Respondent Self-Focus and the Internal Consistency of the Motivational Style Profile

One of the underlying tenets of both personality and social psychological theory assumes that questionnaire respondents have access to their thoughts and feelings. The same tenet underlies the various reversal theory states (e.g., telic/paratelic, negativism/conformity, autic mastery/sympathy, alloic mastery/sympathy), so that individuals who are more internally focused should have better access to their internal states and have higher internal consistency ratings across all measures. To evaluate this tenet, 620 participants recruited from a community sample completed a questionnaire that included the Motivational Style Profile and three self-focus measures: self-monitoring, identity formation, and private self-consciousness. Participants were divided (by median split) into low and high self-focus categories for each measure. Results showed that highly self-focused individuals had significantly higher internal consistency estimates. Implications for the psychometric properties of the MSP are discussed, as are directions for future research.