**Participants**
We will collect data from 1500 participants drawn in a stratified way with unequal probabilities of selection, so that the people who complete each survey will resemble the nation's adult population (according to the most recently available Current Population Survey, conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau) in terms of gender, age, education, ethnicity (Hispanic vs. not), race (allowing each respondent to select more than one race), region, and income.
**Procedure**
First, participants will answer the 10-item Short Social Desirability Scale (Vésteinsdóttir et al., 2017) under fast or slow responding conditions. Participants will be randomly assigned to the fast vs. slow responding conditions, and the procedure for encouraging fast vs. slow responses will be identical to that of the previous study ("Do speeded judgments increase socially desirable responding?").
Next, participants will respond to a questionnaire (about reading enjoyment) for purposes of an unrelated study (see links).
Next, participants will answer the good true self bias or the authenticity scale in random order.
To assess the good true self bias, we will follow the procedure described in Newman, Bloom, & Knobe (2014), Study 1. Participants will read 7 vignettes (presented in random order) that describe a person with a general tendency towards either good or bad behavior displaying uncharacteristic (bad or good, respectively) behavior. For each participant, 4[3] of the 7 vignettes will describe transformations from good to bad behavior, the other 3[4] transformations from bad to good behavior (but no vignette will be repeated across these two within-subjects conditions). All vignettes are attached. Following Newman et al. (2013), each vignette will start with the sentence, “Imagine an individual named XXXX. XXXX is different from you in almost every way—he/she has a different occupation and prefers different things than you.” After each vignette participants will be asked:
“Now that XXXX does [good things/bad things], to what extent is he being true to the deepest, most essential aspects of his being?” [9-point scale with 'not at all' and 'very much so' as end points].
Participants will respond to the Authenticity scale (Wood et al., 2008). This 12-item scale consists of three sub-scales: Authentic Living, Accepting External Influence, and Self-Alienation. Participants rate to what extent each item describes them on a scale from 1 (does not describe me at all) to 7 (describes me very well). The full scale is attached. Responses to the Accepting External Influence and Self-Alienation sub-scales will be reverse coded.
**Predictions**
1. We predict a main effect of response speed on social desirability scores, with higher social desirability scores in the fast (vs. slow) responding condition.
2. We predict a positive correlation between good true self bias scores and social desirability.
3. We predict an interaction of response speed and good true self bias, in that the relationship between good true self bias and social desirability and should be stronger in the fast (vs. slow) response speed condition.
4. We predict an interaction of response speed and authenticity. Specifically, we predict that there will be no significant relationship between authenticity and social desirability in the slow condition, but there may be a positive relationship in the fast condition.
**References**
Bargh, J. A., McKenna, K. Y., & Fitzsimons, G. M. (2002). Can you see the real me? Activation and expression of the “true self” on the Internet. Journal of social issues, 58(1), 33-48.
Higgins, E. T. (1987). Self-discrepancy: a theory relating self and affect. Psychological review, 94(3), 319.
Laing, R. D. (1960). The divided self. New York, NY: Pantheon.
Newman, G. E., Bloom, P., & Knobe, J. (2014). Value judgments and the true self. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40(2), 203-216.
Schlegel, R. J., Hicks, J. A., Arndt, J., & King, L. A. (2009). Thine own self: True self-concept accessibility and meaning in life. Journal of personality and social psychology, 96(2), 473.
Vésteinsdóttir, V., Reips, U. D., Joinson, A., & Thorsdottir, F. (2017). An item level evaluation of the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale using item response theory on Icelandic Internet panel data and cognitive interviews. Personality and Individual Differences, 107, 164-173.
Wood, A. M., Linley, P. A., Maltby, J., Baliousis, M., & Joseph, S. (2008). The authentic personality: A theoretical and empirical conceptualization and the development of the Authenticity Scale. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 55(3), 385.
