Diagnosing Response Style Behavior by Means of a Latent-Class Factor Approach. Socio-Demographic Correlates of Gender Role Attitudes and Perceptions of Ethnic Discrimination Reexamined

It is generally accepted that response style behavior in survey research may seriously distort the measurement of attitudes and subsequent causal models that include attitudinal dimensions. However, there in no single accepted methodological approach in dealing with this issue. This article aims at illustrating the flexibility of a latent class factor approach in diagnosing response style behavior and in adjusting findings from causal models with latent variables. We present a substantive example from the Belgian MHSM research project on integration-related attitudes among ethnic minorities. We argue that an extreme response style can be detected in analyzing two independent sets of Likert-type questions referring to `gender roles' and `feelings of ethnic discrimination'. If the response style is taken into account the effect of covariates on attitudinal dimensions is more adequately estimated.