Ethnic Affirmation versus Social Desirability as a Determinant of Discrepancies in the Responses of Hispanic Bilinguals to Spanish and English Versions of a Questionnaire.

摘要

Sixty bilingual (English-Spanish) college students and 53 monolingual (Spanish) Puerto Rican high school students answered a questionnaire containing questions that tap Hispanic subjective culture. Ethnic affirmation was measured by checking whether the English responses of the bilinguals were closer to the responses of the monolinguals than were the Spanish responses of the same individuals. In addition, a competing hypothesis was that the English responses will be higher in social desirability than the Spanish responses of the same individuals. Ethnic affirmation was found in Spanish rather than in English--i.e., the Spanish rather than the English response of the bilinguals was closer to the response of the monolinguals. However, the obtained differences between the English and Spanish responses of the bilinguals can best be accounted by the social desirability hypothesis. The study implies that it is preferable to test bilingual subjects in their 'mother tongue' since their responses are less socially desirable in that language.