The consequences of pairing questions: context effects in personality measurement

J Pers Soc Psychol. 2001 Aug;81(2):332-42. doi: 10.1037//0022-3514.81.2.332.

Abstract

The effect of context on responses to questions has been a prominent focus in social and political survey research. However, little investigation of context effects has been done for the measurement of psychological constructs. A measure of anger experience and expression in development uses vignettes describing interpersonal situations that provoke varying degrees of anger and require respondents to indicate their affective and/or expressive response to the situation. In this study, the consequences of pairing the two questions for each vignette are investigated. Pairing the anger-experience and likelihood-of-expression questions changes the item's context. Item response theory analysis similar to that used to detect differential item functioning was performed. For some of the items, responding to a single or paired question affected the extremity of responses. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for personality measurement.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Anger*
  • Expressed Emotion*
  • Factor Analysis, Statistical
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Likelihood Functions
  • Male
  • Personality Inventory / standards*
  • Psychometrics
  • Reproducibility of Results