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Response sets in self-report data and their associations with personality traits

P. Jonge,J. Slaets

Published 2005 in European Journal of Psychiatry

ABSTRACT

Objective: With a strong reliance on the use of self-report questionnaires in psychiatric research, appropriate attention should be given to the existence and corre- lates of response sets. We studied the presence of response tendencies by using an old research paradigm from psychology. Methods: We administered response options without questions to a sample of 91 sec- ond-year medical students, together with two personality questionnaires. Results: The scores of the respondents demonstrated the willingness of respondents to fill in a content-free questionnaire and revealed the presence of a general tendency towards positive responses. In psychometric theory, this would be referred to as a 'con- stant error'. More importantly, positive answers were significantly related to low neuroti- cism, high extraversion and high well-being. In psychometric theory, this would imply 'response bias' in which the self-reports are confounded by personality features. Conclusions: In the development and evaluation of questionnaires, researchers should be aware of the potential for this bias, particularly when asking questions about subjective health status.

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