Yeasaying and naysaying are stable generalized traits tied to impulse control

Evidence

Couch and Keniston made a powerful demonstration of the existence of the two kinds of response set. They administered hundreds of items from a large and diversified collection of inventories and assigned each subject an “Over-all Agreement Score” (OAS). Subjects with a high OAS are the Yeasayers and subjects with a low OAS are the Naysayers. Yeasaying and Naysaying were demonstrated to be relatively stable and generalized traits by showing that subjects with a high OAS continued to agree with items from new tests of various kinds and subjects with low OAS continued to disagree. Clinical studies of extreme scorers on the OAS suggested that Yeasayers are individuals with weak ego controls who accept impulses without reservation whereas Naysayers are individuals who control and suppress impulses. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 590

Categorization

• XREF: The weak-ego-control vs. impulse-suppression contrast maps onto later personality work on self-regulation and the impulsive/reflective distinction.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing whether modern Big Five measures absorbed yeasaying-naysaying into openness or conscientiousness, or if the construct faded.