SELF-REPORT AND ERROR CHOICE: INTER-INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN THE OPERATION OF THE ERROR-CHOICE PRINCIPLE AND THEIR VALIDITY IN PERSONALITY QUESTIONNAIRE TESTS

An investigation was made of the possibilities of the error‐choice principle as an alternative to direct questioning in personality questionnaires. A standard personality inventory consisting of 91 items was administered to 150 subjects (normals and neurotics), who were also given an error‐choice version of the same items, written on the basis of exact p‐values of the self‐report items. The error‐choice version consisted of items followed by two response percentages (‘representing’ the p‐values in the general population), each of which was equally wrong, but in opposite directions from the correct p‐value. The subject had to encircle the percentage that he believed to be correct, and the test form was presented to him as a test of the subject's ability to be insightful of other people. Of all the 150 subjects, 141 showed positive correlations between self‐report response and error‐choice response to the corresponding items. This phenomenon was interpreted as a manifestation of dissonance reduction and it was found in the majority of subjects in all kinds of items studied. The strength of the phenomenon was found to differ between different subjects (as well as between different items) and to be positively related to behavioural adjustment as measured by an external criterion and self‐report questionnaire variables. Personality scales were derived from the error‐choice items in a way similar to the familiar self‐report procedure, and these scales showed consistent correlations with the corresponding self‐report scales as well as with the external adjustment criterion. Varimax and criterion‐orientated graphical rotations of centroid factors of all variables in the investigation showed very satisfactory factorial validities for the error‐choice scales. Moreover, a salient error‐choice (or dissonance reduction) factor was found. The results suggest some interesting practical and theoretical implications of the error‐choice principle in the measurement of personality differences.