Correlates of Careless Responding: Trait and State Antecedents and Criteria

Careless responding may constitute a threat to research validity. To understand who careless responders are, previous research has primarily focused on the relationship between careless responding and personality namely the Big Five traits. In addition to replicating this relationship, the present work aimed to contribute to the limited literature on task performance and counterproductive behaviors as criteria of careless responding and expand on its nomological network by examining cognitive ability and test-taking states (i.e. motivation and fatigue) as antecedents. Using multiple careless responding indices and undergraduate student samples, both Studies 1 (N = 150) and 2 (N = 150) replicated the relationship between agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness and careless responding. Cognitive ability and test-taking motivation also emerged as significant albeit inconsistent predictors. Pertaining to the criteria, support was found for the negative relationship between careless responding and task performance (in Study 2) and for the positive association with counterproductive behaviors (in both studies). The results provide additional evidence consonant with the view that careless responding is nonrandom and encourage further explorations of correlates beyond personality traits. They also highlight concerns about the potential bias introduced by the common removal of careless responders from study samples.