The individual consistency of acquiescence and extreme response style in self-report questionnaires
Weijters, Bert Geuens, Maggie Schillewaert, Niels
Weijters, Bert
Geuens, Maggie
Schillewaert, Niels
Citations
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Publication Type
Journal article with impact factor
Editor
Supervisor
Publication Year
2010
Journal
Applied Psychological Measurement
Book
Publication Volume
34
Publication Issue
2
Publication Begin page
105
Publication End page
121
Publication Number of pages
Collections
Abstract
The severity of bias in respondents’ self-reports due to acquiescence response style (ARS) and extreme response style (ERS) depends strongly on how consistent these response styles are over the course of a questionnaire. In the literature, different alternative hypotheses on response style (in)consistency circulate. Therefore, nine alternative models are derived and fitted to secondary and primary data. It is found that response styles are best modeled as a tau-equivalent factor complemented with a time-invariant autoregressive effect. This means that ARS and ERS are largely but not completely consistent over the course of a questionnaire, a finding that has important implications for response style measurement and correction.