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Abstract
This study examined the relationship between social desirability and dimensional judgments of risk, naturalness and ethicality for biotechnological and matched natural health technologies. We examine if those who are motivated to respond in a socially‐desirable way will be more likely to rate genetically‐modified (GM) technologies as more risky (less natural or ethical) than those who are not motivated to respond in a socially‐desirable way. One‐hundred and forty‐eight participants rated eight technologies along three dimensions (risk, naturalness and ethicality) and completed a measure of social desirability. The results showed that ethicality was unrelated to social desirability. The dimension of naturalness was related to social desirability regardless of the type of technology. The results further showed that for GM technologies those motivated to respond in a socially desirable way rated these as more risky. Theoretical and methodological implications are drawn from the study.
Notes
1. Numbers in the actual analyses varied due to missing data. Exact Ns are given for each analysis. For the whole sample the Marlowe‐Crowne scale had a mean of 5.1 and an SD of 2.0. The reduced sample for the analyses of the risk dimension this was 5.3 with an SD of 1.9 which was not statistically different from 5.1 (t (110) = 1.2, p = .23). Similarly for the reduced sample for the ethicality judgments the mean was 5.1 with an SD of 2.0 which was not statistically different from 5.1 (t (112) = 0.2, p = .83). Finally, for the reduced sample for the naturalness judgments the mean was 5.2 with an SD of 2.0 which was not statistically different from 5.1 (t (108) = 0.42, p = .67). Thus the results reported are not due to the reduced samples affecting the nature of the distribution of scores on the Marlowe‐Crowne scale.