Ego development responses in written questionnaires and telephone interviews

221 13-91 yr olds completed 12-item written or telephone versions of the Loevinger Sentence Completion Test of Ego Development. Reliabilities of both response modalities, as measured by interrater agreement and internal consistency, were similar to those reported in earlier research. Mean telephone responses were rated significantly lower than mean written responses, but the absolute difference was less than half of an ego development stage. This difference was probably caused by the greater time available for reflection on a written questionnaire compared with a telephone interview. Most important, the rank order of written responses was accurately reflected in telephone responses. Both written and telephone responses were positively associated with word count, Ss' education, and female sex. However, neither written nor telephone responses were significantly associated with age or father's occupational prestige. It is concluded that ego development can be measured in telephone interviews with reasonable reliability and accuracy. (12 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).