Social Desirability as a Predictor of Argumentativeness and Communication Apprehension

Abstract

Strahan and Gerbasi's (1972) social desirability scales were used to identify 70 American undergraduate students as high social-desirability and 98 students as low social-desirability individuals. I hypothesized that high social-desirability individuals would be more apprehensive and less argumentative in the process of communication. Infante and Rancer's (1982) Argumentativeness Scale and McCroskey's (1982) Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA-24) were used to test the hypotheses. Both hypotheses were confirmed.