Prycho/ogi~alReports, 1977,41, 1187-1193. @ Psychological Reports 1977
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EXTRAVERSION AND ASSERTIVENESS AND RELATED PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS MARY AVERElT AND DONALD L. MCMANIS1 Eastern IVashington Slate College
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Summary.-103 college students were assessed for extraversion level on the Eysenck Personality Inventory and for assertiveness on the Adult Self-expression Scale. A significant correlation of .46 indicated a substantial positive relationship between these characteristics. Subjects were classified as being low, medium, or high on both characteristics, and it was determined that those scoring at either extreme on one variable were about equally distributed between the same extreme and the medium level on the other variable. Nine subjects scoring congruently at each level on both extraversion and asserciveness were also given the California Psychological Inventory to explore general personalicy trait differences between the nvo extreme groups. Low extraversion-low assertiveness subjects scored significantly lower than high-high subjects on scales measuring poise, ascendancy, self-assurance, and interpersonal adequacy but significantly higher on scales measuring socialization, maturity, responsibility, and intrapersonol structuring of values.
According to Fensterheim and Baer (1975) the assertive person feels free to reveal himself through words and actions, can communicate openly and directly with others, has an active orientation to life and attempts to make things happen, and strives to make a good try so that he retains his self-respect whether he wins or loses. The early conceptualization of asserciveness was based on Pavlovian excitation (the brain process which heightens activity and facilitates the formation of a new conditioned response) and inhibition (a dampening process which decreases activity and new learning). Eysenck (1967), reasoning from some of the postulates of Hull's learning theory, has hypothesized two other basic and independent dimensions of personality, exrraversion/introversion and neuroticism. H e hypothesized that the differences between extraverted and introverted persons also arise from differences in excitatory and inhibitory. potentids in the central nervous system. Persons high in neural inhibition are extraverted because their experiences do not "resonate" long enough to support an inner thought life. Persons low in neural inhibition have persisting neural stimulus traces so that the inward direction of attention typical of the introvert is a natural result. The typical extravert is described as sociable, liking parties, needing people to talk to, not liking reading or studying by himself, craving excitement, taking chances, acting on the spur of the moment and generally being impulsive, tending to be aggressive and to lose his temper quickly, not keeping his feelings under tight control, 3nd not 'Preparation of the above manuscript was supported by the Child Development Center, Eastern Washington State College. Reprint requests should be sent to Dr. Donald L. McManis, Child Development Center, Eastern Washington State College, Cheney, Washington 99004.
1188
M. AVERETT & D. L. MC MANIS
always being reliable. The typical introvert is described as quiet, retiring, introspective, fond 04 books rather than people, reserved and distant except to inti-. mate friends, distrusting of the impulse of the moment and preferring to plan ahead, disliking excitement, keeping his feelings under control, seldom behaving aggressively and not losing his temper easily, and as being reliable. In reviewing the literature deaIing with assertiveness and extraversion, no studies directly comparing these two qualities in the same subjects were noted. There were, however, a few studies which related tangentially to this issue. In one such study (Carment & Miles, 1965) persuasiveness was related to intelligence and extraversion. The results indicated that more intelligent and extraverted subjects were more persuasive and less inclined to be persuaded themselves. The characteristic of persuasibility as described in this study resembles the description of assertiveness given by Fensterheim and Baer (1975); this study suggests that assertiveness and extraversion should be positively related. Rim (1971) found significant positive relationships between risk-taking and extraversion both in individual and in group behavior. Since willingness to take risks also appears compatible with the description of assertiveness, this study provides further suggestive evidence of a positive relationship between assertiveness and extraversion. The recent study was designed to examine directly the relationship between assertiveness and extraversion in young adults. A further purpose of this study was to determine whether subjects rated congruently at different levels of assertiveness and extraversion would display systematic differences in their ratings on other personality characteristics as assessed by a self-report inventory of general personality traits.
METHOD Sabjectr Subjeccs were 25 male and 78 female undergraduate college students who volunteered to participate. Their mean age was 22.5 yr. N o information was available regarding the intellectual characteristics of the subjects so no attempt was made to control for this factor.
Materials Assertiveness was measured by the Adult Self-expression Scale (Gay, Hollingsworth, g: Galassi, 1975). This is a 48-item self-report inventory employing a 5-point Likert format. Adequate test-retest reliabilities (.88 to .91) have been obtained for this scale over periods of 2 to 5 wk. Also significant correlations between this scale and appropriate scales of Gough and Heilbrun's ( 1965) Adjective Check List suggest that it has adequate concurrent validity to be a useful measure of assertiveness. Extraversion was measured by the Eysenck Personality Inventory (Eysenck
EXTRAVERSION AND ASSERTIVENESS
1189
& Eysenck, 1964), a factor analytically derived self-report inventory designed to
measure the independent dimensions of extraversion/introversion and neuroticism. The test contains 24 items to measure each of these dimensions as well as a lie scale to detect attempts at faking. Reliability coefficients in excess of .85 have been obtained for this scale after periods of several months, and considerable evidence of both its factor validity and its concurrent validity has been reported. Supplemental assessment of other personality traits was conducted with the California Personality Inventory (Gough, 1957). This is a 480-item self-report inventory designed to measure 18 traits of personality. Most of the content deals with reports of typical behavior patterns and customary feelings, opinions and attitudes about social, ethical, and family matters; a notable feature is its lack of psychopathological symptoln-oriented material. Short-term reliability coefficients for individual scales over a period of 1 to 4 wk. have been demonstrated B .83), while long-term coefficients over 1 yr. have ranged to be adequate ( M ~ = from .60 to .70.
Procedu~e Procedures to assure subject anonymity were employed in scoring the tests, through the use of coded face sheets, to encourage veracity and spontaneity of responses. All 103 subjects completed the Eysenck Personality Inventory and the Adult Self-expression Scale in an initial group testing session requiring a p proximately 40 min. Afcer these tests were scored, subjects scoring congruently on both tests at three levels (high, medium, and low) were administered the California Psychological Inventory. Subjects classed as low on the two initial tests were below the 25th percentile point, while those classed as high on both were above the 75th percentile point, corresponding to approximately one standard deviation below and above the appropriate population means, respectively. Subjects classed as medium on both initial tests fell within the 48th and 52nd percentile points. This two-way classification procedure identified 10 subjects rated low on both extraversion and assertiveness, 27 who were rated as medium on both dimensions, and 10 who were rated high on both. Of the 10 subjects at each extreme level, it was possible to obtain nine in each group for testing on the California Psychological Inventory. An equal number of subjects was randomly selected from the medium level group for this supplemental testing. RESULTS Extraver~io~z-A~sertiVene~s Relatio?zsh+ A Pearson T of .4G ( 100 d f , p .001) was obtained between the Eysenck Personality Inventory scores and the Adult Self-expression Scale scores. This result shows a dear-cut tendency for subjects scoring high on one test to score high on the other also', and vice versa.
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EXTRAVERSION AND ASSERTIVENESS AND RELATED PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS MARY AVERElT AND DONALD L. MCMANIS1 Eastern IVashington Slate College
-
Summary.-103 college students were assessed for extraversion level on the Eysenck Personality Inventory and for assertiveness on the Adult Self-expression Scale. A significant correlation of .46 indicated a substantial positive relationship between these characteristics. Subjects were classified as being low, medium, or high on both characteristics, and it was determined that those scoring at either extreme on one variable were about equally distributed between the same extreme and the medium level on the other variable. Nine subjects scoring congruently at each level on both extraversion and asserciveness were also given the California Psychological Inventory to explore general personalicy trait differences between the nvo extreme groups. Low extraversion-low assertiveness subjects scored significantly lower than high-high subjects on scales measuring poise, ascendancy, self-assurance, and interpersonal adequacy but significantly higher on scales measuring socialization, maturity, responsibility, and intrapersonol structuring of values.
According to Fensterheim and Baer (1975) the assertive person feels free to reveal himself through words and actions, can communicate openly and directly with others, has an active orientation to life and attempts to make things happen, and strives to make a good try so that he retains his self-respect whether he wins or loses. The early conceptualization of asserciveness was based on Pavlovian excitation (the brain process which heightens activity and facilitates the formation of a new conditioned response) and inhibition (a dampening process which decreases activity and new learning). Eysenck (1967), reasoning from some of the postulates of Hull's learning theory, has hypothesized two other basic and independent dimensions of personality, exrraversion/introversion and neuroticism. H e hypothesized that the differences between extraverted and introverted persons also arise from differences in excitatory and inhibitory. potentids in the central nervous system. Persons high in neural inhibition are extraverted because their experiences do not "resonate" long enough to support an inner thought life. Persons low in neural inhibition have persisting neural stimulus traces so that the inward direction of attention typical of the introvert is a natural result. The typical extravert is described as sociable, liking parties, needing people to talk to, not liking reading or studying by himself, craving excitement, taking chances, acting on the spur of the moment and generally being impulsive, tending to be aggressive and to lose his temper quickly, not keeping his feelings under tight control, 3nd not 'Preparation of the above manuscript was supported by the Child Development Center, Eastern Washington State College. Reprint requests should be sent to Dr. Donald L. McManis, Child Development Center, Eastern Washington State College, Cheney, Washington 99004.
1188
M. AVERETT & D. L. MC MANIS
always being reliable. The typical introvert is described as quiet, retiring, introspective, fond 04 books rather than people, reserved and distant except to inti-. mate friends, distrusting of the impulse of the moment and preferring to plan ahead, disliking excitement, keeping his feelings under control, seldom behaving aggressively and not losing his temper easily, and as being reliable. In reviewing the literature deaIing with assertiveness and extraversion, no studies directly comparing these two qualities in the same subjects were noted. There were, however, a few studies which related tangentially to this issue. In one such study (Carment & Miles, 1965) persuasiveness was related to intelligence and extraversion. The results indicated that more intelligent and extraverted subjects were more persuasive and less inclined to be persuaded themselves. The characteristic of persuasibility as described in this study resembles the description of assertiveness given by Fensterheim and Baer (1975); this study suggests that assertiveness and extraversion should be positively related. Rim (1971) found significant positive relationships between risk-taking and extraversion both in individual and in group behavior. Since willingness to take risks also appears compatible with the description of assertiveness, this study provides further suggestive evidence of a positive relationship between assertiveness and extraversion. The recent study was designed to examine directly the relationship between assertiveness and extraversion in young adults. A further purpose of this study was to determine whether subjects rated congruently at different levels of assertiveness and extraversion would display systematic differences in their ratings on other personality characteristics as assessed by a self-report inventory of general personality traits.
METHOD Sabjectr Subjeccs were 25 male and 78 female undergraduate college students who volunteered to participate. Their mean age was 22.5 yr. N o information was available regarding the intellectual characteristics of the subjects so no attempt was made to control for this factor.
Materials Assertiveness was measured by the Adult Self-expression Scale (Gay, Hollingsworth, g: Galassi, 1975). This is a 48-item self-report inventory employing a 5-point Likert format. Adequate test-retest reliabilities (.88 to .91) have been obtained for this scale over periods of 2 to 5 wk. Also significant correlations between this scale and appropriate scales of Gough and Heilbrun's ( 1965) Adjective Check List suggest that it has adequate concurrent validity to be a useful measure of assertiveness. Extraversion was measured by the Eysenck Personality Inventory (Eysenck
EXTRAVERSION AND ASSERTIVENESS
1189
& Eysenck, 1964), a factor analytically derived self-report inventory designed to
measure the independent dimensions of extraversion/introversion and neuroticism. The test contains 24 items to measure each of these dimensions as well as a lie scale to detect attempts at faking. Reliability coefficients in excess of .85 have been obtained for this scale after periods of several months, and considerable evidence of both its factor validity and its concurrent validity has been reported. Supplemental assessment of other personality traits was conducted with the California Personality Inventory (Gough, 1957). This is a 480-item self-report inventory designed to measure 18 traits of personality. Most of the content deals with reports of typical behavior patterns and customary feelings, opinions and attitudes about social, ethical, and family matters; a notable feature is its lack of psychopathological symptoln-oriented material. Short-term reliability coefficients for individual scales over a period of 1 to 4 wk. have been demonstrated B .83), while long-term coefficients over 1 yr. have ranged to be adequate ( M ~ = from .60 to .70.
Procedu~e Procedures to assure subject anonymity were employed in scoring the tests, through the use of coded face sheets, to encourage veracity and spontaneity of responses. All 103 subjects completed the Eysenck Personality Inventory and the Adult Self-expression Scale in an initial group testing session requiring a p proximately 40 min. Afcer these tests were scored, subjects scoring congruently on both tests at three levels (high, medium, and low) were administered the California Psychological Inventory. Subjects classed as low on the two initial tests were below the 25th percentile point, while those classed as high on both were above the 75th percentile point, corresponding to approximately one standard deviation below and above the appropriate population means, respectively. Subjects classed as medium on both initial tests fell within the 48th and 52nd percentile points. This two-way classification procedure identified 10 subjects rated low on both extraversion and assertiveness, 27 who were rated as medium on both dimensions, and 10 who were rated high on both. Of the 10 subjects at each extreme level, it was possible to obtain nine in each group for testing on the California Psychological Inventory. An equal number of subjects was randomly selected from the medium level group for this supplemental testing. RESULTS Extraver~io~z-A~sertiVene~s Relatio?zsh+ A Pearson T of .4G ( 100 d f , p .001) was obtained between the Eysenck Personality Inventory scores and the Adult Self-expression Scale scores. This result shows a dear-cut tendency for subjects scoring high on one test to score high on the other also', and vice versa.
