Popular social desirability scales show weak internal consistency in student samples

Evidence

The Marlowe-Crowne had poor internal consistency (mean interitem correlation=.13). Impression Management did better (.19), but Self-Deceptive Enhancement (.09) and Denial (.14) fell discouragingly short. The alphas of the four measures equaled .82, .82, .66, and .77, respectively. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1048