Abstract
Numerous studies have examined how genetic and environmental factors determine individual differences on multi-item personality scales. Few studies, however, have examined how genes and the environment influence the route by which individuals obtain their scores on these scales. Specifically, on a multi-item test, dozens of item response patterns result in equivalent total scores, though some response patterns are more likely to be observed than others. For many scales it may be of interest to determine the genetic and environmental influences on the item responsepatterns, as well as the sum of the item responses. We discuss a latent trait measure of item response pattern scalability, called Zl (Levine and Drasgow, 1982), and investigate the properties of this index from a behavioral genetics perspective. Using a large sample of identical and fraternal twins from the Minnesota Twin Registry (Lykkenet al., 1990), item response pattern scalability is shown to be moderately heritable. On the four scales of the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (Tellegen, 1982) that were investigated, approximately 20% of the variation in scalability was due to genetic diversity between subjects of our sample. Follow-up analyses, using a factor-analytically based, genotype-environment model of item response behavior, indicated that specific genetic and environmental factors play a substantial role in determining item response pattern variation.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Allport, G. W. (1937).Personality: A Psychological Interpretation, Holt, New York.
Baumeister, R. F., and Tice, D. M. (1988). Metatraits.J. Personal. 56:571–598.
Bem, D. J., and Allen, A. (1974). On predicting some of the people some of the time: The search for cross situational consistencies in behavior.Psychol. Rev. 81:506–520.
Birnbaum, A. (1968). Some latent trait models and their use in inferring an examinee's ability. In Lord, F. M., and Novick, M. R., (eds.),Statistical Theories of Mental Test Scores, Addison-Wesley, Reading Mass., pp. 397–479.
Block, J. (1965).The Challenge of Response Sets: Unconfounding Meaning, Acquiescence and Social Desirability in the MMPI, Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York.
Boomsma, D. I., Martin, N. G., and Neale, M. C. (1989). Genetic analysis of twin and family data: Structural modeling using LISREL.Behav. Genet. 19: whole issue.
Chaplin, W. F. (1991). The next generation of moderator research in personality psychology.J Personal. 59:143–178.
Cronbach, L. J. (1951). Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests.Psychometrika 16:297–334.
Eaves, L. J. (1984). Errors of inference in the detection of major gene effects on psychological test scores.Am. J. Hum. Genet. 35:1179–1189.
Eaves, L. J., Martin, N. G., Heath, A. C., and Kendler, K. S. (1987). Testing genetic models for multiple symptoms: An application to the genetic analysis of liability to depression.Behav. Genet. 17:331–341.
Eaves, L. J., Eysenck, H. J., and Martin, N. G. (1989).Genes, Culture and Personality: An Empirical Approach, Academic Press, London.
Eysenck, H. J., and Eysenck, M. W. (1985).Personality and Individual Differences, Plenum Press, New York.
Hambleton, R. K., and Swaminathan, H. (1985).Item Response Theory: Principles and Applications, Kluwer-Nijhoff, Boston.
Harman, H. (1976).Modern Factor Analysis, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Helmes, E., and Jackson, D. N. (1989). Prediction models of personality item responding.Multivar. Behav. Res. 24:71–91.
Lanning, K. (1988). Individual differences in scalability: An alternative conception of consistency for personality theory and measurement.J. Personal. Soc. Psychol. 55:142–148.
Levine, M. V., and Drasgow, F. (1982). Appropriateness measurement: Review, critique, and validating studies.Br. J. Math. Stat. Psychol. 35:42–56.
Levine, M. V., and Drasgow, F. (1984). Optimal appropriateness measurement.Psychometrika 53:161–176.
Lord, F. M. (1980).Applications of Item Response Theory to Practical Testing Problems, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ.
Lord, F. M., and Novick, M. R. (1968).Statistical Theories of Mental Test Scores, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.
Lykken, D. T., Bouchard, T. J., Jr., McGue, M., and Tellegen, A. (1990). The Minnesota Twin Family Registry: Some initial findings.Acta Genet. Med. Gemellol. 39:35–70.
McDonald, R. P. (1981). The dimensionality of test and items.Br. J. Math. Stat. Psychol. 34:100–117.
Muthén, B. (1984). A general structural equation model with dichotomous, ordered categorical, and continuous latent variable indicators.Psychometrika 49:115–132.
Muthén, B. (1987).LISCOMP. Analysis of Linear Structural Equations with a Comprehensive Measurement Model, User's guide, Scientific Software, Mooresville, IN.
Neale, M. C., and Martin, N. G. (1989). The effects of age, sex and genotype on selfreport drunkenness following a challenge dose of alcohol.Behav. Genet. 19:63–78.
Norman, W. T. (1963). Toward an adequate taxonomy of personality attributes: Replicated factor structure in peer nomination personality ratings.J. Abnorm. Soc. Psychol. 66:564–583.
Panter, A. T. (1989).A Person by Item model of Responding to Personality Inventories, Unpublished doctoral dissertation, New York University, New York.
Paunonen, S. V., and Jackson, D. N. (1985). Idiographic measurement strategies for personality and prediction: Some unredeemed promissory notes.Psychol. Rev. 92(4):486–511.
Plomin, R., and Daniels, D. (1987). Why are children in the same family so different from one another?Behav. Brain Sci. 10:1–16.
Plomin, R., DeFries, J. C., and McClearn, G. E. (1980).Behavior Genetics: A Primer, W. H. Freeman, San Francisco.
Reise, S., and Waller, N. G. (1990). Fitting the two-parameter model to personality data.Appl. Psychol. Measure. 14:45–58.
Reise, S., and Waller, N. G. (1991). Metatraits, measurement models and the assessment of scalability (submitted for publication).
Tellegen, A. (1982). A Brief Manual for the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire. Unpublished manuscript, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
Tellegen, A. (1988). The analysis of consistency in personality assessment.J. Personal. 56:621–663.
Tellegen, A., and Waller, N. G. (1991). Exploring personality through test construction: Development of the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire. In Briggs, S. R., and Cheek, J. M. (eds.),Personality Measures: Development and Evaluation, Vol. 1, JAI Press, Greenwich, Conn. (in press).
Tellegen, A., Kamp, J., and Watson, D. (1982). Recognizing individual differences in predictive structure.Psychol. Rev. 89:95–105.
Tellegen, A., Lykken, D. T., Bouchard, T. J., Wilcox, K. J., Segal, N. L., and Rich, S. (1988). Personality similarity in twins reared apart and together.J Personal. Soc. Psychol. 54:1031–1039.
Waller, N. G., and Reise, S. (1989). Computerized adaptive personality assessment: An illustration with the Absorption scale.J. Personal. Soc. Psychol. 57:1051–1058.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
This work was funded in part by Grant MH37860 from The National Institute of Mental Health.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Waller, N.G., Reise, S.P. Genetic and environmental influences on item response pattern scalability. Behav Genet 22, 135–152 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01066993
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01066993