Likert items are often used in social and health sciences. However, the format is strongly affected by acquiescence and reversed items have traditionally been used to control this response bias, a controversial practice. This paper aims to examine how reversed items affect the psychometric properties of a scale. Different versions of the Grit-s scale were applied to an adult sample (N = 1,419). The versions of the scale had either all items in positive or negative forms, or a mix of positive and negative items. The psychometric properties of the different versions (item analysis, dimensionality and reliability) were analyzed. Both negative and positive versions demonstrated better functioning than mixed versions. However, the mean total scores did not vary, which is an example of how similar means could mask other significant differences. Therefore, we advise against using mixed scales, and consider the use of positive or negative versions preferable.

Over the last decade, the concept targeted killing has received much attention in debates on the customary interpretation of the right to self-defence, particularly in the context of practices such as US armed drone attacks. In these debates, government silence has often been invoked as acquiescence to the jus ad bellum aspects of targeted killing. Focusing on the question of state silence on targeted killing practices by the Israeli and US governments in recent years, this article investigates over 900 UN Security Council and Human Rights Council debates and argues that there has been no tacit consent to targeted killing. The analysis firstly shows that the majority of states have condemned Israeli targeted killing practices and have raised concerns about armed drone attacks, while falling short of directly protesting against US practices. The article, secondly, applies the customary international law requirements for acquiescence and challenges the idea that silence on US armed drone attacks can be understood as a legal stance towards targeted killing. The article, finally, investigates the political context and engages with alternative interpretations of silence. Contextualizing acts of protest and lack of protest within an asymmetrical political context, the article posits that the invocation of silence as acquiescence in the case of targeted killing is problematic and risks complicity of legal knowledge production with the violence of hegemonic actors.

Acquiescence response bias is the tendency to agree to questionnaires irrespective of item content or direction, and is problematic for both researchers and clinicians. Further research is warranted to clarify factors relating to the confounding influence of acquiescence. Building on previous research that investigated the interaction between acquiescence, age, and secondary education, the current study has considered the role of adult higher educational achievement and acquiescence. Using the Big Five Inventory (BFI), acquiescence scores were calculated for a sample of 672 Australian adults (age M = 41.38, SD = 12.61). There was a significant inverse relationship between the variance in acquiescence scores and formal education. The greatest difference was found between the lowest education groups and the highest education groups, with the variance of the lower groups more than twice as large as the higher groups. The confounding influence of acquiescence was demonstrated using the BFI and targeted rotation to an ideal matrix, where worse model fit was found in the lower education group compared to the higher group. Implications for both researchers and clinicians are explored.

Self-reports of aggression are deeply impacted by response bias, especially by social desirability, but there are no specific methods for controlling this bias. Furthermore, despite the importance of the subject few instruments have been designed to assess both direct and indirect forms of aggression. The aim of the present research was to develop a brief measure that comprises both forms of aggression and which makes it possible to obtain scores free of social desirability and acquiescence effects. The scales were created using recently developed methods for controlling response bias effects in a sample of 750 participants over a wide age range. The items were chosen by a panel of judges from among the best of the existing aggression measures. Confirmatory factor analysis showed the expected three factor structure (CFI = .98; AGFI = .97 and RSMEA = .078, 90% C.I. = .074 – .083) and the scales showed good psychometric properties in that they had good reliability (ranging from θxx = .77 to θxx = .83), and convergent and criterion validity.

The current research investigates the heritability of two of the most common response styles: acquiescence bias (tendency to agree or disagree with survey items regardless of the items’ actual content) and item keying (differential responding related to the use of regular- and reverse-keyed items). We estimated response styles from a common personality measure (HEXACO) and examined the heritability of each with univariate genetics analyses. The results show item keying effect was heritable but acquiescence bias was not. Neither response style was strongly influenced by the shared environment of the twins. Unique environmental effects were found to be substantial for response styles. The current findings have important implications for future research of response behaviors that are often overlooked by behavioral geneticists.

The present article aims to examine a set of legal constructions related to the concept of legal title in territorial disputes. Any international jurist cannot but strongly feel the need of a theoretical approach and framework explaining the acquisition and loss of territorial sovereignty. This conceptualization will be put to the test in the light of the ICI's case law, especially, but not exclusively, the most recent ones. To this end, the article is structured in three main parts in addition to introduction: the first will be devoted to the building of a comprehensive concept of territorial title while rejecting the traditional ‘modes of acquisition’ of territorial sovereignty (part 2). Part 3 will deal with the legal processes through which territorial titles are actually created, extinguished, or modified: roughly speaking, this happens by an international agreements (legal acts) or by virtue of norm-creating facts. Last, but not least, we shall examine – in part 4 – the highly debated and sensitive topic of the relations between effectiveness and formal legal title from the standpoint of the establishment or loss of territorial sovereignty. As we have endeavoured to show in this writing the concept of legal title reunites and resolves the tension between fact (effectiveness) and formal gegal title (law). In this respect four situations will be put under scrutiny in order ultimately to test our construction of a new concept of territorial title.

International Law — Sources of — Practice of the Parties to the Dispute as Determining the Law Applicable by the Arbitrator.

Acquiescence — Absence of Protest — Relevance of.

Arbitration — Award — How far Based on Available Sources of Evidence.

State Territory — Cession — Requirement of Formal Delivery of Possession — Whether Forming Part of International Law — Formal Delivery in regard to Territories Awarded by the Arbitrator — Declarative or Constitutive Effect of the Arbitral Award — The Principle uti possidetis juris — Application to Cession and to Arbitral Awards — Effectiveness of the Latter — Admissibility of Partial Executions — Tacit Consent of the Parties — Absence of Protest — Legal Nature of Boundary Commissions.