Direction-of-wording effects in the relationships between scales

The effect of direction of wording in attitude and personality scales has been investigated in its effect upon the relationship between scales, demonstrating a dependable effect in all studies examined, including MMPI studies. This approach makes possible the demonstration of a strong direction-of-wording effect for the original F scale measure of authoritarianism even if all reversal efforts are rejected as inappropriate. The effect is small for some variables and larger for others. Rarely, however, does the direction-of-wording factor exceed shared trait factors in magnitude.