RESPONDING TO ADJECTIVE CHECK LIST ITEMS - A REACTION-TIME ANALYSIS

With regard to the psychological processes engaged when responding to items from adjective check lists, a preliminary model was formulated, stating that when rating one's own trait scores, a 'situation sampling' is necessary, requiring more time than the 'indicator sampling' process presumably engaged when rating one's own state scores. This model is only adequate forwords which are equally useful for describing states and traits. On the other hand, it could be expected that responding to state terms under trait instruction and trait terms under state instruction would generally lead to longer response times (RTs). In two experiments including a total of 115 subjects and involving unobstrusive measurement of RTs, these hypotheses were supported, as was the prediction that extreme ratings would coincide with shorter RTs than would mean ratings. Moreover, subjects with a lower self-reported cross-situational consistency showed longer RTs than subjects with cross-situationally consistent behavior. Contrary to the prediction, there was no main effect of state vs trait instruction on the free recall rate of the items responded to previously. This is an indication that responding to the items and keeping them in mind are influenced by totally different processes. © 1991.