THE CONSTRUCT-VALIDITY OF DIFFERENTIAL RESPONSE LATENCIES IN STRUCTURED PERSONALITY TESTS

This research demonstrates that differential latencies for responding to personality test items contain interpretable information. In particular, we show that differential response latencies are a meaningful indicator of the presence of a trait. A total of 92 subjects responded to a series of microcomputerized personality test items reflecting four different traits on each of four occasions. Estimates of internal consistency, parallel forms reliability and test-retest stability suggested that the reliability of the response latencies was modest. Nonetheless, differential response latencies showed excellent convergent validity for corresponding trait level measures, such as scale scores, self-ratings and peer ratings, and excellent discriminant validity for irrelevant trait level measures. Moreover, as predicted, the latencies for endorsing trait relevant items were negatively related to trait level measures whereas the latencies for rejecting items were positively related. Differential response latencies had no tendency to group together as a method factor. Rather, the pattern of convergent and discriminant relationships generalized across all four retest sessions. These results support the interpretation of differential latencies for responding to test items as a construct valid way of assessing the strength of a trait.