Abstract
The Tolerance for Disagreement Scale (TFD) is a psychometric instrument developed by James C. McCroskey, Jason J. Teven, and Virginia P. Richmond in 1998 to quantify an individual’s capacity to withstand, engage with, and manage interpersonal disagreement before experiencing relational distress or perceiving interpersonal conflict. Disagreement is an inevitable cognitive and communicative reality in human interaction; however, people differ dramatically in how they cognitively appraise and behaviorally respond to divergent viewpoints. While some individuals interpret divergent opinions as intellectually stimulating, task-productive, and benign, others interpret them as personal attacks, relational threats, or hostile confrontations. The TFD scale operationalizes this dispositional continuum via a 15-item self-report questionnaire utilizing a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree).
Psychometrically, the TFD scale demonstrates strong construct validity, clear structural integrity, and robust internal consistency, yielding Cronbach’s alpha coefficients typically ranging from .84 to .88 across diverse interpersonal, instructional, and organizational samples. Structurally, while initial exploratory factor analyses sometimes reveal two distinct valence-based item clusters—approach orientations toward disagreement and avoidance orientations away from disagreement—confirmatory psychometric modeling affirms an overarching unidimensional construct reflecting general tolerance for communicative dissent. Scoring incorporates both positively phrased items (reflecting enjoyment and perceived utility of disagreement) and negatively phrased items (reflecting avoidance, communicative withdrawal, and discomfort), mapped onto a balanced scoring formula that yields scores between 15 and 75. Scores are stratified into low (< 32), moderate (32–46), and high (> 46) tolerance categories. The scale has become a benchmark instrument in communication studies, organizational behavior, conflict management, and instructional communication, elucidating how personality traits interact with conflict management styles, supervisory satisfaction, and group decision-making processes.
Keywords
Tolerance for Disagreement, TFD Scale, interpersonal conflict, argumentativeness, conflict management, verbal aggressiveness, communication apprehension, Jason J. Teven, Virginia P. Richmond, James C. McCroskey, psychometrics, organizational communication.
Authors
The Tolerance for Disagreement Scale was developed and validated through the collaborative research of three distinguished scholars in the field of human communication and psychometric assessment:
- Jason J. Teven, Ed.D.: Professor of Human Communication Studies at California State University, Fullerton. Dr. Teven specializes in interpersonal communication, instructional communication, supervisor-subordinate relationships, and the psychometric measurement of communication traits and nonverbal immediacy.
- Virginia P. Richmond, Ph.D.: Professor Emerita of Communication Studies at West Virginia University and former Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. A prolific researcher in communication apprehension, organizational dynamics, nonverbal communication, and instructional strategies, Dr. Richmond is an internationally recognized authority on measurement in communication behavior.
- James C. McCroskey, Ed.D. (1934–2012): Former Professor of Communication Studies at West Virginia University and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Dr. McCroskey was one of the most cited scholars in the communication discipline, pioneering foundational constructs and assessment tools including the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA-24), Willingness to Communicate (WTC), and numerous measures of nonverbal immediacy, source credibility, and socio-communicative style.
Purpose
The primary purpose of the Tolerance for Disagreement Scale (TFD) is to measure the extent to which an individual can tolerate other individuals expressing disagreement with what that person believes to be true, valid, or desirable, without transforming cognitive differences into interpersonal conflict. In human social interaction, disagreement and conflict are conceptually distinct phenomena, although they are frequently conflated in everyday discourse. Disagreement represents a cognitive, objective divergence of opinions, beliefs, values, or factual interpretations between two or more parties. Conflict, conversely, is an affective, relational state characterized by perceived incompatibility, emotional friction, animosity, or behavioral opposition. The TFD scale was engineered to quantify the psychological threshold at which cognitive disagreement is perceived as interpersonal hostility.
From an applied perspective, the TFD scale serves critical diagnostic, pedagogical, and organizational functions across several research and professional domains:
- Organizational Conflict and Team Dynamics: In workplace environments, constructive dissent and cognitive diversity are essential drivers of innovation, critical thinking, and robust decision-making. However, if team leaders or members exhibit low tolerance for disagreement, intellectual debate quickly degrades into personal defensiveness, toxic group climates, or passive-aggressive avoidance. The TFD scale enables organizational consultants and human resource specialists to assess team members’ predispositions, optimize team composition, and design targeted conflict-resolution interventions.
- Supervisor-Subordinate Relationships: Research utilizing the TFD demonstrates that supervisors with high tolerance for disagreement foster organizational climates marked by higher employee satisfaction, open communication channels, and greater upward dissent. When subordinates perceive that their supervisors can tolerate contradictory viewpoints without punitive repercussions, information flow improves, preventing systemic organizational failures such as groupthink.
- Instructional and Academic Contexts: In educational settings, intellectual growth requires students to encounter ideas that contradict their existing worldviews. Instructors and students with high TFD navigate lively classroom debates productively. Measuring TFD helps instructional researchers understand classroom climate, student engagement, cognitive learning outcomes, and willingness to challenge pedagogical orthodoxies.
- Interpersonal and Marital Counseling: Dyadic satisfaction in romantic and familial relationships depends heavily on how couples navigate divergent preferences and beliefs. Low TFD individuals often perceive ordinary disagreements as evidence of relational rejection or incompatibility, prompting destructive communicative responses such as stonewalling, contempt, or communicative withdrawal. Assessing TFD helps clinicians identify rigid cognitive frameworks and cultivate relational resilience.
Psychological Construct
The psychological construct of Tolerance for Disagreement resides at the intersection of personality psychology, cognitive appraisal theory, and interpersonal communication. Conceptually formulated by Teven, Richmond, and McCroskey (1998), TFD captures an individual’s enduring trait disposition regarding the degree of intellectual dissent they welcome or endure before experiencing negative affective valence or viewing the encounter as interpersonal conflict. This construct is characterized by three primary psychological facets:
1. The Cognitive Disagreement vs. Affective Conflict Boundary
The foundational premise of TFD is that interpersonal conflict is a joint function of two primary variables: the degree of interpersonal liking (affective valence) between interactants, and their respective tolerances for disagreement. When two communicators hold differing viewpoints on an issue, an individual with high TFD maintains a clear cognitive boundary between the substantive idea under debate and the personal worth of the person presenting it. Consequently, high-TFD individuals can experience profound intellectual disagreement while maintaining warmth, respect, and emotional equilibrium. Conversely, an individual with low TFD possesses a porous boundary: any challenge to their factual assertions, attitudes, or core convictions is automatically translated into an affective threat or personal attack. For low-TFD individuals, disagreement is synonymous with conflict.
2. Approach Motivations: Intellectual Stimulation and Functional Utility
Individuals situated at the upper pole of the TFD continuum exhibit positive approach behaviors toward communicative dissent. They view disagreement not as an obstacle to be avoided, but as an intellectually stimulating catalyst for dialogue, discovery, and personal growth. In item formulations, this facet is expressed through statements such as enjoying conversations with individuals holding divergent viewpoints, finding discussions with disagreement more engaging, and recognizing that disagreement serves functional, problem-solving purposes. Approach-oriented individuals are energized by cognitive diversity, actively seeking out heterophilous interaction networks where their assumptions will be challenged rather than echoed.
3. Avoidance Motivations: Communicative Withdrawal and Defensive Homophily
Individuals situated at the lower pole of the TFD continuum exhibit avoidance and withdrawal behaviors when confronted with intellectual friction. Confronting differing opinions induces heightened psychological discomfort akin to state anxiety or cognitive dissonance. As a defensive coping mechanism, low-TFD individuals engage in selective exposure and defensive homophily, preferring social and work groups where everyone shares identical beliefs. When disagreement inevitably surfaces, their default communicative responses include changing the subject, terminating the dialogue, physically exiting the situation, or remaining silent to evade confrontation. Furthermore, they frequently exhibit an aversion to cooperative group work, preferring independent tasks to eliminate the possibility of interpersonal debate.
Theoretical Framework
The development of the Tolerance for Disagreement Scale is rooted in several interconnected communication and psychological theories:
Argumentativeness Theory (Infante & Rancer)
The conceptual foundation of TFD is closely aligned with the theory of argumentativeness formulated by Dominic Infante and Andrew Rancer (1982). Argumentativeness is conceptualized as a constructive, trait-like communication predisposition characterized by the tendency to advocate for positions on controversial issues and to attack the verbal positions held by other people, while strictly avoiding attacks on the people themselves. Highly argumentative individuals view debate as an engaging intellectual game and an effective decision-making mechanism. Teven et al. (1998) recognized that while argumentativeness specifically measures the tendency to actively engage in verbal advocacy, TFD captures a broader receptive and regulatory orientation: how much disagreement one can absorb and entertain from others before perceiving the interaction as hostile conflict. Individuals high in argumentativeness almost invariably exhibit high TFD, whereas low-argumentative individuals are prone to low TFD, often interpreting even benign counter-arguments as hurtful verbal aggressiveness.
Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Festinger)
Leon Festinger’s (1957) Cognitive Dissonance Theory provides the cognitive architecture explaining individual variations in TFD. When an individual encounters an idea directly contradictory to their established cognitions, a state of psychological tension (dissonance) is generated. Individuals differ systematically in their tolerance for this dissonance. High-TFD individuals possess cognitive structures that comfortably accommodate dissonant cognitions; they demonstrate high cognitive flexibility and integrative complexity, evaluating dissonant information with curiosity. Low-TFD individuals, by contrast, experience low dissonance thresholds; the presence of contradictory beliefs evokes acute discomfort, triggering rapid defensive reactions (denial, selective avoidance, derogatory attributions) designed to restore cognitive equilibrium by extinguishing the source of dissent.
Social Judgment Theory (Sherif & Hovland)
According to Social Judgment Theory, an individual assesses new ideas based on their existing anchor attitude, ordering alternative positions into three distinct zones: the latitude of acceptance, the latitude of non-commitment, and the latitude of rejection. Individuals with low TFD typically possess narrow latitudes of acceptance and expansive latitudes of rejection, meaning that any viewpoint deviating slightly from their personal anchor is perceived as intolerable, hostile, and unacceptable. High-TFD individuals possess expansive latitudes of non-commitment and acceptance, allowing them to entertain a broader spectrum of perspectives before assigning them to the latitude of rejection.
The Conflict-Liking Paradigm (McCroskey & Richmond)
Within organizational and interpersonal communication theory, McCroskey and Richmond posited that the likelihood of conflict erupting between two communicators can be conceptualized as an algebraic interaction between interpersonal liking and tolerance for disagreement:
Likelihood of Conflict = f(Tolerance for Disagreement, Interpersonal Liking)
When interpersonal liking between two communicators is exceptionally high, both parties can withstand higher levels of disagreement before conflict ensues, as the positive relational affect buffers against negative attributions. However, when interpersonal liking is neutral or low, an individual’s baseline trait TFD serves as the primary barrier preventing disagreement from deteriorating into hostile, destructive relational conflict. If TFD is low and liking is low, conflict is practically inevitable upon the introduction of any minor difference of opinion.
Validity
The construct, convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity of the Tolerance for Disagreement Scale have been extensively documented across multiple empirical studies since its formal publication in 1998.
Construct and Convergent Validity
Construct validity was initially established by Teven, Richmond, and McCroskey (1998) through correlational analyses with established communication trait measures. As theoretically anticipated, TFD demonstrated statistically significant positive correlations with:
- Argumentativeness: Positive correlations ($r \approx .45\text{ to }.55, p < .001$) confirm that individuals who enjoy advocating positions and engaging in substantive intellectual debates also report high tolerance for encountering opposing viewpoints.
- Assertiveness: Moderate positive correlations ($r \approx .35\text{ to }.42$) indicate that high TFD is associated with constructive communicative agency and social firmness, distinct from hostility.
- Tolerance for Ambiguity: Significant positive relationships reflect that individuals capable of tolerating conflicting opinions can also tolerate unstructured, ambiguous cognitive scenarios.
Discriminant Validity
Crucially, psychometric studies demonstrate that TFD is distinct from destructive communication traits:
- Verbal Aggressiveness: TFD shows near-zero or weak negative correlations with verbal aggressiveness ($r = -.05\text{ to }-.18$), demonstrating that an enjoyment of disagreement does not stem from a desire to inflict psychological pain, demean opponents, or attack self-concepts.
- Communication Apprehension: TFD exhibits significant negative correlations with the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA-24; $r \approx -.30\text{ to }-.45$), demonstrating that fear of oral communication across group, meeting, dyadic, and public contexts substantially inhibits one’s psychological capacity to withstand disagreement.
- Neuroticism / Emotional Instability: Discriminant investigations using the Big Five personality taxonomy confirm that TFD operates independently of general negative affectivity, displaying only modest inverse correlations with neuroticism and positive associations with openness to experience.
Predictive and Criterion-Related Validity
In applied organizational and educational settings, the TFD scale exhibits strong predictive validity:
- Conflict Resolution Styles: Individuals scoring high on the TFD scale disproportionately employ collaborating (integrating) and compromising conflict management strategies (as measured by the Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory-II). Conversely, low-TFD individuals disproportionately rely on avoiding, accommodating, or competing styles, reflecting their inability to process disagreement through constructive dialogue.
- Subordinate Job Satisfaction: Studies investigating superior-subordinate dyads indicate that subordinate perceptions of a supervisor’s tolerance for disagreement are powerful predictors of subordinate job satisfaction, communication satisfaction, and willingness to express organizational dissent (Teven et al., 1998; Richmond & McCroskey, 2001).
- Classroom Interaction: In instructional settings, students with high TFD report greater affective learning and state motivation when exposed to challenging instructors who utilize devil’s advocacy and intellectual debate as instructional techniques.
Reliability
The Tolerance for Disagreement Scale has demonstrated exemplary internal consistency across a wide array of demographic cohorts, academic populations, and professional environments.
Internal Consistency
In their initial validation study involving undergraduate university students, Teven, Richmond, and McCroskey (1998) reported a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of $.85$. Subsequent psychometric evaluations across diverse populations have continuously mirrored or exceeded this benchmark:
- In workplace organizational samples assessing corporate managers and employees, alpha reliabilities have routinely yielded estimates between $.84$ and $.88$.
- Cross-sectional educational studies across secondary and higher education contexts report internal consistency metrics hovering consistently around $\alpha = .86$.
- Item-total correlations across the 15 items consistently exceed $.40$, with the majority of items demonstrating corrected item-total correlations between $.48$ and $.68$, indicating that all items contribute robustly to the composite score without redundancies.
Measurement Stability (Test-Retest Reliability)
Investigations examining the temporal stability of the TFD scale over two-week to four-week intervals have yielded test-retest correlation coefficients ranging from $r = .81$ to $r = .86$, confirming that the scale measures a stable communication trait rather than a transient emotional state. The standard error of measurement (SEM) remains low (typically $\approx 3.2\text{ to }3.8$ points on the 15–75 scale), indicating that observed variations reflect true score variance rather than measurement noise.
Factor Analysis
The structural dimensionality of the 15-item TFD scale has been evaluated using both exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).
Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)
During scale construction, Teven et al. (1998) initially generated an item pool of 20 prospective statements reflecting cognitive and behavioral orientations toward interpersonal disagreement. Following administration to a normative sample of 278 respondents, principal components analysis with both varimax (orthogonal) and oblimin (oblique) rotations was conducted. Items exhibiting low primary factor loadings (< .50) or high secondary cross-loadings (> .30) were eliminated, reducing the instrument to 15 robust items.
The unconstrained factor extraction revealed eigenvalues and scree test plots suggesting either a dominant single-factor solution or a two-factor structure accounting for over 52% of the total variance:
- Factor 1: Approach / Positive Valence toward Disagreement: Comprising items 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 14, and 15, these items load strongly (.55 to .78) on a factor capturing enjoyment, intellectual excitement, communicative stimulation, and the perceived utility of disagreement.
- Factor 2: Avoidance / Negative Valence toward Disagreement: Comprising items 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13, these items load strongly (.52 to .75) on a factor capturing aversion to conflict, group homophily, communicative withdrawal, and topic shifting.
Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) & Method Effects
Subsequent psychometric researchers (e.g., in communication and behavioral measurement reviews) tested whether the two-factor structure represented substantive distinct psychological dimensions or an artifact of item wording directionality (positively versus negatively worded items). Confirmatory factor analytic investigations comparing a strict unidimensional model against a two-factor correlated model found that while the two-factor model exhibited marginally superior fit indices, the latent correlation between the two factors was exceptionally high ($r > -.70$).
When a bifactor model or a unidimensional model with correlated error terms among negatively worded method items was fitted, the data demonstrated excellent goodness-of-fit indices:
- $\chi^2/df < 2.2$
- Comparative Fit Index (CFI) $ge .94$
- Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) $ge .93$
- Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) $le .058$ ($90%\text{ CI } [.045, .071]$)
- Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) $le .048$
These structural findings confirm that the Tolerance for Disagreement Scale is best conceptualized and interpreted as an overarching unidimensional construct, wherein the two apparent sub-dimensions represent complementary polarities (approach vs. avoidance) of a single psychological continuum.
Instrument / Measurement Tool
The Tolerance for Disagreement Scale (TFD) is a standardized, self-administered psychometric instrument designed for rapid administration in both paper-and-pencil and electronic survey formats.
- Tool Name: Tolerance for Disagreement Scale (TFD)
- Authors: Jason J. Teven, Virginia P. Richmond, and James C. McCroskey (1998)
- Instrument Type: Self-report psychological questionnaire
- Administration Format: Individual or group; paper-and-pencil, computer-assisted, or online web interface
- Time Required: Approximately 3 to 5 minutes
- Number of Items: 15 items
- Response Format: 5-point Likert-type scale:
- 5 = Strongly Agree
- 4 = Agree
- 3 = Undecided
- 2 = Disagree
- 1 = Strongly Disagree
- Scoring Protocol and Algorithmic Steps:
- Step 1: Calculate the sum of the 7 positively keyed (approach) items: 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 14, and 15.
- Step 2: Calculate the sum of the 8 negatively keyed (avoidance) items: 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13.
- Step 3: Compute the composite TFD score using the linear transformation formula:
TFD = 48 + Total(Step 1) - Total(Step 2)
- Score Range: Theoretical range is from 15 to 75.
- Minimum possible score: $48 + (7 \times 1) – (8 \times 5) = 48 + 7 – 40 = 15$
- Maximum possible score: $48 + (7 \times 5) – (8 \times 1) = 48 + 35 – 8 = 75$
- Normative Interpretation and Cutoff Thresholds:
- High TFD (Score > 46): Characterizes individuals who actively enjoy intellectual debate, view disagreement as constructive and non-threatening, maintain emotional composure during disputes, and separate personal identity from cognitive divergence.
- Moderate TFD (Score between 32 and 46): Characterizes individuals who can manage moderate levels of disagreement in established or safe relationships, but who may experience discomfort or withdraw when disputes become intense or involve unfamiliar interactants.
- Low TFD (Score < 32): Characterizes individuals with an acute intolerance for cognitive dissent. These individuals tend to perceive divergent viewpoints as personal hostility, experience cognitive dissonance as emotional stress, engage in defensive homophily, and utilize avoidance or withdrawal behaviors to evade communicative debate.
Permissions & Fee and Test Year
The Tolerance for Disagreement Scale was formally published in 1998 in Communication Research Reports. In accordance with the longstanding academic philosophy of its primary creators—particularly Dr. James C. McCroskey and Dr. Virginia P. Richmond—the instrument is placed within the public academic commons for non-commercial educational and research purposes. Researchers, instructors, and graduate students may utilize, administer, and reproduce the TFD scale freely without prior written permission or payment of royalty fees, provided that appropriate scholarly attribution is accorded to the original authors (Teven, Richmond, & McCroskey, 1998).
For commercial applications, executive coaching platforms, proprietary corporate training modules, or inclusion within fee-for-service consulting software, interested parties should contact the surviving authors or their designated institutional copyright holders (e.g., California State University, Fullerton or the Eastern Communication Association) to secure formal commercial licensing permissions.
References
- Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781503620766
- Infante, D. A., & Rancer, A. S. (1982). A conceptualization and measure of argumentativeness. Journal of Personality Assessment, 46(1), 72–80. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa4601_13
- McCroskey, J. C. (1982). An introduction to rhetorical communication (4th ed.). Prentice-Hall.
- McCroskey, J. C., & Richmond, V. P. (1996). Fundamentals of human communication: An interpersonal perspective. Waveland Press.
- Richmond, V. P., & McCroskey, J. C. (2001). Organizational communication for survival: Making work, work (2nd ed.). Allyn & Bacon.
- Sherif, M., & Hovland, C. I. (1961). Social judgment: Assimilation and contrast effects in communication and attitude change. Yale University Press.
- Teven, J. J., Richmond, V. P., & McCroskey, J. C. (1998). Measuring tolerance for disagreement. Communication Research Reports, 15(2), 209–217. https://doi.org/10.1080/08824099809362115