Brief Report on Socially Desirable Responses Given in Self-Reports of Everyday Hassles and Life Events

This report describes the results of a portion of a larger health research project which obtained self-reports of illness and stress from 141 women and 38 men. These undergraduates under-reported everyday hassles and life events. Scores on everyday hassles correlated -.47 and on life events -.30 with social desirability. Researchers need to adjust their designs to control for possible socially desirable responses on these variables.