Tendency for people to agree with test items as a habitual response is called the response acquiescence set.

• A. Response acquiescence set
• B. External reliability
• C. Internal reliability
• D. Factor analysis

Answer: (A)

This is a response style bias. Some people have a habitual tendency to agree with statements regardless of content, a tendency known as acquiescence or the response acquiescence set. It can skew scores because the respondent’s agreement is not tied to the actual truth or relevance of the item, especially when items are mixed with true and false or positively and negatively worded statements. This kind of bias is a measurement artifact that can threaten the validity of the test by inflating or deflating total scores. The other terms refer to aspects of reliability (consistency of scores) or a statistical method (factor analysis), not to a respondent’s tendency to agree with items.