The ‘I’ in extreme responding

We investigate the impact of self‐construal on extreme responding in six studies. The results show that people with an independent self‐construal generally answer more extremely to survey items than those with an interdependent self‐construal, especially when the items are self‐relevant (Studies 1a and 1b) and when these items are fluently processed (Study 3). Using an experimental causal chain design, this research also demonstrates that self‐concept clarity drives the effect of self‐construal on extreme responding. In particular, people with an independent self‐construal have a higher level of self‐concept clarity (Study 2a), and self‐clarity leads to an extreme response style (Study 2b). In Study 4, we demonstrate that the difference in extreme responding can partly explain a well‐established self‐construal effect, and we offer a solution to control for the bias in extreme responding in self‐construal research.