Why people say yes
Explanations include politeness toward the researcher, a desire to save mental effort and a general tendency to treat a statement as plausible when it is read. Acquiescence appears to be more common when questions are difficult, when respondents have less education or are fatigued, and when surveys are long.
How it distorts results
If items are all worded in the same direction, agreeable responding will inflate scores and may create correlations between scales that share only that response pattern. Response styles also differ across cultures, which complicates international comparisons.
Reducing the problem
A common remedy is to balance a scale with items written in both directions. Others are to offer alternatives other than agree and disagree, or to model acquiescence statistically. None of these is perfect. Reverse-worded items can confuse respondents and may introduce their own measurement problems, so researchers often combine several approaches.
Further reading
- Krosnick, J. A. (1999). Survey research. Annual Review of Psychology, 50, 537-567.
- Baumgartner, H., & Steenkamp, J.-B. E. M. (2001). Response styles in marketing research: A cross-national investigation. Journal of Marketing Research, 38, 143-156.