INTRACULTURAL AND INTERCULTURAL FACTOR STRUCTURES OF SOCIAL DESIRABILITY RATINGS BY AMERICAN AND GERMAN COLLEGE STUDENTS

Social desirability ratings of 150 American and 108 German college students responding to the 39 items of the Edwards social desirability scale were analyzed both intra- and interculturally. Using cross-products instead of convential product moment corrections as measures of item relationships, both the intra- and intercultural factor structures consisted of a large item-specific SD factor and an additional subject-specific SD response style factor. The interpretation of these factors was facilitated by contrasting the results of additional analyses using different types of data standardization. The conclusion of high intercultural invariance was further supported by comparing the degree of similarity of factor structures between and within cultures by means of a recently proposed technique of similarity rotation. © 1969, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.