Acquiescence can accidentally mask the damage done by direction-of-wording contamination

Evidence

The wound might not have been as devastating for the F Scale as it would have been for some other test, because (as you have probably been thinking all along) authoritarian subjects might be more likely than others to yea-say. (This snarl helped get the literatures on response sets, and the F Scale, thoroughly bollixed up.)? In this case response acquiescence might have given back some of the empirical validity it took away. But overall the message seems clear: direction-of-wording effects can lead you down the garden path if you allow them to romp about uncontrolled. — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 798