Dogmatism and acquiescent response set.

"This study was designed to test the hypothesis that Rokeach's Dogmatism Scale [1960], structurally identical to the F scale, is similarily vulnerable to acquiescent response bias." Administration of acquiescent response scales, the F Scale, and the Dogmatism scale to a population of adult neurotics revealed a high intercorrelation, which supports the hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A note on "Correcting personality scales for response sets or suppression effects."

This short paper reports a correction and certain improvements on a formula reported in an earlier paper (see 33: 5801). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Acquiescent response set and the Psychasthenia scale: An analysis via the Aussage experiment.

An attempt was made to test the hypothesis that accuracy of testimony would be affected by the suggestibility of the observer, herein referred to as "acquiescent response set." The degree of potential acquiescence was measured by the Pt scale of the MMPI; the data gleaned from the classical example of distortion in recall of a staged event involving a classroom "stooge" and the instructor. Tested on 230 students in an introductory Psychology course, the hypothesis was sustained. From Psyc Abstracts 36:02:2HF19K. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The generality of accuracy and response sets in interpersonal perception.

In experiment I, 15 measures of Ss' perception of other people were obtained. Only 8 of the intercorrelations were significant. In experiment II, Ss' judgments of other people were obtained in 3 sessions distributed over a school year. Comparison of the 3 sets of judgments indicated low relationship among accuracy scores, high relationship among response-set scores. Assumption of general ability of interpersonal perceptiveness is untenable; reliability of interpersonal perception may be due to consistency in response set rather than in ability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reversal response sets and the nature of person perception.

80 Ss, run individually, were required to make dichotomous trait judgments of previously scaled facial photographs on 3 different dimensions. The Experimental group was trained to make judgments which were the reverse of the norm value of each picture, thereby producing a reversal response set, while the Control group was trained to make norm consistent judgments. Only Ss manifesting awareness of the reinforcement contingency manifested learning. The results were taken as consistent with a mediational view of the perceptual process, and a new concept, a dispositional response, which has the capacity to operate on S-R probabilities at some point in the mediational process, was introduced to account for the present findings as well as others in perception demonstrating the influence of needs, attitudes, and emotions on perception. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Correcting personality scales for response sets or suppression effects.

There is a need to treat statistically the several sources of error (response set, lying, or suppression) present in paper-and-pencil personality tests. This paper outlines one such approach to the general problem area. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of "status sets" on Rotter's Locus of Control Scale.

65 male and 25 female college students were given sets based on varying levels of social class to determine the susceptibility of Rotter's Internal–External Locus of Control Scale (I–E) scores to situationally induced frames of reference. Ss took the I–E twice: once while playing the role of a person who had just been hired for 1 of 6 ranked occupations and once from their own frame of reference. "In-role" I–E scores showed the expected positive relationship between levels of status and internality, and these scores differed from the S's "out-of-role" normal responses. Present results are in accord with recent findings that the I–E may be subject to faking and situational effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Behavioral reputation: A cross-age perspective.

This study examined the measurement of peer perceptions of behavioral reputation within the contexts of elementary, middle, and high school environments (Grades 2-12, N=2,812) through the systematic evaluation of the psychometric properties of the Revised Class Play (A. S. Masten, P. Morison, & D. S. Pellegrini, 1985). Confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated that the data did not fit A. S. Masten et al.'s original 3-factor structure. Cross-loading of items and different patterns of association between subscales across age groups (elementary, middle, and high school) contributed to the overall poor fit. Exploratory factor analyses revealed an alternative 4-factor structure as a more reliable and valid means of assessing behavioral reputation regardless of the age of the peer group sampled. Both convergent and divergent patterns of associations emerged across developmental levels. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Response sets and factor loadings on sixty-one personality scales.

Intercorrelations between 58 MMPI and 3 other personality scales, based upon the scores of 151 students, were factor analyzed and the factors rotated orthogonally. Loadings of the scales on the 1st factor correlated .90 with the proportion of items keyed for socially desirable responses and .98 with the zero-order correlations of the scales with the Social Desirability (SD) scale. The proportion of keyed True items correlated .82 with the loadings of the scales on the 2nd factor. The Lie and 3 other scales similar to the Lie scale had substantial loadings on the 3rd factor. The 1st factor is interpreted as reflecting the tendency to acquiesce, and the 3rd as reflecting the tendency to falsify answers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A note on the Couch and Keniston measure of agreement response set.

In a previous study, the authors have identified an "agreeing response set" and this may be related to what Edwards had identified as "social desirability set." Evidence (correlations between the OAS scale, a measure of agreement set, and responses on the MMPI), indicates that both scales are influenced by acquiescent tendencies as well as by social desirability tendencies. From Psyc Abstracts 36:01:3HF73E. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aggressive school troublemakers and victims: A longitudinal model examining the pivotal role of self-concept.

Aggressive Troublemaker (getting into physical fights, getting into trouble, being seen as a troublemaker, and being punished for getting into trouble) and Victim (being threatened with harm, not feeling safe) factors were related to 3 components of self-concept (General, Same Sex, and Opposite Sex) based on the large, nationally representative National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 database. At 8th-, 10th-, and 12th-grade levels, Troublemaker and Victim constructs were reasonably stable over time and moderately positively correlated (many students were both troublemakers and victims). The Victim factor was negatively correlated with self-concept and had negative effects on subsequent self-concept. Whereas the Troublemaker factor was also correlated somewhat negatively with self-concept, it had small positive effects on subsequent self-concept: Low self-concept may trigger troublemaking behavior in a possibly successful attempt to enhance subsequent self-concept. Although boys had higher Troublemaker and Victim scores than did girls, the effects of these constructs on subsequent self-concepts were similar for boys and girls. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Autonomous, controlled, and amotivated types of academic motivation: A person-oriented analysis.

The authors investigated students' profiles regarding autonomous, controlled, and amotivated regulation and tested whether profile groups differed on some academic adjustment outcomes. Studies 1 and 2 performed on high school students revealed 3 profiles: (a) students with high levels of both controlled motivation and amotivation but low levels of autonomous motivation, (b) students with high levels of both controlled and autonomous motivation but low levels of amotivation, and (c) students with moderate levels of both autonomous and controlled motivations but low levels of amotivation. These first 2 studies revealed that students in the high autonomous/high controlled group reported the highest degree of academic adjustment. Study 3 performed on college students revealed 3 profiles: (a) students with high levels of autonomous motivations but low levels of both controlled motivation and amotivation, (b) students with high levels of both autonomous and controlled motivation but low levels of amotivation, and (c) students with low to moderate levels of the various motivational components. Study 3 indicated that students in the autonomous group were more persistent than students in the other groups. Results are discussed in light of self-determination theory (E. L. Deci & R. M. Ryan, 1985). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"The relationship between agreeing response set and social desirability": Erratum.

Reports an error on page 178 of the article "The Relationship between Agreeing Response Set and Social Desirability," by Leonard Solomon and Edward Klein (Journal of Abnormal Social Psychology, 1963, 66, 176-179; see record 1963-06735-001), the word "squared" was omitted in the first line of Column 2 and should read: sum of whose squared loadings was 1.00 or more were . . . . (The original abstract of this article originally appeared in record 196306735-001). 3 measures of response set and 5 content scales were administered to 125 schizophrenic patients and 135 college Ss. The data indicate that the Overall Agreement Score which ostensibly measures an agreeing response set also contains negative social desirability (SD). SD-sub(18) also appears to have a naysaying element in it. The results also show that truly balanced measures of acquiescence and Social Desirability might very well be orthogonal to each other and support both sets of authors' contentions that their scales are not necessarily associated with elements of the other response set. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A Visit to a Research Hospital.

Describes a visit of high school students and their science teachers to a psychology laboratory, at the invitation of the Manager of the Coral Gables Veterans Administration. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

School effects on psychological outcomes during adolescence.

Data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health were used to examine school-level differences in the relations between school belonging and various outcomes. In Study 1, predictors of belonging were examined. Results indicated that belonging was lower in urban schools than in suburban schools, and lower in schools that used busing practices than those that did not. In Study 2, the relations between belonging and psychological outcomes were examined. The relations varied depending on the unit of analysis (individual vs. aggregated measures of belonging). Whereas individual students' perceptions of belonging were inversely related to depression, social rejection, and school problems, aggregated belonging was related to greater reports of social rejection and school problems and to higher grade point average. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Unrealistic optimism about future life events: A cautionary note.

A robust finding in social psychology is that people judge negative events as less likely to happen to themselves than to the average person, a behavior interpreted as showing that people are “unrealistically optimistic” in their judgments of risk concerning future life events. However, we demonstrate how unbiased responses can result in data patterns commonly interpreted as indicative of optimism for purely statistical reasons. Specifically, we show how extant data from unrealistic optimism studies investigating people's comparative risk judgments are plagued by the statistical consequences of sampling constraints and the response scales used, in combination with the comparative rarity of truly negative events. We conclude that the presence of such statistical artifacts raises questions over the very existence of an optimistic bias about risk and implies that to the extent that such a bias exists, we know considerably less about its magnitude, mechanisms, and moderators than previously assumed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A note on the Nagle attitude scale.

Nagle's scale to measure attitude toward supervisor assumed a relationship between an attitude toward the supervisor and a perception of how he behaves. This assumption was rejected by Brayfield and Crockett (1955). Evidence is now presented in support of the assumption and in rebuttal to Brayfield and Crockett. A special scale to measure attitudes toward supervisors was constructed specifically to avoid items referring to overt behavior. The correlation between the 2 scales for 74 research engineering employees was .786, or .835 when corrected for attenuation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A more accurate approach to measuring the prevalence of sexual harassment among high school students.

The present study surveyed the prevalence of sexual harassment among high school students. A total of 1,582 students from 18 schools completed a version of the American Association of University Women (1993) survey. Reported sexual harassment events were restricted to those that: a) had been experienced first-hand, b) had occurred within the preceding two weeks, and c) were reported by students who were notably upset by their experiences. Despite this stringent approach, sexual harassment was found to be a significant problem in high schools. Fifteen percent of students were both sexually harassed and very or somewhat upset by their harassment experiences. Nearly half of these upset students were recipients of physical forms of sexual harassment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Detection of the fake "good" and "bad" response on the Sixteen Personality Factor Inventory in prisoners and college students.

Administered the 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire to 30 inmates of a correctional center and to 30 college students, instructing some Ss to fake their answers to make themselves look better than they are and others to try to give a worse impression. In the fake-good condition, only 6 of the 18 factors examined were not altered significantly, and in the fake-bad condition only 2 factors. Prisoners and students produced similar faking results. The 3 dissimulation indices for detecting faking are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Test anxiety and intellectual performance.

High school students were administered 2 anxiety scales, the Test Anxiety Scale and a Need for Achievement scale. Scores on these tests were related to scores on the School and College Ability Test (SCAT). Test anxiety was found to be negatively correlated with SCAT scores. The negative correlations obtained tended to be larger for female than for male Ss. The Need for Achievement scale showed only a slight tendency to correlate negatively with SCAT scores. The results were interpreted as being consistent with the conception of anxiety as an interfering nonintellectual influence on intellectual performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)