Responses Sets (aka response styles) in responding to questionnaires/similar (old article)

[Dolphin]

Response Sets
International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3045001063.html

This is probably the oldest article I've ever linked to. It's from 1968. But still relevant today I think. It describes how people can have different tendencies in how they respond to questionnaires (and the like) which can lead to biased responses.

I think it may be something I will reference in the future if I want to make such points so am posting it here as there may be the odd other person interested in it.

I read the phrase "response sets" recently in a paper on the (widely used) SF-36 questionnaire.

The MOS 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36): I. Conceptual Framework and Item Selection
Author(s): John E. Ware, Jr. and Cathy Donald Sherbourne
Source: Medical Care, Vol. 30, No. 6 (Jun., 1992), pp. 473-483

They described having differently ways of asking some of the questions to try to avoid the problem of response set effects:

The new scale also balances between favorably and unfavorably worded items to control for response set effects.

Headings from the response sets article:

Tendency to gamble or guess
Speed vs. accuracy
Evasiveness, indecision, and indifference
Interpretation of judgment categories
Extremeness
Confidence
Inclusiveness
Criticalness
Acquiescence
Tendency to respond desirably
Tendency to fake
Tendency to deviate