Abstract
From an analysis of the response by rural high school students in Grades X, XI and XII to a questionnaire derived by Messick from items related to Murray's needs, Anderson and Traub claimed the existence of a general factor of social desirability with its psychological correlate in the form of two extroverted dimensions, social extroversion and impulsivity. Implicit in this work are two hypotheses which were tested in the current study: that this general factor would be sustained at the adult level and that its greater impact on male than on female responses would also continue. From an analysis of responses by students in the first and in the third or fourth years of a university program, no support was found for these hypotheses.