Do people lie to appear unprejudiced

Abstract

This paper reports the results of two studies assessing the reliability and validity of a new scale, the Political Correctness Scale (the PC Scale), which is intended to assess the tendency to lie to appear unprejudiced. The scale was found to be reliable and valid. People with high PC scores lied more on a social desirability scale and reported lower prejudice on the Modern Racism scale. In addition, two experiments showed that people had higher PC scores when placed in a situation where there was pressure to hide prejudices and lower PC scores when there was situational pressure to tell the truth. A valid PC scale can be a useful measure for researchers studying the nature of prejudice.