Why do people answer questions about themselves in a socially desirable way? One reason may be that they are motivated to present themselves in a favorable light. Another (not necessarily mutually exclusive) reason may be that their responses are aligned with their "true self" (a person's concept of who they really are; their authentic, real, inner self) rather than their actual self (how a person outwardly behaves; e.g., Bargh, McKenna, & Fitzsimons, 2002; Higgins, 1987; Laing, 1960; Schlegel, Hicks, Arndt, & King, 2009). Research has shown that people have a tendency to believe that the true self is fundamentally good (the "good true self bias", e.g., Newman, Bloom, & Knobe, 2013). If socially desirable responding is a manifestation of the good true self bias, the two should be correlated. This study seeks to test this correlation. The study further tests whether the correlation between socially desirable responding and good true self bias is affected by response speed. In a previous study (see linked study "Do speeded judgments increase socially desirable responding?") we found that encouraging participants to answer a social desirability scale quickly (in less than 11 seconds per item) caused them to give more socially desirable responses than encouraging them to answer slowly (in more than 11 seconds per item). If fast responding increased the extent to which participants were accessing their true (vs. actual) self-concept, one should expect that the correlation between good true self bias and social desirability would be greater under a fast compared to slow response condition. Another concept related to the true self concept is authenticity, which involves living in accordance with one’s own values and beliefs and feeling in touch with one's true-self. Authenticity has previously been found to be uncorrelated to social desirability. However, if fast responding increases the extent to which participants access their true self-concept, there may be a correlation between authentic self and social desirability under fast response conditions. **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.