Acquiescence bias

Acquiescence bias (also called "yea-saying") is the tendency for respondents to agree with assessment statements regardless of their content. A respondent prone to acquiescence will endorse "I feel sad most days" and "I feel happy most days" — answers that should be incompatible.

Acquiescence inflates scores on positively worded items and can mask real variation in the construct of interest. The standard countermeasure is to include reverse-scored items: statements worded in the opposite direction whose responses are flipped during scoring. Disagreement between regular and reverse-scored items can flag respondents whose scores aren't trustworthy.