Timidity as a response style to psychological questionnaires

Firm and mild response styles to questionnaires were examined. A sample of 419 North American undergraduates chose among 5 options ranging from firm agreement to firm disagreement to respond to 181 NEO-Personality Inventory (NEO-PI) and 64 Constructive Thinking Inventory items. Both mild assenting and firm dissenting options were more strongly correlated (p < .05) with subscales of the NEO-PI Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Openness domain measures than were mild dissenting and firm assenting. The 6 Neuroticism subscales had response option correlates largely opposite in direction to those of the 12 subscales of Extraversion and Openness. A firm assent minus mild dissent composite related more positively to the Depression, Self-Consciousness, Anxiety, Hostility, Impulsiveness, and Vulnerability subscales, but more negatively to the Actions and Values subscales, than did a firm dissent minus mild assent composite. This coherent body of associations suggests a timid style of responding to psychological inventories.