THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ACQUIESCENCE: AN INTERPRETATION OF RESEARCH EVIDENCE1

This paper reviews evidence pertaining to the operation of acquiescent response style in psychological tests and to the possible interpretation of acquiescence as a personality variable. Acquiescence was initially conceptualized in terms of consistent individual differences in the probability of agreeing with items that subjects are at a loss to answer, either because they lack knowledge or because they are uncertain about the meaning of the item or because they cannot evaluate the desirability of the response. 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.

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