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The current investigation was designed to examine the impact of underreporting response bias on the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ) and the utility of the Unlikely Virtues scale in detecting such responding. Study participants were randomly assigned to either the underreporting (n = 100) or standard instruction (n = 224) conditions. All participants first completed a series of extratest measures under standard instruction prior to the MPQ administration. The results showed that individuals in the underreporting condition scored significantly higher on MPQ scales that reflect positive emotionality and self-control and lower on scales that indicate negative emotionality compared to those in the standard instruction. Moreover, the psychometric validity of MPQ scale scores against extratest measures was substantially attenuated in the underreporting condition compared to the standard instruction condition. The Unlikely Virtues scale differentiated between the conditions at a large effect size magnitude (Hedges' g = 1.21) and showed promising classification accuracy though lower cut scores than those reported in the MPQ manual performed substantially better with respect to sensitivity. Future research needs to replicate these findings in more naturalistic settings with other research designs. Public Significance Statement: The present study evaluated the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire in detecting individuals who engage in overly defensive responding. The results showed that a scale designed to assess positive impression management and overly virtuous responding was very promising in this regard. This finding will have important implications for the use of the test in personnel screening and selection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Trauma Symptom Inventory-Second Edition (TSI-2) is garnering research interest as a symptom validity test in the evaluation of trauma-related disorders. However, there has been limited empirical validation of its validity scales in clinical and forensic real-world settings. This study evaluated the ability of the TSI-2 Atypical Response (ATR) scale to discriminate response bias in cognitive performance and symptom reporting in a large sample of disability and compensation-seeking claimants. This retrospective chart review included 296 adults with a known history of trauma exposure or claimed trauma-related psychological injury who underwent neuropsychological and/or comprehensive psychological assessment in a private neuropsychology clinic. The discriminability of the ATR scale to classify credible versus non-credible cognitive profiles and symptom reporting were analyzed by AUC-ROCs. Overall, the ATR scale demonstrated poor discriminability of assessment validity based on the Word Memory Test, Victoria Symptom Validity Test, and Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2-Restructured Form. The ATR scale had fair discriminatory ability of only one of the over-reporting scales (F-r), with an ROC area of.73, p =.001. However, the test publisher's proposed ATR cut-offs of ≥8 for screening, research, and normal groups, and ≥15 in forensic and clinical settings revealed significant issues with sensitivity and specificity. These results suggest that the TSI-2 should be paired with other established performance validity and symptom validity tests in clinical assessments and not be used as the primary or sole indicator of assessment validity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The multidimensional forced-choice (MFC) format is an alternative to rating scales in which participants rank items according to how well the items describe them. Currently, little is known about how to detect careless responding in MFC data. The aim of this study was to adapt a number of indices used for rating scales to the MFC format and additionally develop several new indices that are unique to the MFC format. We applied these indices to a data set from an online survey (N = 1,169) that included a series of personality questionnaires in the MFC format. The correlations among the careless responding indices were somewhat lower than those published for rating scales. Results from a latent profile analysis suggested that the majority of the sample (about 76–84%) did not respond carelessly, although the ones who did were characterized by different levels of careless responding. In a simulation study, we simulated different careless responding patterns and varied the overall proportion of carelessness in the samples. With one exception, the indices worked as intended conceptually. Taken together, the results suggest that careless responding also plays an important role in the MFC format. Recommendations on how it can be addressed are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Extended Crosswise design is a randomized response design characterized by a sensitive and an innocuous question and two sub-samples with complementary randomization probabilities of the innocuous question. The response categories are 'One' with two different answers and 'Two' with two answers that are the same. Due to the complementary randomization probabilities, 'One' is the incriminating response in one sub-sample, and 'Two' in the other. The use of two sub-samples generates a degree of freedom to test for response biases with a goodness-of-fit test, but this test is unable to detect bias resulting from self-protective respondents giving the non-incriminating response when the incriminating response was required. This raises the question what a significant goodness-of-fit test measures? In this paper, we hypothesize that respondents are largely unaware which response is associated with the sensitive characteristic, and intuitively perceive 'One' as the safer response. We present empirical evidence for one-saying in six surveys among a total of 4 , 242 elite athletes, and present estimates of doping use corrected for it. Furthermore, logistic regression analyses are conducted to test the hypothesis that respondents who complete the survey in a short time are more likely to answer randomly, and therefore are less likely to be one-sayers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emotional false memory findings using the DRM paradigm have been marked by higher false alarms to negatively arousing compared to neutral critical lure items. Explanations for these findings have mainly focused on false memory-based accounts. However, here we address the question of whether a response bias for emotional stimuli can, at least in part, explain this phenomenon. Participants viewed both neutral and negative arousing DRM lists and completed a recognition test in speeded or self-paced conditions. Speeded test reduces the opportunity to adjust response bias. Analysis showed no significant difference in false recognition across critical lure types for the speeded condition, but false recognition was higher for negative compared to neutral critical lures in the self-paced condition. We argue that when retrieval does not allow for shifts in response criteria, false alarms to negative emotional critical lures appear more similar to neutral equivalents. The discussion explores memory-based and criterion-shift explanations for the enhanced emotional false memory finding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study proposes a procedure for substantive dimensionality estimation in the presence of wording effects, the inconsistent response to regular and reversed self-report items. The procedure developed consists of subtracting an approximate estimate of the wording effects variance from the sample correlation matrix and then estimating the substantive dimensionality on the residual correlation matrix. This is achieved by estimating a random intercept factor with unit loadings for all the regular and unrecoded reversed items. The accuracy of the procedure was evaluated through an extensive simulation study that manipulated nine relevant variables and employed the exploratory graph analysis (EGA) and parallel analysis (PA) retention methods. The results indicated that combining the proposed procedure with EGA or PA achieved high accuracy in estimating the substantive latent dimensionality, but that EGA was superior. Additionally, the present findings shed light on the complex ways that wording effects impact the dimensionality estimates when the response bias in the data is ignored. A tutorial on substantive dimensionality estimation with the R package EGAnet is offered, as well as practical guidelines for applied researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A prominent theoretical framework spanning philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience holds that selective attention penetrates early stages of perceptual processing to alter the subjective visual experience of behaviorally relevant stimuli. For example, searching for a red apple at the grocery store might make the relevant color appear brighter and more saturated compared with seeing the exact same red apple while searching for a yellow banana. In contrast, recent proposals argue that data supporting attention-related changes in appearance reflect decision- and motor-level response biases without concurrent changes in perceptual experience. Here, we tested these accounts by evaluating attentional modulations of EEG responses recorded from male and female human subjects while they compared the perceived contrast of attended and unattended visual stimuli rendered at different levels of physical contrast. We found that attention enhanced the amplitude of the P1 component, an early evoked potential measured over visual cortex. A linking model based on signal detection theory suggests that response gain modulations of the P1 component track attention-induced changes in perceived contrast as measured with behavior. In contrast, attentional cues induced changes in the baseline amplitude of posterior alpha band oscillations (∼9-12 Hz), an effect that best accounts for cue-induced response biases, particularly when no stimuli are presented or when competing stimuli are similar and decisional uncertainty is high. The observation of dissociable neural markers that are linked to changes in subjective appearance and response bias supports a more unified theoretical account and demonstrates an approach to isolate subjective aspects of selective information processing.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Does attention alter visual appearance, or does it simply induce response bias? In the present study, we examined these competing accounts using EEG and linking models based on signal detection theory. We found that response gain modulations of the visually evoked P1 component best accounted for attention-induced changes in visual appearance. In contrast, cue-induced baseline shifts in alpha band activity better explained response biases. Together, these results suggest that attention concurrently impacts visual appearance and response bias, and that these processes can be experimentally isolated.

The psychological attributes associated with both psychological potential and managerial competence are regarded as valuable assets for any company. Consequently, it is in the best interest of companies to actively search for the most potential candidates and develop their competencies. Organizations expend substantial resources to assess the potential of prospective employees during the recruitment process. This research aims to evaluate the extent to which employees' potential can predict their competencies. We assessed candidates' potential using self-report scales measuring grit and a growth mindset, while competencies in achieving results and managing change were evaluated through the assessment center method. The data was collected from 155 civil servants employed by the Makassar City Government. The findings reveal that potential does not significantly influence employees' competencies, whether it be Grit for results orientation or Growth mindset for change management competence. After conducting correlation tests between grit and growth mindset to social desirability bias, we found varied results with Grit (r= 0.1718, p = 0.03248) and growth mindset (r=0.0703, p-value = 0.3847), suggesting diverse correlations between the investigated variables. In light of these results, we recommend a reevaluation of the practice of relying on potential as a predictor of competence.

Objective/Background: The Consensus Sleep Diary (CSD) is widely used to assess subjective sleep. Psychometric evaluations and focus-groups support its validity and clinical usefulness, but further research into its validity is needed. The aim of the study was to evaluate a Swedish translation of the CSD regarding test content and response processes in patients with insomnia. Patients/Methods: In connection with translating the CSD into Swedish, we used cognitive interviewing to evaluate test content and the response process, that is, how people make decisions when responding to survey items. Cognitive interviews were conducted with 13 primary health care patients with insomnia disorder (mean age, 49 years; SD 15.5). Iterative, reparative analysis was used to investigate test content. Descriptive deductive analysis was used to investigate interview transcripts for the themes of the cognitive model: comprehension, retrieval, decision process, and judgement. Together, the themes explain the response process when responding to a patient-reported outcome measure. Results: The overall comprehension of the CSD could be affected by poor adherence to the instructions (comprehension). Patients had difficulty with recall if they did not complete the diary immediately in the morning and just before bedtime (retrieval). They could have problems deciding how to respond to certain items because they imbued sleep-related concepts with extra meaning (decision process), and had trouble finding response alternatives nuanced enough to describe their experience of sleep and tiredness (judgement). Conclusions: This study contributes knowledge on how the instrument is perceived and used by care-seeking patients with insomnia. In this context, the CSD exhibits known flaws such as memory lapses if the diary is not filled in directly in the morning. To increase the accuracy of patients' responses, therapists should support patients in reading the instructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social-emotional difficulties are common sequelae of traumatic brain injury (TBI). Children who have experienced inflicted TBI (iTBI) may be at increased risk for social-emotional problems due to the risk factors associated with both early neurologic injury and with child maltreatment. We characterized the associations among injury severity, caregiver type (i.e., biological parents, non-kinship, kinship), and child social-emotional functioning in 41 infants and young children who had sustained iTBI and were seen in a large, regional children's hospital. This study was a retrospective analysis, utilizing data collected from the medical record as part of routine clinical care. Social-emotional functioning was assessed with the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development-Third Edition. Children with more severe injuries were rated as having worse social-emotional functioning. Caregiver type was associated with child social-emotional scores, above and beyond injury and demographic predictors. Biological parents were more likely to report better social-emotional skills than non-kinship caregivers, with the pattern of results suggesting that rater bias plays a role in this difference. In order to ensure that children are accurately identified for supports, these relationships should be considered when interpreting caregiver report of social-emotional skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective To identify impacts of different survey methodologies assessing primary care physicians' (PCPs') experiences with electronic health records (EHRs), we compared three surveys: the 2022 Continuous Certification Questionnaire (CCQ) from the American Board of Family Medicine, the 2022 University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Physician Health IT Survey, and the 2021 National Electronic Health Records Survey (NEHRS). Materials and Methods We evaluated differences between survey pairs using Rao-Scott corrected chi-square tests, which account for weighting. Results CCQ received 3991 responses from PCPs (100% response rate), UCSF received 1375 (3.6% response rate), and NEHRS received 858 (18.2% response rate). Substantial, statistically significant differences in demographics were detected across the surveys. CCQ respondents were younger and more likely to work in a health system; NEHRS respondents were more likely to work in private practice; and UCSF respondents disproportionately practiced in larger academic settings. Many EHR experience indicators were similar between CCQ and NEHRS, but CCQ respondents reported higher documentation burden. Discussion The UCSF approach is unlikely to supply reliable data. Significant demographic differences between CCQ and NEHRS raise response bias concerns, and while there were similarities in some reported EHR experiences, there were important, significant differences. Conclusion Federal EHR policy monitoring and maintenance require reliable data. This test of existing and alternative sources suggest that diversified data sources are necessary to understand physicians' experiences with EHRs and interoperability. Comprehensive surveys administered by specialty boards have the potential to contribute to these efforts, since they are likely to be free of response bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Culture influences responses to psychological measurements in ways unrelated to target constructs, thus biasing test scores and potentially contributing to under- and over-diagnosis of mental health problems in populations for which measures have not yet been normed. We conducted a systematic review of publications addressing response style among Latinx population groups in North and South America. In a final corpus of 24 studies, Latinx/Latin American populations were generally found to exhibit higher levels of extreme response style (n = 17), acquiescent response style (n = 10), and socially desirable responding (n = 5). The few publications (n = 3) that investigated midpoint responding reported no differences. Seven publications (29%) attempted to adjust scores to mitigate response style bias, using both scale design and statistical techniques. Findings suggest that researchers and clinicians should directly assess culturally patterned response style as a construct, rather than inferring style indirectly using other measures. For clinicians, knowledge of response style represents another facet of case conceptualization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Typically, research on response bias in symptom reports covers two extreme ends of the spectrum: overreporting and underreporting. Yet, little is known about symptom presentation that includes both types of response bias simultaneously (i.e., mixed presentation). We experimentally checked how overreporting, underreporting, and mixed reporting reflect in trauma symptom reports. Undergraduate students (N = 151) were randomly allocated to one of four conditions: control group (n = 40), overreporting (n = 37), underreporting (n = 36), or a mixed reporting (n = 38) group. The control group was asked to be honest, whereas the simulation groups received instructions they were expected to be able to relate to. Participants were administered a PTSD checklist, the Supernormality Scale-Revised, which screens for symptom denial, and the Inventory of Problems-29, which gauges overreporting. For all three measures, group differences were significant (F(3, 147) > 13.78, ps <. 001, ɳ2 >.22), with the overreporting group exhibiting the most severe symptom presentation and the underreporting group endorsing the fewest symptoms, while the mixed group almost perfectly imitated the results of the control group on all measures. Thus, instructing individuals to strategically exhibit both overreporting, to a functional degree, and underreporting results in a symptom presentation that is relatively similar to genuine performance. To optimize accuracy statistics, researchers might want to consider including such mixed group condition in future simulation studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discrimination performance in perceptual choice tasks is known to reflect both sensory discriminability and nonsensory response bias. In the framework of signal detection theory, these aspects of discrimination performance are quantified through separate measures, sensitivity (d′) for sensory discriminability and decision criterion (c) for response bias. However, it is unknown how response bias (i.e., criterion) changes at the single‐trial level as a consequence of reinforcement history. We subjected rats to a two‐stimulus two‐response conditional discrimination task with auditory stimuli and induced response bias through unequal reinforcement probabilities for the two responses. We compared three signal‐detection‐theory‐based criterion learning models with respect to their ability to fit experimentally observed fluctuations of response bias on a trial‐by‐trial level. These models shift the criterion by a fixed step (1) after each reinforced response or (2) after each nonreinforced response or (3) after both. We find that all three models fail to capture essential aspects of the data. Prompted by the observation that steady‐state criterion values conformed well to a behavioral model of signal detection based on the generalized matching law, we constructed a trial‐based version of this model and find that it provides a superior account of response bias fluctuations under changing reinforcement contingencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We asked 463 participants from 21 countries whether they had feigned and/or concealed having a coronavirus infection during the pandemic period. 384 respondents (83%) reported having experienced a coronavirus infection. They were, on average, younger and reported more chronic health issues than participants who said they had never been infected. 65 (14%) admitted to having feigned the infection. Prevalence doubled (28%) when asked if they knew anyone who had feigned a coronavirus infection. Main motives for feigning were to stay at home and to obtain sick leave. As to having concealed a coronavirus infection, 56 (12%) responded affirmatively, but when asked about others, the prevalence reached 51% (n = 210). The most common reasons for concealment were to avoid letting others know and to not miss an event. Thus, both feigning and concealing infections can occur on a nontrivial scale, directly affecting prevalence rates in studies that rely on self-reported data collected from social platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our percept of the world is not solely determined by what we perceive and process at a given moment in time, but also depends on what we processed recently. In the present study, we investigate whether the perceived emotion of a spoken sentence is contingent upon the emotion of an auditory stimulus on the preceding trial (i.e., serial dependence). Thereto, participants were exposed to spoken sentences that varied in emotional affect by changing the prosody that ranged from 'happy' to 'fearful'. Participants were instructed to rate the emotion. We found a positive serial dependence for emotion processing whereby the perceived emotion was biased towards the emotion on the preceding trial. When we introduced 'no-go' trials (i.e., no rating was required), we found a negative serial dependence when participants knew in advance to withhold their response on a given trial (Experiment 2) and a positive serial dependence when participants received the information to withhold their response after the stimulus presentation (Experiment 3). We therefore established a robust serial dependence for emotion processing in speech and introduce a methodology to disentangle perceptual from post-perceptual processes. This approach can be applied to the vast majority of studies investigating sequential dependencies to separate positive from negative serial dependence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current investigation, we modified the high Go, low No-Go Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART). Some researchers argue a commission error, an inappropriate response to a No-Go stimulus, in the SART is due to the participant being inattentive, or perceptually decoupled, during stimulus onset. Response delays in the SART reduce commission errors. A response delay may therefore enable a participant who is initially inattentive to recouple their attention in time to appropriately perceive the stimulus and withhold a response to a No-Go stimulus. However, shortening stimulus display duration in the SART should limit the possibility of the participant identifying the stimulus later, if they are initially not attending the stimulus. A response delay should not reduce commission errors if stimulus duration is kept to the minimum duration enabling stimulus recognition. In two experiments, we shortened stimulus onset to offset duration and added response delays of varying lengths. In both experiments, even when stimulus duration was shortened, response delays notably reduced commission errors if the delay was greater than 250 ms. In addition, using the Signal Detection Theory perspective in which errors of commission in the SART are due to a lenient response bias–trigger happiness, we predicted that response delays would result in a shift to a more conservative response bias in both experiments. These predictions were verified. The errors of commission in the SART may not be a measures of conscious awareness per se, but instead indicative of the level of participant trigger happiness—a lenient response bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies have indicated that breathing shapes the underlying oscillatory brain activity critical for episodic memory, potentially impacting memory performance. However, the literature has presented conflicting results, with some studies suggesting that nasal inhalation enhances visual memory performance, while others have failed to observe any significant effects. Furthermore, the specific influence of breathing route (nasal vs. mouth) and the precise phase of the respiratory cycle during which stimuli are presented have remained elusive. To address this, we employed a visual recognition memory (VRM) and electroencephalography paradigm in which stimuli presentation was phase‐locked to either inhalation or exhalation onset, using a within‐subject design where participants performed the memory task while engaging in separate sessions of nose and mouth breathing. We show that neither breathing route nor breathing phase has a significant impact on VRM performance as measured by d‐prime, with the data supporting the null hypothesis. However, we did find an effect of breathing phase on response bias, with participants adopting a more conservative decision criterion during exhalation. Moreover, we found that breathing phase during memory encoding shaped the late parietal effect (LPE) amplitude, while the Frontal Negative Component (FN400) and LPE during recognition were less impacted. While our study demonstrates that breathing does not shape VRM performance, it shows that it influences brain activity, reinforcing the importance of further research to elucidate the extent of respiratory influence on perception, cognition, and behavior. We demonstrate that phase‐locked breathing through the nose and mouth does not shape episodic visual recognition memory performance but does impact underlying event‐related potentials and response bias criterion. These findings challenge the belief that breathing affects visual memory function and underscore the importance of methodological considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Questionnaires are by far the most common tool for measuring noncognitive constructs in psychology and educational sciences. Response bias may pose an additional source of variation between respondents that threatens validity of conclusions drawn from questionnaire data. We present a mixture modeling approach that leverages response time data from computer-administered questionnaires for the joint identification and modeling of two commonly encountered response bias that, so far, have only been modeled separately—careless and insufficient effort responding and response styles (RS) in attentive answering. Using empirical data from the Programme for International Student Assessment 2015 background questionnaire and the case of extreme RS as an example, we illustrate how the proposed approach supports gaining a more nuanced understanding of response behavior as well as how neglecting either type of response bias may impact conclusions on respondents' content trait levels as well as on their displayed response behavior. We further contrast the proposed approach against a more heuristic two-step procedure that first eliminates presumed careless respondents from the data and subsequently applies model-based approaches accommodating RS. To investigate the trustworthiness of results obtained in the empirical application, we conduct a parameter recovery study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Randomized response (RR) is a well-known interview technique designed to eliminate evasive response bias that arises from asking sensitive questions. The most frequently asked questions in RR are either whether respondents were "ever" carriers of the sensitive characteristic, or whether they were carriers in a recent period, for instance, "last year". The present paper proposes a design in which both questions are asked, and derives a multinomial model for the joint analysis of these two questions. Compared to the separate analyses with the binomial model, the model makes a useful distinction between last year and former carriers of the sensitive characteristic, it is more efficient in estimating the prevalence of last year carriers, and it has a degree of freedom that allows for a goodness-of-fit test. Furthermore, it is easily extended to a multinomial logistic regression model to investigate the effects of covariates on the prevalence estimates. These benefits are illustrated in two studies on the use of anabolic androgenic steroids in the Netherlands, one using Kuk and one using both the Kuk and forced response. A salient result of our analyses is that the multinomial model provided ample evidence of response biases in the forced response condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Objective/Background The Consensus Sleep Diary (CSD) is widely used to assess subjective sleep. Psychometric evaluations and focus-groups support its validity and clinical usefulness, but further research into its validity is needed. The aim of the study was to evaluate a Swedish translation of the CSD regarding test content and response processes in patients with insomnia. Patients/Methods In connection with translating the CSD into Swedish, we used cognitive interviewing to evaluate test content and the response process, that is, how people make decisions when responding to survey items. Cognitive interviews were conducted with 13 primary health care patients with insomnia disorder (mean age, 49 years; SD 15.5). Iterative, reparative analysis was used to investigate test content. Descriptive deductive analysis was used to investigate interview transcripts for the themes of the cognitive model: comprehension, retrieval, decision process, and judgement. Together, the themes explain the response process when responding to a patient-reported outcome measure. Results The overall comprehension of the CSD could be affected by poor adherence to the instructions (comprehension). Patients had difficulty with recall if they did not complete the diary immediately in the morning and just before bedtime (retrieval). They could have problems deciding how to respond to certain items because they imbued sleep-related concepts with extra meaning (decision process), and had trouble finding response alternatives nuanced enough to describe their experience of sleep and tiredness (judgement). Conclusions This study contributes knowledge on how the instrument is perceived and used by care-seeking patients with insomnia. In this context, the CSD exhibits known flaws such as memory lapses if the diary is not filled in directly in the morning. To increase the accuracy of patients’ responses, therapists should support patients in reading the instructions.

Abstract Controlling acquiescence bias typically involves the application of positive and negative keyed items. However, little is known about the effect of balancing positive and negative items on bias control. The aim of this study was to compare three Confirmatory Factor Analysis models (without control, MIMIC, and Random Intercept) to recover the factor structure of unbalanced and balanced instruments, using simulated and real data (from an instrument that assesses Personality). By controlling for acquiescence, the results indicated that the performance of balanced scales was better than that of unbalanced scales, as well as in the absence of control for response bias, when considering balanced and unbalanced scales. Thus, this research suggests the possibility of controlling acquiescence through balanced instruments associated with the use of statistical methods in modeling.

The quality of data in surveys is affected by response burden and questionnaire length. With an increasing number of questions, respondents can become bored, tired, and annoyed and may take shortcuts to reduce the effort needed to complete the survey. In this article, direct evidence is presented on how the position of items within a web questionnaire influences respondents' focus of attention. In two experiments, part of an eye-tracking study and an online survey, respectively, a variety of indicators show that data quality is lower if the experimental question is positioned at the end rather than at the beginning of a questionnaire. Practical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this article was to systematically review the literature on self-report measures of response bias used by UK psychologists within forensic contexts over the period 2009–2019 and determine if the measures had adequate reliability and validity. The review involved a systematic search of published and unpublished literature. PRISMA was used to guide the search process. PICO was used to set inclusion/exclusion criteria. Published quality review models were applied to structure and score the quality review. Sixteen studies met the inclusion criteria and were assessed for quality using CASP. Quality scores mostly fell in the "moderate risk of bias" range. The majority of included studies focused on measures of socially desirable responding and impression management compared to malingering/overreporting. The PDS/BIDR was found to be the most frequently used self-report measure across prison, probation, and secure mental health settings, in contrast to measures used in other parts of the world. The PDS/BIDR has adequate validity and reliability, but there is a lack of normative data reported for UK forensic samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maintaining data quality on Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) has always been a concern for researchers. These concerns have grown recently due to the bot crisis of 2018 and observations that past safeguards of data quality (e.g., approval ratings of 95%) no longer work. To address data quality concerns, CloudResearch, a third-party website that interfaces with MTurk, has assessed ~165,000 MTurkers and categorized them into those that provide high- (~100,000, Approved) and low- (~65,000, Blocked) quality data. Here, we examined the predictive validity of CloudResearch's vetting. In a pre-registered study, participants (N = 900) from the Approved and Blocked groups, along with a Standard MTurk sample (95% HIT acceptance ratio, 100+ completed HITs), completed an array of data-quality measures. Across several indices, Approved participants (i) identified the content of images more accurately, (ii) answered more reading comprehension questions correctly, (iii) responded to reversed coded items more consistently, (iv) passed a greater number of attention checks, (v) self-reported less cheating and actually left the survey window less often on easily Googleable questions, (vi) replicated classic psychology experimental effects more reliably, and (vii) answered AI-stumping questions more accurately than Blocked participants, who performed at chance on multiple outcomes. Data quality of the Standard sample was generally in between the Approved and Blocked groups. We discuss how MTurk's Approval Rating system is no longer an effective data-quality control, and we discuss the advantages afforded by using the Approved group for scientific studies on MTurk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extant studies rarely explore macro factors explaining cross-culture variations in adolescents' social influence in family decisions. This study focuses on adolescents' influence practices (AIPs) in terms of family and cultural values/regions across 25 countries, using data regarding vacation decisions from the Commonwealth Research Program. Our results show that communication culture and cultural region are both related to AIP clusters and AIP measurement error clusters. Furthermore, a country's culture/values and its level of socioeconomic/sociopolitical development have stronger correlations with the use of bargaining by female adolescents than by male adolescents. This study adds to relatively few crossvergence investigations in the tourism industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Emerging literature suggests that childhood trauma may influence facial emotion perception (FEP), with the potential to negatively bias both emotion perception and reactions to emotion-related inputs. Negative emotion perception biases are associated with a range of psychiatric and behavioral problems, potentially due or as a result of difficult social interactions. Unfortunately, there is a poor understanding of whether observed negative biases are related to childhood trauma history, depression history, or processes common to (and potentially causative of) both experiences. Methods: The present cross-sectional study examines the relation between FEP and neural activation during FEP with retrospectively reported childhood trauma in young adult participants with remitted major depressive disorder (rMDD, n  =  41) and without psychiatric histories (healthy controls [HC], n  =  34). Accuracy of emotion categorization and negative bias errors during FEP and brain activation were each measured during exposure to fearful, angry, happy, sad, and neutral faces. We examined participant behavioral and neural responses in relation to total reported severity of childhood abuse and neglect (assessed with the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, CTQ). Results: Results corrected for multiple comparisons indicate that higher trauma scores were associated with greater likelihood of miscategorizing happy faces as angry. Activation in the right middle frontal gyrus (MFG) positively correlated with trauma scores when participants viewed faces that they correctly categorized as angry, fearful, sad, and happy. Discussion: Identifying the neural mechanisms by which childhood trauma and MDD may change facial emotion perception could inform targeted prevention efforts for MDD or related interpersonal difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Controlling acquiescence bias typically involves the application of positive and negative keyed items. However, little is known about the effect of balancing positive and negative items on bias control. The aim of this study was to compare three Confirmatory Factor Analysis models (without control, MIMIC, and Random Intercept) to recover the factor structure of unbalanced and balanced instruments, using simulated and real data (from an instrument that assesses Personality). By controlling for acquiescence, the results indicated that the performance of balanced scales was better than that of unbalanced scales, as well as in the absence of control for response bias, when considering balanced and unbalanced scales. Thus, this research suggests the possibility of controlling acquiescence through balanced instruments associated with the use of statistical methods in modeling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the complexities surrounding cervical cancer prevention methods and hesitancy among conservative Muslim American women is crucial in addressing health disparities. This qualitative study aimed to delve into the religious, behavioral, and socio-cultural factors influencing Muslim women's decisions regarding cervical cancer screening (CC-S) and HPV vaccination (HPV-V) in Virginia, USA. Through interviews with 10 Muslim women residing in Virginia, qualitative data were collected as part of a mixed-method cross-sectional study conducted between August and September 2021. Findings revealed that participants had limited knowledge about cervical cancer, CC-S, and HPV-V, with notable themes emerging, such as cultural influences, misconceptions, language barriers, and challenges posed by the intricate US healthcare system. Future research should focus on exploring these barriers to mitigate the impact of cervical cancer within the Muslim population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social desirability bias (SDB) has been a major concern in educational and psychological assessments when measuring latent variables because it has the potential to introduce measurement error and bias in assessments. Person-fit indices can detect bias in the form of misfitted response vectors. The objective of this study was to compare the performance of 14 person-fit indices to identify SDB in simulated responses. The area under the curve (AUC) of receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was computed to evaluate the predictive power of these statistics. The findings showed that the agreement statistic (A) outperformed all other person-fit indices, while the disagreement statistic (D) , dependability statistic (E) , and the number of Guttman errors (G) also demonstrated high AUCs to detect SDB. Recommendations for practitioners to use these fit indices are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Physician preference items (PPIs) are high-cost medical devices for which clinicians express firm preferences with respect to a particular manufacturer or product. This study aims to identify the most important factors in the choice of new PPIs (hip or knee prosthesis) and infer about the existence of possible response biases in using 2 alternative stated preference techniques. Methods: Six key attributes with 3 levels each were identified based on a literature review and clinical experts' opinions. An online survey was administered to Italian hospital orthopedists using type 1 best-worst scaling (BWS) and binary discrete choice experiment (DCE). BWS data were analyzed through descriptive statistics and conditional logit model. A mixed logit regression model was applied to DCE data, and willingness-to-pay (WTP) was estimated. All analyses were conducted using Stata 16. Results: A sample of 108 orthopedists were enrolled. In BWS, the most important attribute was "clinical evidence," followed by "quality of products," while the least relevant items were "relationship with the sales representative" and "cost." DCE results suggested instead that orthopedists prefer high-quality products with robust clinical evidence, positive health technology assessment recommendation and affordable cost, and for which they have a consolidated experience of use and a good relationship with the sales representative. Conclusions: The elicitation of preferences for PPIs using alternative methods can lead to different results. The BWS of type 1, which is similar to a ranking exercise, seems to be more affected by acquiescent responding and social desirability than the DCE, which introduces tradeoffs in the choice task and is likely to reveal more about true preferences. Highlights: Physician preference items (PPIs) are medical devices particularly exposed to physicians' choice with regard to type of product and supplier. Some established techniques of collecting preferences can be affected by response biases such as acquiescent responding and social desirability. Discrete choice experiments, introducing more complex tradeoffs in the choice task, are likely to mitigate such biases and reveal true physicians' preferences for PPIs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A prominent theoretical framework spanning philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience holds that selective attention penetrates early stages of perceptual processing to alter the subjective visual experience of behaviorally relevant stimuli. For example, searching for a red apple at the grocery store might make the relevant color appear brighter and more saturated compared with seeing the exact same red apple while searching for a yellow banana. In contrast, recent proposals argue that data supporting attention-related changes in appearance reflect decision- and motor-level response biases without concurrent changes in perceptual experience. Here, we tested these accounts by evaluating attentional modulations of EEG responses recorded from male and female human subjects while they compared the perceived contrast of attended and unattended visual stimuli rendered at different levels of physical contrast. We found that attention enhanced the amplitude of the P1 component, an early evoked potential measured over visual cortex. A linking model based on signal detection theory suggests that response gain modulations of the P1 component track attention-induced changes in perceived contrast as measured with behavior. In contrast, attentional cues induced changes in the baseline amplitude of posterior alpha band oscillations (;9-12 Hz), an effect that best accounts for cue-induced response biases, particularly when no stimuli are presented or when competing stimuli are similar and decisional uncertainty is high. The observation of dissociable neural markers that are linked to changes in subjective appearance and response bias supports a more unified theoretical account and demonstrates an approach to isolate subjective aspects of selective information processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data collected during psychoeducational evaluations can be compromised by response bias : clients not putting forth sufficient effort on tests, not being motivated to do well, or not being fully honest and careful when completing rating scales and contributing similar self-report data. Some of these problems apply to data from third-party informants as well. In the present study, we surveyed school psychologists about their approach to detecting, preventing, and reacting to apparent response bias. A sample of 297 school psychologists responded to at least one of four open-ended questions. We found that most participants only used informal techniques for detecting response bias (rather than specialized tests and embedded indices), relied on rewards or reinforcements to prevent response bias, and reacted to apparent response bias by noting it in their evaluation reports. However, a wide variety of other strategies were endorsed by smaller proportions of practitioners. We compare these results to results from similar surveys in neuropsychology, and discuss implications for applied practice as well as future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractRecent years have seen a renaissance of conjoint survey designs within social science. To date, however, researchers have lacked guidance on how many attributes they can include within conjoint profiles before survey satisficing leads to unacceptable declines in response quality. This paper addresses that question using pre-registered, two-stage experiments examining choices among hypothetical candidates for US Senate or hotel rooms. In each experiment, we use the first stage to identify attributes which are perceived to be uncorrelated with the attribute of interest, so that their effects are not masked by those of the core attributes. In the second stage, we randomly assign respondents to conjoint designs with varying numbers of those filler attributes. We report the results of these experiments implemented via Amazon's Mechanical Turk and Survey Sampling International. They demonstrate that our core quantities of interest are generally stable, with relatively modest increases in survey satisficing when respondents face large numbers of attributes.

IntroductionEmerging literature suggests that childhood trauma may influence facial emotion perception (FEP), with the potential to negatively bias both emotion perception and reactions to emotion-related inputs. Negative emotion perception biases are associated with a range of psychiatric and behavioral problems, potentially due or as a result of difficult social interactions. Unfortunately, there is a poor understanding of whether observed negative biases are related to childhood trauma history, depression history, or processes common to (and potentially causative of) both experiences.MethodsThe present cross-sectional study examines the relation between FEP and neural activation during FEP with retrospectively reported childhood trauma in young adult participants with remitted major depressive disorder (rMDD, n = 41) and without psychiatric histories (healthy controls [HC], n = 34). Accuracy of emotion categorization and negative bias errors during FEP and brain activation were each measured during exposure to fearful, angry, happy, sad, and neutral faces. We examined participant behavioral and neural responses in relation to total reported severity of childhood abuse and neglect (assessed with the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, CTQ).ResultsResults corrected for multiple comparisons indicate that higher trauma scores were associated with greater likelihood of miscategorizing happy faces as angry. Activation in the right middle frontal gyrus (MFG) positively correlated with trauma scores when participants viewed faces that they correctly categorized as angry, fearful, sad, and happy.DiscussionIdentifying the neural mechanisms by which childhood trauma and MDD may change facial emotion perception could inform targeted prevention efforts for MDD or related interpersonal difficulties.

Based on previous research on political trust on the one hand and the effects of perceived survey sponsors on political attitudes on the other, this paper sets out to explore the effects of misperceiving the survey sponsor on political trust among citizens. The article explores the significance of the effect of survey sponsor misperception among factors that are traditionally used to explains political trust. Using Afrobarometer data, which includes thirty-six democratic and autocratic countries and more than fifty-thousand respondents, the paper demonstrates that such an effect is significant and substantive. Hence, researchers should definitely take survey sponsor misperception into account when designing and analyzing surveys. In conclusion, the article provides an outlook on what this means for future survey research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to investigate the influence of task demand on the uni-/bi-hemispheric processing of lexical decision-making. Two types of nonwords were used in parafoveal and foveal lexical decision tasks (LDTs) to manipulate task demand. In Experiment 1, a visual half-field paradigm was utilized to evaluate the unihemispheric strategy in lexical decision, which revealed a significant response bias toward "word" at the RVF/LH in the pseudoword LDT in contrast with the nonword LDT, indicating the strategic use of orthographical legality in LH for word-pseudoword lexical decision. In Experiment 2, the study evaluated whether foveal lexical decision follows the orthographical legality strategy of LH in pseudoword LDT relative to the nonword LDT. The results showed a response bias toward "word" in the foveal pseudoword LDT in contrast with the foveal nonword LDT, suggesting the recruitment of LH in foveal pseudoword LDT. These findings support the left-dominant bihemispheric processing in foveal lexical decision and contribute to our understanding of the mechanisms underlying lexical decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People are better at recognizing own-race faces than other-race faces. This other-race effect in face recognition typically manifests in sensitivity (i.e., better discrimination). However, research also consistently finds that people respond more liberally (and thus produce more false alarm errors) when recognizing other-race faces, rather than own-race faces. In an old/new recognition paradigm, we examined whether providing White participants with base rate information could attenuate the differences that they demonstrate, both in terms of response bias and sensitivity, when attempting to recognize Black and White faces. During the test phase of an old/new recognition task, participants viewed own-race and other-race faces surrounded by a red or green border. Participants were informed that these borders indicated a 25 percent or 75 percent likelihood of the face having been presented earlier. Border cues were either valid (Experiment 1) or invalid (actual probability was 50%; Experiment 2). Across both experiments, participants shifted their response criterion in line with border cues but did so equally for own-race and other-race faces. This finding suggests that the liberal bias for other-race faces is likely to originate early during encoding and is unlikely to be moderated by manipulations that target later, decision-making processes operating during retrieval. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessing the measurement model (MM) of self-report scales is crucial to obtain valid measurements of individuals' latent psychological constructs. This entails evaluating the number of measured constructs and determining which construct is measured by which item. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) is the most-used method to evaluate these psychometric properties, where the number of measured constructs (i.e., factors) is assessed, and, afterward, rotational freedom is resolved to interpret these factors. This study assessed the effects of an acquiescence response style (ARS) on EFA for unidimensional and multidimensional (un)balanced scales. Specifically, we evaluated (a) whether ARS is captured as an additional factor, (b) the effect of different rotation approaches on the content and ARS factors recovery, and (c) the effect of extracting the additional ARS factor on the recovery of factor loadings. ARS was often captured as an additional factor in balanced scales when it was strong. For these scales, ignoring extracting this additional ARS factor, or rotating to simple structure when extracting it, harmed the recovery of the original MM by introducing bias in loadings and cross-loadings. These issues were avoided by using informed rotation approaches (i.e., target rotation), where (part of) the rotation target is specified according to a priori expectations on the MM. Not extracting the additional ARS factor did not affect the loading recovery in unbalanced scales. Researchers should consider the potential presence of ARS when assessing the psychometric properties of balanced scales and use informed rotation approaches when suspecting that an additional factor is an ARS factor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study aimed to establish a normative data set for the Paulhus Deception Scales (PDS) and Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomology (SIMS) in a community adult sample of high functioning autistic (HFA) people. Assessments were administered anonymously online. Seventy surveys were completed, with respondents contributing from 16 countries. The majority of subscales and total scores for the PDS and SIMS fell above cut-off for self-report response bias, suggesting that completion of these measures by HFA individuals may lead to conclusions of intentional response distortion, even when this is not the case. Significant relationships were found between high scores and education level, as well as psychological distress. The findings of the study raise concerns about the use of these measures with HFA people, particularly in 'high stakes' situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, social science research has required recruiting many prospective participants. Many researchers have explicitly taken advantage of widespread public interest in COVID-19 to advertise their studies. Leveraging this interest, however, risks creating unrepresentative samples due to differential interest in the topic. In this study, we investigate the design of survey recruitment materials with respect to the views of resultant participants. Methods Within a pan-Canadian survey (stratified random mail sampling, n = 1969), the design of recruitment invitations to prospective respondents was experimentally varied, with some prospective respondents receiving COVID-specific recruitment messages and others receiving more general recruitment messages (described as research about health and health policy). All respondents participated, however, in the same survey, allowing comparison of both demographic and attitudinal features between these groups. Results Respondents recruited via COVID-19 specific postcards were more likely to agree that COVID-19 is serious and believe that they were likely to contract COVID-19 compared to non-COVID respondents (odds = 0.71, p = 0.04; odds = 0.74, p = 0.03 respectively; comparing health to COVID-19 framed respondents). COVID-19 specific respondents were more likely to disagree that the COVID-19 threat was exaggerated compared to the non-COVID survey respondents (odds = 1.44, p = 0.02). Conclusions COVID-19 recruitment framing garnered a higher response rate, as well as a sample with greater concern about coronavirus risks and impacts than respondents who received more neutrally framed recruitment materials.

Neuroscience will possibly aid the educational practice but neuromyths are prevalent worldwide. Certain misconceptions about learning, memory and the brain are prevalent in different groups and hard to dispel. Bridging the gap might be too far. However, Psychology may serve as a bridge between these distant fields. The present study examined neuromyth endorsement in psychology students. An online questionnaire based on 20 neuromyths and 20 neurofacts was used. Additionally, neuroscience exposure at university and media exposure was assessed. The sample consisted of psychology students (N = 116) in Austria and was compared to a teacher-training sample. The different groups were compared using Signal Detection Theory, Chi-square test, non-parametric correlation analyses, and independent sample t-test. No correlation between neuroscience exposure at university and leisure time for psychology students at the beginning of their studies could be found. Here, the same misconceptions were among the most prevalent—compared to the teacher-training students sample. Results show significant difference between the groups on discrimination ability and response bias. Although psychology students share the same most prevalent misconceptions, they differ significantly in their amount of agreement. The reported study reveals a better discernment ability and lower response bias on neuromyths in the Psychology students’ sample. On the individual item level, they performed better at rejecting some neuromyths than pre-service teachers. In conclusion, some neuroscience and pedagogical psychology training improves the ability to discriminate between true and false statements. Therefore, directly addressing these misconceptions within the study program—Teacher Training and Psychology—could reduce neuromyth endorsement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent work questions whether previously reported unconscious perceptual effects are genuinely unconscious, or due to weak conscious perception. Some philosophers and psychologists react by rejecting unconscious perception or by holding that it has been overestimated. I argue that the most significant attack on unconscious perception commits the criterion content fallacy: the fallacy of interpreting evidence that observers were conscious of something as evidence that they were conscious of task‐relevant features. This fallacy is prevalent in consciousness research: if unconscious perception exists, scientists could routinely underestimate it. I conclude with methodological recommendations for moving the debate forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are two main types of bias in simple decision tasks,response bias and stimulus bias. Response bias is a startinglevel of evidence in favor of a biased response, whereas stim-ulus bias is the evaluation of stimuli in favor of a biased re-sponse. Previous research typically dissociates between thesetwo types of bias. Some studies suggest that it can be diffi-cult to induce response bias without stimulus bias (Ratcliff &McKoon, 2008; van Ravenzwaaij, Mulder, Tuerlinckx, & Wa-genmakers, 2012). We used a two-alternative forced-choicebrightness discrimination task in which we manipulated thepresentation length of the stimuli. We analyzed the data witha hierarchical diffusion model. The results show an overall re-sponse bias, as well as stimulus bias that increases as stimuluspresentation time decreases. We argue that the results suggesta need to revise how stimulus bias is conceptualized throughthe drift rate parameter of the diffusion model.

Persistent postconcussion symptoms (PPCS) are challenging to diagnose. An improved diagnostic process could consider typical and atypical postconcussion symptoms. This study examined the structure of a modified Rivermead Post-concussion Symptoms Questionnaire (mRPQ) with both symptom types. 298 adult volunteers were randomized into groups: honest responders, mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) simulators (MS), and biased mTBI simulators (BMS). Both mTBI simulating groups were coached about mTBI and primed about the simulation context (compensation evaluation). The BMS group was also encouraged to bias (exaggerate) symptoms. The participants completed an online battery of tests, including the mRPQ. An exploratory factor analysis of the mRPQ (full sample) revealed a three-factor solution, including a separate dimension for atypical symptoms (all item loadings >0.45, ~4% of explained variance). The overall and group analyses of the standard RPQ items (typical symptoms) found a one- or two-factor solution, as did the analyses of atypical symptoms. Consistent with prior RPQ research, a unidimensional or bifactor structure was measurable from standard RPQ symptoms. Whilst this study did not find support for domain-level symptom scores for either typical or atypical symptoms, the findings support the use of an overall atypical symptoms score. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the efficacy of CVLT-3 response bias (i.e., parametric and nonparametric response bias) indices in differentiating between a clinical sample with traumatic brain injury and a litigating sample with poor performance validity. Participants included 106 individuals, divided into two groups: clinical group with TBI (n = 56) and a litigating group who demonstrated inadequate performance validity (n = 50), as measured by failure on at least two performance validity tests. Archival CVLT-II data was rescored utilizing the CVLT-3 scoring and normative data. Receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was used to evaluate the diagnostic discriminability of the two response bias indices. Both parametric and nonparametric bias indices showed acceptable levels of diagnostic discrimination: AUC =.791 for parametric response bias and AUC =.753 for nonparametric response bias. Parametric response bias' discrimination was statistically superior to the nonparametric responses bias' discrimination. The CVLT-3 response bias score demonstrated good sensitivity and specificity when differentiating between individuals in a clinical sample with TBI and individuals in litigation who demonstrated inadequate performance validity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]