Personal versus impersonal relationship compliance and their relationship with personality

The principal aim of this study was to investigate differences between compliance found in ‘personal’ versus ‘impersonal’ relationships. It was hypothesised that these are two distinct types of compliance. The participants were 1461 students in further education in Iceland, who completed a number of questionnaires, including a specially constructed Situational Compliance Scale (SCS). A principal component analysis of the SCS items (using direct oblimin rotation) revealed two distinct factors, labelled ‘personal’ and ‘impersonal’ relationship compliance. For both males and females the two factors correlated significantly with compliance as measured by the Gudjonsson Compliance Scale, the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Neuroticism, and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. The findings suggest that the tendency to comply in one situation increases the likelihood that the person is susceptible to complying with requests in other situations. In spite of conceptual differences between different compliant situati...