2003 IMTA Proceedings - International Military Testing Association

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relevant information concerning social norms. This finding may also appeal to common sense,
when we realise social sensitivity is the ‘passive’ social skill of interpreting socially relevant
signals, that could be associated more with the listener group role. Emotional control is a more
active social skill of sending emotionally relevant messages, that could be associated more with the
active sender group role.
The negative correlation between on the one hand social sensitivity and on the other hand social
expressivity and social control again seems to stress the difference between the active social skills
and the passive skills. We will return to this thought later.
A strong positive correlation is found between the SSI-total score and five SSI-scales. This
correlation is interpreted as an indication that the SSI-total score may serve as a global indicator of
the development of social skills. This thought will be explored further later on in the paper as well.
Test-retest reliability
An assessment of test-retest reliability with a two-week interval was planned. Due to the
downsizing of the Dutch military that coincided with the study, this assessment was no longer
possible. Riggio (1986) found test-retest reliabilities ranging from .81 for emotional expressivity, to
.94 for the SSI-totalscore, and .96 for social expressivity.
Validity
Social desirability
In personnel selection situations a social desirability bias on test results is generally expected. In
accordance to earlier research findings by Riggio significant correlations are found between the
Crowne-Marlowe social desirability scale and the social scales of the Social Skills Inventory (see
table 3), indicating that the non-verbal/emotional scales of the SSI may be free of a social
desirability bias. A small positive correlation is found between social desirability and social
expressiveness, indicating that the more socially and verbally skilled persons are more inclined to
giving social desirable answers (R=.21). A positive correlation is found between social desirability
and social control, indicating that persons with greater skills in managing social situations are also
more inclined to giving social desirable responses to questions (R=.25). A remarkable but
significant negative correlation is found between social desirability and social sensitivity, indicating
the more socially sensitive persons are actually less inclined to giving social desirable responses
(R= -.30).
EE ES EC SE SS SC SSI-total
Riggio -.15 .12 .10 .26 -.31 .48 .04
Nederhof -.08 .09 .10 .21 -.30 .25 .10
Table 3: Correlation between the Crowne-Marlowe social desirability scale and the SSI-scales.
These findings indicate that the social scales of the SSI are prone to social desirable answering by
some persons. This conclusion is not unique, since this is the case for most instruments that are
used for selection purposes, as indicated by the significant difference between norm groups for
research purposes versus selection purposes. The problem of coping with social desirability in norm
groups may be however that in the same situation some people are more inclined to social desirable
answering than others (Nederhof, 1985), which greatens the chance of false negatives. As a
solution different norm groups might be devised for people that score low versus people that score
high on social desirability.
Personality
45 th Annual Conference of the International Military Testing Association
Pensacola, Florida, 3-6 November 2003