Mindful Communication to Address Burnout, Empathy, and Attitudes—Reply

In Reply: Drs Wang and Gao assert that social desirability is a response bias that can confound relationships among the variables of interest. This claim is nonspecific and belied by the evidence. First, a wide body of psychometric data suggests that the putative social desirability response bias is not a response bias at all, but a misnomer for a personality trait related to conventionality.¹ Second, even if social desirability resulted in a response bias, there is no psychometric consensus on how it should be measured.² Third, even if its measurement were attempted, including the results of this measurement in models may reduce rather than enhance the validity of associations.^2- 3 For instance, in the legally perilous and financially high-stakes world of personnel selection, meta-analytic evidence weighs heavily against the claims that social desirability is a response bias and confounds associations of interest; efforts to measure and adjust for it are discouraged.³ Fourth, even if a social desirability bias exists, measurement is endeavored, and adjustment attempted, social desirability responsiveness could bias treatment effect estimates only if it were associated with both the outcome and treatment.