Acquiescent responding, which is sometimes referred to as yea-saying, has been defined as the tendency to agree with items regardless of their content (Jackson and Messick 1958; Javeline 1999). Acquiescent responding can bias empirical results in various ways. It has been found to bias the factorial structure of scales, such as personality inventories, (Rammstedt et al. 2010, 2013; Lechner and Rammstedt 2015; Rammstedt and Farmer 2013; Soto et al. 2008), correlation patterns (Bentler et al. 1971), the fit of structural equation models (Aichholzer 2015), and associations with external criteria (Danner et al. 2015). Furthermore, the mean scores of manifest variables may be biased by acquiescent responding, with the result that mean-level differences may be misinterpreted (Vlimmeren et al. 2015).
The tendency towards acquiescent responding varies across subpopulations, cultures, and item content. In particular, children (compared to adults; Soto et al. 2008) and less educated (Rammstedt...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Aichholzer, J. (2015). Controlling acquiescence bias in measurement invariance tests. Psihologija, 48(4), 409–429.
Bäckström, M., Björklund, F., & Larsson, M. R. (2009). Five-factor inventories have a major general factor related to social desirability which can be reduced by framing items neutrally. Journal of Research in Personality, 43, 335–344.
Bentler, P. M., Jackson, D. N., & Messick, S. (1971). Identification of content and style: A two-dimensional interpretation of acquiescence. Psychological Bulletin, 76(3), 186–204.
Billiet, J. B., & McClendon, M. J. (2000). Modeling acquiescence in measurement models for two balanced sets of items. Structural Equation Modeling, 7(4), 608–628.
Danner, D., & Rammstedt, B. (2016). Facets of acquiescence: Agreeing with negations is not the same as accepting inconsistency. Journal of Research in Personality, 60, 120–129. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2016.10.010.
Danner, D., Aichholzer, J., & Rammstedt, B. (2015). Acquiescence in personality questionnaires: Relevance, domain specificity, and stability. Journal of Research in Personality, 57, 119–130.
Jackson, D. N., & Messick, S. (1958). Content and style in personality assessment. Psychological Bulletin, 55(4), 243–252.
Javeline, D. (1999). Response effects in polite cultures: A test of acquiescence in Kazakhstan. Public Opinion Quarterly, 63, 1–28.
Lechner, C. M., & Rammstedt, B. (2015). Cognitive ability, acquiescence, and the structure of personality in a sample of older adults. Psychological Assessment, 27(4), 1301–1311.
McBride, L., & Moran, G. (1967). Double agreement as a function of item ambiguity and susceptibility to demand implications of the psychological situation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 6(1), 115–118.
Mõttus, R., Allik, J., & Pullmann, H. (2007). Does personality vary across ability levels? A study using self and other ratings. Journal of Research in Personality, 41(1), 155–170.
Rammstedt, B., & Farmer, R. F. (2013). The impact of acquiescence on the evaluation of personality structure. Psychological Assessment, 25(4), 1137–1145.
Rammstedt, B., Goldberg, L. R., & Borg, I. (2010). The measurement equivalence of Big Five factor markers for persons with different levels of education. Journal of Research in Personality, 44(1), 53–61.
Rammstedt, B., & Kemper, C. (2011). Measurement equivalence of the Big Five: Shedding further light on potential causes of the educational bias. Journal of Research in Personality, 45(3), 121–125. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2010.11.006.
Rammstedt, B., Kemper, C. J., & Borg, I. (2013). Correcting Big Five personality measurements for acquiescence: An 18-country cross-cultural study. European Journal of Personality, 27(1), 71–81.
Rammstedt, B., Danner, D., & Bosnjak, M. (2017). Acquiescence response styles: A multilevel model explaining individual-level and country-level differences. Personality and Individual Differences, 107, 190–194. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.11.038.
Soto, C. J., John, O. P., Gosling, S. D., & Potter, J. (2008). The developmental psychometrics of Big Five self-reports: Acquiescence, factor structure, coherence, and differentiation from ages 10 to 20. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94(4), 718–737.
Trott, D. M., & Jackson, D. N. (1967). An experimental analysis of acquiescence. Journal of Experimental Research in Personality, 2(4), 278–288.
Van Vlimmeren, E., Moors, G., & Gelissen, J. (2015). Developing a diagnostic tool for detecting response styles, and a demonstration of its use in comparative research of single item measurements. ESRA 2015: 6th Conference of the European Survey Research Association, Reykjavik.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Rammstedt, B., Danner, D. (2017). Acquiescent Responding. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1276-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1276-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences