ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses, in particular, on response processes used on personality questionnaires designed to measure latent traits. At the lowest level of conceptualization, investigators interested in the response process examine what happens when a single subject responds to a single item. They look at possible cognitive-processing strategies, uses of memory stores, linguistic difficulties, and supraitem sources of input in the intrapsychic process of arriving at an answer to that given item. Theoretically distinct, but intimately interrelated with the level of conceptualization, is the level of data analysis. The former looks descriptively at what is to be modeled, and the latter refers to the choice of statistical techniques to be used in handling data. The chapter addresses some of the concerns Fiske has raised about the designs of personality questionnaires and the limits of self-report by clarifying some of the theoretical-methodological distinctions that underlie research on the heart of self-report—the response process.
