace Marital Adjustment Scale (MAS) and Edmonds Marital Conventionalization Scale (MCS). Overall, results indicated that alcoholics rated their marriage as significantly more satisfying than did their wives. There was, however, a large amount of covariation between the MAS and MCS for husbands, and factor analyses revealed considerable redundancy between the two measures as evidenced in one dominant factor on which both MAS and MCS items loaded. Although there was also high covariation between the two scales for wives, there was still enough differential responding to MAS and MCS items to identify both a dominant factor and a second factor, the latter loaded on only by MCS items. Results suggest that the self-reported marital satisfaction of male alcoholics may be highly contaminated by social desirability response sets. The results are discussed with respect to the two-component model of socially desirable responding and caution is urged in the evaluation of self-report marital adjustment measures with this population.