It is well-known [3; V.13.7] that each irreducible complex character of a finite group G is rational valued if and only if for each integer m coprime to the order of G and each g ∈ G, g is conjugate to gm. In particular, for each positive integer n, the symmetric group on n symbols, S(n), has all its irreducible characters rational valued. The situation for projective characters is quite different. In [5], Morris gives tables of the spin characters of S(n) for n ≤ 13 as well as general information about the values of these characters for any symmetric group. It can be seen from these results that in no case are all the spin characters of S(n) rational valued and, indeed, for n ≥ 6 these characters are not even all real valued. In section 2 of this note, we obtain a necessary and sufficient condition for each irreducible character of a group G associated with a 2-cocycle α to be rational valued. A corresponding result for real valued projective characters is discussed in section 3. Section 1 contains preliminary definitions and notation, including the definition of projective characters given in [2].