Do personality and self-construal predict response style in self-rating scales?

Abstract

Response bias has been identified as a threat to the generalizability of social science studies. Response bias can be divided into response set and response style. Although response bias has been discussed for years, limited research has focused on it. Response bias consists of response set, which is a content-dependent bias, and response style, which is a content-independent bias. In this study, focus is restricted to response style, which is rarely detected and is thus a greater threat to the validity of a survey. The purpose of this study was to discuss four different response styles (extreme, acquiescent, disacquiescent, and mid-point), and to examine the impact of personality traits (indecisiveness, dichotomous thinking, introversion, and pessimism) and self-construal on response styles. In a 2x2 design, 159 undergraduate students in Hong Kong were divided into two groups based on their predominant self-construal and were randomly assigned to receive either collectivistic-prime or individualistic-prime. Our findings were that (1) indecisive individuals were significantly more likely to exhibit mid-point response style; (2) individuals with a higher level of decisiveness and lower level of dichotomous thinking were more likely to exhibit extreme response style; (3) introversive individuals were more likely to exhibit disacquiescence response style, and the relationship was mediated by pessimism; (4) self-construal predicted neither extreme nor acquiescence response style. The results suggested that personality is an effective predictor of response styles. The implications of the results and the limitations of the study are discussed.