Method effects of positive affectivity, negative affectivity, and impression management in self-reports of work attitudes

Positive affectivity (PA), negative affectivity (NA), and impression management (IM), which have been commonly asserted to be method factors that artifactually inflate relations among self-reports of work attitudes, were simultaneously examined using latent variable models. The substantive relations among work attitudes were constituted by direct and indirect effects (through organizational commitment) from job satisfaction and perceived organizational support to intent to quit. Results showed a strong and negative latent correlation between NA and IM but only a weak and positive latent correlation between NA and PA. PA and TM were not correlated. PA had significant and substantial method-effects loadings on measures of work attitudes, NA had no significant method-effects loadings, and IM had significant method-effects loadings only on intent to quit. Latent variable model comparisons that provide direct tests for the impact of these 3 method effects on estimation of substantive relations among work attitudes indicated that the impact was trivial. Implications of the findings are discussed in the context of investigations of method effects and research on relations among substantive constructs involving the use of self-report measures.