Satiation: A New Source of Stylistic Response Variance in Psychometric Measurement

Abstract

Structural convergences among two sets of measures of response styles were examined in two separate factor analytic studies. Three factors accounting for 61.7% of the total variance were extracted in the first study involving 11 psychometric measures and two factors accounting for 56.7% of the total variance in the second study of five measures. Emerging as a separate factor in both studies (accounting for 10.1 and 22.0% of the total variance and 8.4 and 36.5% of the common variance, respectively) was a factor labelled Satiation. This variance was attributed to differences in boredom/enthusiasm among individuals completing the psychometric questionnaires. This source of variance warrants attention in investigations involving questionnaires with numerous items, especially when the items are on a limited number of topics.