Desirable responding triggered by affect: Automatic egotism?

Two experiments demonstrated an increase in socially desirable responding in the presence of affectladen stimuli. Subjects responded null or not me to trait adjectives presented on a microcomputer. Affect was manipulated by pairing each trait adjective with a distractor word presented nearby. Some distractors were affect-laden (e.g., sex, blood); others were innocuous (e.g., station, lake). In Study I, some trait adjectives were positive traits...