Extreme response style (ERS) refers to the tendency to overuse the endpoints of Likert-type scales. This study examined the extent to which ERS is accounted for by measures of personality, specifically, intolerance of ambiguity, simplistic thinking, and decisiveness. One hundred and sixteen pairs of undergraduate students and one of their respective peers completed a battery of questionnaires assessing these personality measures, alongside three measures of extreme responding. Results indicate that peer ratings of intolerance of ambiguity and simplistic thinking interact with the primary participant's time spent on the survey to predict the primary participant's extreme responding. Thus, those who quickly complete surveys and are intolerant of ambiguity or are simplistic thinkers are most likely to exhibit ERS. These results have implications not only for surveys using rating scales, but also illustrate how epistemic personality factors more generally influence the processing of new information.Extreme response style (ERS) refers to the tendency to disproportionately favor the endpoints or extreme categories of ordinal response or Likert-type scales, irrespective of particular item content. ERS can be described as the opposite of central tendency and differs from other response styles such as acquiescence (yea-saying) and social desirability in that most research has found this style remains relatively consistent across differing construct measures over time

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This review of the literature covers 5 major areas within the graduate admissions process: (a) the decentralized nature of graduate admissions; (b) the types of materials that are collected as part of the application process, including standardized test scores; (c) the variety of admissions models that are used to make admissions decisions; (d) training and tools used by graduate admissions committees to support the graduate admissions process; and (e) admitting diverse applicants. The literature review concludes with a discussion of the findings and the areas for future research.

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