DOES THE NEGATIVELY-WORDED ITEM EFFECT EXIST IN PERSONALITY MEASURES? A META-ANALYSIS Huang, Jialin This study meta-analyzed IRT item discrimination parameter estimates and CFA item loadings to explore the methodological effect of negatively-worded items in personality measures. We found three important moderators that determined whether the negatively-worded item effect affected a scale. The first moderator was the manner in which the scale was defined. We found a strong negatively-worded item effect for Neuroticism but not for Emotional Stability. The personality scale was also a moderator, with a negatively-worded item effect being observed for Agreeableness, Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Openness but a positively-worded item effect for Emotional Stability and Conscientiousness. Third, low-motivation samples tended to produce a larger negatively-worded item effect. Moreover, there was no statistically significant difference between personality and non-personality inventories regarding the negatively-worded item effect. Finally, item negation did not produce the expected effect. Practical implications and limitations of the study are discussed. Ph.D. in Psychology, May 2015 Mead, Alan 2015 2015-05 Dissertation application/pdf islandora:6441 http://hdl.handle.net/10560/3547 PSYCH / Institute of Psychology Illinois Institute of Technology en In Copyright http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/ Restricted Access