Compliance and personality: the vulnerability of the unstable introvert

Abstract

The aim of the study was to assess the relationship of compliance with Eysenck's three personality dimensions: psychoticism, extraversion, and neuroticism. Three groups of participants (prison inmates, college students, and university students) completed the Gudjonsson Compliance Scale (GCS) and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ). As predicted, compliance correlated positively with neuroticism and negatively with extraversion in all groups, whereas for psychoticism the correlation was positive among the prison inmates, negative for college students, and non‐significant for university students. A quadrant analysis according to Eysenck's original two‐dimensional framework (neuroticism–stability and introversion–extraversion) showed that compliance was highest among unstable introverts and lowest among stable extraverts. The findings are discussed in relation to recent work on person‐type approaches. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.