Stimulus Pull as a Determinant of Individual Differences in Sentence Completion Responses

Abstract

Summary Factor analysis of the Incomplete Sentences Blank revealed that item factors correspond not to item content (i.e., the objective referent of the stimulus) but to stimulus pull. Separate analyses were performed for 345 males and for 245 females. For males, one factor consisted almost exclusively of stimuli of negative (i.e., dysphoria) pull, one of stimuli of positive (euphoria) pull, and one of neutral stimuli; stimulus content varied within each factor. For females one factor consisted of a mixture of neutral and positive stimuli and one of negative stimuli; the females' third factor was the only apparently content-determined factor, consisting of stimuli seemingly related to vague anxieties pertinent to family and sex-role relationships. Stimulus pull, then, influences responses more for some subjects than for others, so that individual differences in responses depend on pull characteristics of stimuli used to elicit responses from which inferences are made.