Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, Vol. 29, No. 2, 2001, pp. 129–139 Measuring Qualitative Aspects of Preschool Boys’ Noncompliance: The Response Style Questionnaire (RSQ) Deborah A. G. Drabick, 1,2 Zvi Strassberg, 1,2 and Michelle R. Kees 1 Received July 14, 1999; revision received November 11, 1999; accepted June 8, 2000 Child noncompliance is a core maladjustment factor in current clinical models of aggression and an- tisocial development. However, little is known about the relations among qualitative aspects of child noncompliance and aggressive maladjustment. The authors developed the Response Style Question- naire, an instrument designed to measure the multidimensional qualities of child noncompliance, and tested its validity and reliability. Tests of internal validity provided a five-factor solution, featuring distinctions in noncompliance quality between and among skilled noncompliance (verbally skilled and emotionally regulated) and unskilled noncompliance (overt/confrontational, covert/sneaky, and emotionally labile). Theory-driven tests of external validity using peer-adjustment variables as crite- ria provided discriminant prediction (a) among qualitatively distinct aspects of noncompliance and (b) between noncompliance qualities and rate. Discussion focuses on a modified view of the nature and role of noncompliance in aggressive and antisocial development. KEY WORDS: noncompliance; aggression; construct validity; measure. Child “noncompliance” is defined as a failure to con- form to a specific request or command issued by an adult (e.g., Roberts & Powers, 1988), and is a core of cur- rent clinical models of aggression and antisocial devel- opment. According to these models, chronic noncompli- ance represents pathological opposition to socialization demands (e.g., Achenbach, 1993; Patterson, DeBaryshe, & Ramsey, 1989). Indeed, there are concurrent and longi- tudinal relations between noncompliance and aggression, delinquency, criminality, substance abuse, poor peer rela- tionships, and poor academic performance (Kazdin, 1989; Loeber, 1990). Clinical models have conceptualized noncompliance as a unitary construct, on which children differ in fre- quency, and therefore severity (e.g., Wierson & Forehand, 1994). Although clinical researchers actually tend to mea- sure various forms of noncompliance (such as passive vs. 1 Department of Psychology, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, New York 11794-2500. 2 Address all correspondence to Deborah A. G. Drabick or Zvi Strassberg, Department of Psychology, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, New York 11794-2500; e-mail: debdrabick@yahoo.com or zstrass@psychl.psy.sunysb.edu. active [e.g., defiant] noncompliance), they typically form globally aggregated “noncompliance” variables for ana- lytic purposes (Houlihan, Sloane, Jones, & Patten, 1992). There are exceptions in which frequency and severity have been measured independently and analyzed separately, and found to be mutually predictive (Parke & Slaby, 1983). However, the richness of qualitative variations among forms of noncompliance is generally ignored in the clini- cal literature. Conversely, research in developmental psychology has demonstrated that there are meaningful qualitative differences in skilled and unskilled features of noncompli- ance (Crockenberg & Litman, 1990; Kuczynski & Kochanska, 1990; Kuczynski, Kochanska, Radke-Yarrow, & Girnius-Brown, 1987). Skilled noncompliance repre- sents adaptive autonomy, and has been defined as be- ing self-assertive in a verbally competent, nonaversive manner. Unskilled noncompliance represents aversive and coercive self-assertion, and includes such behaviors as doing the opposite of what has been asked, responding with anger or aggression, or intensifying the behavior (Kuczynski et al., 1987). Compared to children who are relatively unskilled in their noncompliance, children who are skilled in noncompliance are more socially competent 129 0091-0627/01/0400-0129$19.50/0 C  2001 Plenum Publishing Corporation