Five-factor inventories have a major higher order factor related to social desirability which can be reduced by framing items neutrally

The factors in self-report inventories measuring the five-factor model (FFM) correlate with one another although they theoretically should not. Study 1 showed, across three different FFM-questionnaires, that almost all of the common variance between factors can be attributed to a single general factor related to social desirability. In Study 2, simple rephrasing of items from a FFM-questionnaire made them substantially less socially desirable, while the inventory’s empirical (five factor) structure remained the same. Participants low in social desirability showed little difference between how they responded to the original items vs. the neutral items. For participants high in social desirability the difference was considerably larger. The simplicity of reducing social desirability in self-rating inventories of the FFM, and the usefulness of this endeavor, is discussed.