The athletic coping skills inventory: relationship with impression management and self-deception aspects of socially desirable responding

Objectives: The primary objective was to document the relationship between the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR) indices of impression management (IM) and self-deception (SDE) response styles and the Athletic Coping Skills Inventory (ACSI-28) subscales. It was hypothesized that the ACSI-28 subscales would be significantly related to BIDR IM and SDE. Design: Cross-sectional. The relationship between ACSI-28 subscales and the BIDR was assessed using SAS Multiple Regression Analyses procedures. A combination of IM and SDE served as predictors of the ACSI-28 subscale outcome variables. Method: Undergraduate volunteers (n=468) completed a test booklet consisting of the BIDR and the ACSI-28. Results: The ACSI-28 was found to be relatively free of the more traditional IM response bias, however all ACSI-28 subscales were strongly affected by SDE bias. Conclusions: Additional studies are needed to determine whether self-deceptive responding is a source of psychometric confounding or is perhaps an adaptive psychological coping skill. It is suggested that both the IM and SDE constructs be considered in the design of sport psychology research involving self-report measures. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.