Personality Structure

The Psychology of Acquiescence: An Interpretation of Research Evidence1

“…In recent years the literature on psychological assessment has been marked not only by an outpouring of .empirical studies on response styles, but also by the periodic appearance of review articles, in which variOUs authors have attempted to pause and ponder what it all means (Blake &Mouton, 1959;Christie &.Lindauer, 1963;Holtzman, 1965;Loevinger, 1959;McGee, 1962c;Messick, 2961a;Moscovici, 1963;Rorer, 1965). On the surface, research studies in this area present a morass of inconsistent and sometimes contradictory findings which, without considerable critical care, could mean all things to all people.…”

“…In addition to this agreement tendency, an acceptance tendency was empirically differentiated and conceptualized in terms of consistent individual differences in the tendency to accept many heterogeneous characteristics as descriptive of the self. Lindauer, 1963;Holtzman, 1965;Loevinger, 1959; McGee, 1962c; Messick, 2961a;Moscovici, 1963;Rorer, 1965 In attempt,ing to assimilate these findings into a coherent theory of acquiescence, should we account for some of the differences in results in terms.of contaminating influences in the acquiescence measures that might have distorted the correlations? Should we account f'or some of the differences on the basis of subject variations, not only in terms of selection effects but also on the grounds that acquiescence may function in different ways in different types of' people?…”

Response Styles as Personality Variables: A Theoretical Integration of Multivariate Research1

“…Some stimulus oriented research will be considered her~but uppermost will be the correlational evidence, for we are primarily interested in relating response styles to the personality of the responder. There have been a number of recent literature surveys in this area (Blake & Mouton, 1959;Christie & Lindauer;Gilchrist, 1959; wevinger, 1959; McGee, 1962c; Messick, 1961a;Moscovici, 1963) but these reviews did not usually include important information about the personality correlates of stylistic responding that appeared in certain factor analytic studies of personality where the response style measures,.although present, were not a central focus of the investigation (cf. cattell, 1958).…”

Social Class and the Socialization Process

“…The parent interview has very uncertain validity as an indicator of actual child-rearing practices. Although there is evidence that the interview technique may sometimes provide accurate information concerning childrearing practices (e.g., Klatskin, 1952), a growing body of evidence on the social desirability factor in subjective reports (Christie and Lindauer, 1963;Edwards, 1957;Marlowe and Crowne, 1961;Taylor, 1961) suggests that some of the supposed class differences in child rearing and some of the inconsistencies across studies may actually relate to variations in the parents' sensitivity to what constitutes a socially desirable statement about child rearing.…”