Random responding and the questionnaire measurement of psychoticism

The hypothesis was advanced that questionnaire measures of psychoticism (P) may represent an estimate of randomness in responding, rather than reflecting reactions to item content. Questionnaire measures of P, extraversion, neuroticism, and a lie score were taken from each of 103 male participants. The results showed that P did not correlate with measures of random responding which were derived from the remaining scales. Thus, the hypothesis was not supported. Further inspection of the data failed to discover a general trait of random responding.