Mother and father socially desirable responding in nine countries: Two kinds of agreement and relations to parenting self‐reports

Abstract

We assessed 2 forms of agreement between mothers’ and fathers’ socially desirable responding in China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand and the United States (N =1110 families). Mothers and fathers in all 9 countries reported socially desirable responding in the upper half of the distribution, and countries varied minimally (but China was higher than the cross-country grand mean and Sweden lower). Mothers and fathers did not differ in reported levels of socially desirable responding, and mothers’ and fathers’ socially desirable responding were largely uncorrelated. With one exception, mothers’ and fathers’ socially desirable responding were similarly correlated with self-perceptions of parenting, and correlations varied somewhat across countries. These findings are set in a discussion of socially desirable responding, cultural psychology and family systems.