Who agrees more? The role of age, education, and the ability to solve verbal analogies in acquiescence

Background Acquiescence as one of the response styles is the participant’s tendency to shift answers to agreement rather than to disa-greement regardless of the items’ content. Acquiescence together with other response styles could be a serious threat to the results of research. It can be affected b...

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Main Authors: Patrik Havan, Peter Halama, Vladimíra Čavojová, Michal Kohút
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Termedia Publishing House 2024-07-01
Series:Current Issues in Personality Psychology
Subjects:
Online Access:https://cipp.ug.edu.pl/Who-agrees-more-The-role-of-age-education-and-the-ability-to-solve-verbal-analogies,186715,0,2.html
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author Patrik Havan
Peter Halama
Vladimíra Čavojová
Michal Kohút
author_facet Patrik Havan
Peter Halama
Vladimíra Čavojová
Michal Kohút
author_sort Patrik Havan
collection DOAJ
description Background Acquiescence as one of the response styles is the participant’s tendency to shift answers to agreement rather than to disa-greement regardless of the items’ content. Acquiescence together with other response styles could be a serious threat to the results of research. It can be affected by several individual characteristics including cognitive abilities. We explored the rela-tionship between the ability to solve verbal analogies, age, education, and acquiescence. Participants and procedure The sample contained 210 participants, 109 men and 101 women with age ranging from 17 to 70 (M = 45.11, SD = 13.66). The data were collected through an online panel of a research agency. We used Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) for estimating acquiescence and 10 tasks for measuring the ability to solve verbal analogies. Results We found a significant relationship between acquiescence and age with a medium effect and non-significant relationships between acquiescence, the ability to solve verbal analogies, and education. Conclusions Education seems not to be an adequate variable as a proxy for cognitive variables, and the ability to solve verbal analogies probably does not affect acquiescence in general. However, the existence of a negative relationship between age and acquies-cence is quite surprising, and it could be caused by better developed self-identity of older participants.
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spelling doaj-art-a2e3764889634299b835855389dafc3d2025-01-27T11:28:02ZengTermedia Publishing HouseCurrent Issues in Personality Psychology2353-41922353-561X2024-07-0112424324910.5114/cipp/186715186715Who agrees more? The role of age, education, and the ability to solve verbal analogies in acquiescencePatrik Havan0https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3725-7718Peter Halama1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6938-4845Vladimíra Čavojová2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7295-8803Michal Kohút3https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4544-1331Center of Social and Psychological Sciences, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovak RepublicDepartment of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy and Arts, University of Trnava, Trnava, Slovak RepublicCenter of Social and Psychological Sciences, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovak RepublicDepartment of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy and Arts, University of Trnava, Trnava, Slovak RepublicBackground Acquiescence as one of the response styles is the participant’s tendency to shift answers to agreement rather than to disa-greement regardless of the items’ content. Acquiescence together with other response styles could be a serious threat to the results of research. It can be affected by several individual characteristics including cognitive abilities. We explored the rela-tionship between the ability to solve verbal analogies, age, education, and acquiescence. Participants and procedure The sample contained 210 participants, 109 men and 101 women with age ranging from 17 to 70 (M = 45.11, SD = 13.66). The data were collected through an online panel of a research agency. We used Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) for estimating acquiescence and 10 tasks for measuring the ability to solve verbal analogies. Results We found a significant relationship between acquiescence and age with a medium effect and non-significant relationships between acquiescence, the ability to solve verbal analogies, and education. Conclusions Education seems not to be an adequate variable as a proxy for cognitive variables, and the ability to solve verbal analogies probably does not affect acquiescence in general. However, the existence of a negative relationship between age and acquies-cence is quite surprising, and it could be caused by better developed self-identity of older participants.https://cipp.ug.edu.pl/Who-agrees-more-The-role-of-age-education-and-the-ability-to-solve-verbal-analogies,186715,0,2.htmlbiascognitive abilitiesacquiescenceresponse styles
spellingShingle Patrik Havan
Peter Halama
Vladimíra Čavojová
Michal Kohút
Who agrees more? The role of age, education, and the ability to solve verbal analogies in acquiescence
Current Issues in Personality Psychology
bias
cognitive abilities
acquiescence
response styles
title Who agrees more? The role of age, education, and the ability to solve verbal analogies in acquiescence
title_full Who agrees more? The role of age, education, and the ability to solve verbal analogies in acquiescence
title_fullStr Who agrees more? The role of age, education, and the ability to solve verbal analogies in acquiescence
title_full_unstemmed Who agrees more? The role of age, education, and the ability to solve verbal analogies in acquiescence
title_short Who agrees more? The role of age, education, and the ability to solve verbal analogies in acquiescence
title_sort who agrees more the role of age education and the ability to solve verbal analogies in acquiescence
topic bias
cognitive abilities
acquiescence
response styles
url https://cipp.ug.edu.pl/Who-agrees-more-The-role-of-age-education-and-the-ability-to-solve-verbal-analogies,186715,0,2.html
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