TY - JOUR
T1 - The Effect of Response Style on Self-Reported Conscientiousness Across 20 Countries
AU - Mõttus, René
AU - Allik, Jüri
AU - Realo, Anu
AU - Rossier, Jérôme
AU - Zecca, Gregory
AU - Ah-Kion, Jennifer
AU - Amoussou-Yéyé, Dénis
AU - Bäckström, Martin
AU - Barkauskiene, Rasa
AU - Barry, Oumar
AU - Bhowon, Uma
AU - Björklund, Fredrik
AU - Bochaver, Aleksandra
AU - Bochaver, Konstantin
AU - de Bruin, Gideon
AU - Cabrera, Helena F.
AU - Chen, Sylvia Xiaohua
AU - Church, A. Timothy
AU - Cissé, Daouda Dougoumalé
AU - Dahourou, Donatien
AU - Feng, Xiaohang
AU - Guan, Yanjun
AU - Hwang, Hyi Sung
AU - Idris, Fazilah
AU - Katigbak, Marcia S.
AU - Kuppens, Peter
AU - Kwiatkowska, Anna
AU - Laurinavicius, Alfredas
AU - Mastor, Khairul Anwar
AU - Matsumoto, David
AU - Riemann, Rainer
AU - Schug, Joanna
AU - Simpson, Brian
AU - Tseung-Wong, Caroline Ng
AU - Johnson, Wendy
N1 - Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This project was supported by grants from the Estonian Ministry of Science and Education (SF0180029s08) and the Estonian Science Foundation (ESF7020) to Jüri Allik, by a Swiss National Science Foundation grant (ZK0Z1_131287/1) to Jüri Allik and Jérôme Rossier, by a Mobilitas grant (MJD44) from the European Social Fund to René Mõttus, and by a Primus grant (3-8.2/60) from the European Social Fund to Anu Realo.
PY - 2012/11
Y1 - 2012/11
N2 - Rankings of countries on mean levels of self-reported Conscientiousness continue to puzzle researchers. Based on the hypothesis that cross-cultural differences in the tendency to prefer extreme response categories of ordinal rating scales over moderate categories can influence the comparability of self-reports, this study investigated possible effects of response style on the mean levels of self-reported Conscientiousness in 22 samples from 20 countries. Extreme and neutral responding were estimated based on respondents' ratings of 30 hypothetical people described in short vignettes. In the vignette ratings, clear cross-sample differences in extreme and neutral responding emerged. These responding style differences were correlated with mean self-reported Conscientiousness scores. Correcting self-reports for extreme and neutral responding changed sample rankings of Conscientiousness, as well as the predictive validities of these rankings for external criteria. The findings suggest that the puzzling country rankings of self-reported Conscientiousness may to some extent result from differences in response styles.
AB - Rankings of countries on mean levels of self-reported Conscientiousness continue to puzzle researchers. Based on the hypothesis that cross-cultural differences in the tendency to prefer extreme response categories of ordinal rating scales over moderate categories can influence the comparability of self-reports, this study investigated possible effects of response style on the mean levels of self-reported Conscientiousness in 22 samples from 20 countries. Extreme and neutral responding were estimated based on respondents' ratings of 30 hypothetical people described in short vignettes. In the vignette ratings, clear cross-sample differences in extreme and neutral responding emerged. These responding style differences were correlated with mean self-reported Conscientiousness scores. Correcting self-reports for extreme and neutral responding changed sample rankings of Conscientiousness, as well as the predictive validities of these rankings for external criteria. The findings suggest that the puzzling country rankings of self-reported Conscientiousness may to some extent result from differences in response styles.
KW - Conscientiousness
KW - cross-cultural
KW - extreme responding
KW - personality
KW - response style
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84867060037&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/0146167212451275
DO - 10.1177/0146167212451275
M3 - Article
C2 - 22745332
AN - SCOPUS:84867060037
SN - 0146-1672
VL - 38
SP - 1423
EP - 1436
JO - Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
JF - Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
IS - 11
ER -