THEORETICAL AND EMPIRICAL BACKGROUND

Definition

In everyday language, responsibility has several related meanings, all involving the control of behavior by internal mechanisms. “Responsible” people feel an inner obligation to do what is right. They are dependable and can be “counted upon” (Barnard, 1938, chapter 17; Blasi, 1980, 1983). When parents exhort young people to “show a little responsibility,” they are trying to instill self-control and awareness of the consequences of action. To a lawyer or philosopher, responsibility means acknowledging or “owning” one's behavior (Sartre, 1947), such that the results are a kind of judgment upon the self. Finally, many prosocial behaviors involve taking responsibility for others (Gilligan, 1982; Hoffman, 1982). The scoring system described in this chapter was designed to reflect the concept of responsibility in all these different senses.

While the word responsibility is rarely found in personality research studies or textbooks, the underlying concept is clearly reflected in such diverse topics as political leadership (Weber, 1919/1948, pp. 115–117); moral judgment (Gilligan, 1982) and moral action (Blasi, 1980, 1983); ego control (J. H. Block & Block, 1980) or impulse control (Pulkkinen, 1986); prosocial versus antisocial behavior (Olweus, Block, & Radke-Yarrow, 1986); delay of gratification (Mischel, 1974; 1986, chapter 16); and the Socialization scale of the CPI (Gough, 1987).