Insufficient Effort Responding as a Partial Function of Implicit Aggression

Abstract

In recent years, researchers have devoted greater attention to insufficient effort responding (IER), in which participants fail to attend to instructions, do not read item content carefully, or intentionally engage in random responding. While IER is typically considered a purely methodological concern, recent research has begun to examine whether it also has a substantive basis (e.g., personality). Here we extend the nomological network surrounding IER by examining the role of implicit aggression. In three studies, we demonstrate that higher levels of implicit aggression are indeed related to IER even after controlling for previously established correlates of IER. Furthermore, we also demonstrate that IER, as measured by the selection of illogical responses to Conditional Reasoning Tests of Aggression, can predict theoretically relevant behavioral criteria. The theoretical and practical implications of this work are discussed.