Development and Validation of the Short Grit Scale (Grit–S)

Two experiments investigated the possibility that external statements in the Rotter I-E scale are more depressing in tone than internal statements, and thus depressed subjects may respond to external items due to item mood level rather than locus of control content. Results of Experiment 1 revealed that the external alternative was rated as more depressing than its internal counterpart for the majority Of the 23 I-E items (18 for females and 15 for males), while a small number of I-E items (3 for females and 6 for males) contained internal and external statements rated as balanced for depressing Content. For two I-E items the internal alternative was rated as more depressing. Results of Experiment 2 revealed that endorsement of external items was significantly related to self-reported depression for both total I-E score and for the item subset where external statements(as revealed in Experiment 1) were the more depressing of the item pair. External endorsement was not significantly related to depression for the I-E item subset where options are balanced for mood level, while endorsement of internal statements was related to depression only for the item subset where the internal option was rated as more depressing. These results were interpreted as supporting prior research which demonstrated mood response set using altered Rotter I-E scale items, Implications for use of the Rotter I-E scale in the study of depression were discussed.     

Development and Validation of the Affect in Play Scale–Brief Rating Version (APS–BR)

The concurrence of psychiatric and MMPI based diagnoses for 78 consecutively admitted patients was examined. The results suggest diagnostic coincidence for only 21 of the admitted patients, with the majority being in the differentiation of psychoneurosis from psychosis. Patient sex and chronological age did not appear to be factors in either form of diagnosis.     

Development of the Multidimensional Peer Victimization Scale–Revised (MPVS-R) and the Multidimensional Peer Bullying Scale (MPVS-RB)

Peer victimization is a frequent occurrence for many adolescents; however, some of the psychometric properties of self-report scales assessing these experiences remain unclear. Furthermore, with an increase in access to technology, electronic aggression should also be considered. The authors examined the psychometric properties of the Multidimensional Peer Victimization Scale (MPVS; Mynard & Joseph, 2000), and developed versions to include the assessment of electronic aggression according to whether the adolescent was the target or perpetrator of peer victimization. A total of 371 (191 girls and 180 boys; M_age = 13 years 4 months, SD_age = 1 year 2 months) adolescents in the United Kingdom completed the MPVS including five newly developed items assessing electronic aggression, a version of the MPVS designed to assess victimization perpetration, and a measure of self-esteem. Confirmatory factor analyses yielded a five-factor structure comprising: Physical, social manipulation, verbal, attacks on property, and electronic for both scales. Convergent validity was established through negative associations between the victimization scales and self-esteem. Sex differences also emerged. One revised scale and one new scale are subsequently proposed: The MPVS–Revised and the Multidimensional Peer Bullying Scale.     

Assessing Sexual Orientation–Related Obsessions and Compulsions in Italian Heterosexual Individuals: Development and Validation of the Sexual Orientation Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (SO-OCS)

Sexual Orientation–Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (SO-OCD) is characterized by intrusive thoughts, images, and urges related to one’s sexual orientation, and by consequent avoidance, reassurance seeking, and overt and covert compulsions. Currently there is no short self-report measure that assesses SO-OCD symptoms. The current article describes two studies that develop and evaluate the first version of the Sexual Orientation Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (SO-OCS), a 14-item Italian self-report measure targeted towards heterosexual individuals. In Study 1, the SO-OCS was developed and refined through item analysis and exploratory factor analysis from an initial pool of 33 items administered to 732 Italian nonclinical participants. The SO-OCS showed a unidimensional structure and an acceptable internal consistency. In Study 2, the factor structure, internal consistency, temporal stability, construct and criterion validity, and diagnostic sensitivity of the SO-OCS were investigated in three samples of Italian participants (294 from the general population, 52 OCD patients who reported sexual orientation-related symptoms or concerns as a primary complaint, and 51 OCD patients who did not report these symptoms as primary complaint). The SO-OCS was again found to have a unidimensional structure and good internal consistency, as well as to exhibit strong construct validity. Specifically, the SO-OCS showed an excellent criterion validity and diagnostic sensitivity, as it successfully discriminated between those with SO-OCD and all other groups of participants. Finally, evidence of temporal stability of the SO-OCS in a nonclinical subsample was found. The SO-OCS holds promise as a measure of SO-OCD symptoms in heterosexual individuals.     

Is It Adaptive or Maladaptive? Elaborating Conditional Role of Shame and Guilt in Development of Psychopathologies

The study aimed to explain adaptive and maladaptive functioning of shame and guilt using discomfort intolerance as a moderator. Sample comprised of 387 adolescents and young adults (51.7% females) age ranged 15–20 years. Data were collected using Frustration Discomfort Scale, Test of Self-Conscious Affect, and Youth Self-Report. Bivariate correlations showed that for the first quartile of discomfort intolerance, shame positively correlated and guilt negatively correlated with psychopathologies, whereas for the last quartile of discomfort intolerance, shame negatively correlated and guilt positively correlated with psychopathologies. Multiple linear regression analysis showed that discomfort intolerance moderates effect of both shame and guilt on internalizing problems and externalizing problems. It is concluded that shame and guilt have both adaptive and maladaptive functioning. The conditional effect of discomfort intolerance distinguishes the patterns of relationship between shame and guilt and psychopathology.     

Assessment of DSM–5 Section II Personality Disorders With the MMPI–2–RF in a Nonclinical Sample

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–2–Restructured Form (MMPI–2–RF; Ben-Porath &; Tellegen, 2008 Kamphuis, J. H., Arbisi, P. A., Ben-Porath, Y. S., &; McNulty, J. L. (2008). Detecting comorbid Axis-II status among inpatients using the MMPI–2 restructured clinical scales. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 24, 157–164. doi:10.1027/1015-5759.24.3.157[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]/2011 Ben-Porath, Y. S., &; Tellegen, A. (2011). Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–2 Restructured Form: Manual for administration, scoring, and interpretation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. (Original work published 2008) [Google Scholar]) is frequently used in clinical practice. However, there has been a dearth of literature on how well this instrument can assess symptoms associated with personality disorders (PDs). This investigation examined a range of hypothesized MMPI–2–RF scales in predicting PD symptoms. We evaluated these associations in a sample of 397 university students who had been administered the MMPI–2–RF and the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM–IV Axis II Disorders–Personality Questionnaire (First, Gibbon, Spitzer, Williams, &; Benjamin, 1997 First, M. B., Gibbon, M., Spitzer, R. L., Williams, J. B. W., &; Benjamin, L. S. (1997). Structured Clinical Interview for DSM–IV Axis II personality disorders (SCID–II). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press. [Google Scholar]). Zero-order correlation analyses and negative binomial regression models indicated that a wide range of MMPI–2–RF scale hypotheses were supported; however, the least support was available for predicting schizoid and obsessive–compulsive PDs. Implications for MMPI–2–RF interpretation and PD diagnosis are discussed.     

The Experiences of Guilt and Shame: A Phenomenological–Psychological Study

This study aims at discovering the essential constituents involved in the experiences of guilt and shame. Guilt concerns a subject’s action or omission of action and has a clear temporal unfolding entailing a moment in which the subject lives in a care-free way. Afterwards, this moment undergoes a reconstruction, in the moment of guilt, which constitutes the moment of negligence. The reconstruction is a comprehensive transformation of one’s attitude with respect to one’s ego; one’s action; the object of guilt and the temporal-existential experience. The main constituents concerning shame are its anchorage in the situation to which it refers; its public side involving the experience of being perceptually objectified; the exclusion of social community; the bodily experience; the revelation of an undesired self; and the genesis of shame in terms of a history of frozen now-ness. The article ends with a comparison between guilt and shame.     

Experiencing Adverse Social Relationships: the Development and Validation of a Self-Report Scale that Measures Individuals’ Histories of Social Punishment (HoSP)

Although the relationship between childhood trauma and psychological maladjustment is well established, the link between punishing social interactions and psychopathology has yet to be explored. This may be due, in part, to the lack of appropriate measurement tools. This investigation aimed to develop and validate an instrument to measure histories of social punishment defined as adverse, day-to-day interactions with significant others. Study 1 examined the factor structure and test-retest reliability of the scale. Study 2 confirmed the factor structure solution and tested its convergent and discriminant validity. Study 3 explored the relationship between social punishment and obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression, as well as the role of gender. Overall, the scale had very good to excellent psychometric properties. Significant correlations were found between ratings of social punishment and certain pathological behaviors. Further, our findings demonstrated that males tended to report more adverse social experiences than females and as a consequence more symptoms of psychopathology. These findings extend and support the link between adverse experiences and the development of various psychopathological conditions.     

Development of the “Mentorship in Clinical Training Scale” (MiCTS)

Using an online survey, the researchers examined new family therapists’ experiences of four types of professional mentoring during their most recently completed family therapy training programs. The sample of 223 was mostly white, North American, female, and trained in master’s level graduate programs within the United States. Mentorship experiences were assessed with a new scale of quantitative items aimed to represent the four most common types of mentorship: psychosocial mentorship, career mentorship, clinical mentorship, and research mentorship. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses identified and supported a four-factor model of mentorship and an assessment scale of 26 items. Characteristics of the students, their mentors, and the programs, as well as the four mentoring factors were used in structural equation modeling to predict student satisfaction with their primary mentoring relationships. Suggestions are made for future research using the “Mentorship in Clinical Training Scale” (MiCTS). In addition, the MiCTS can be useful for measuring student and faculty outcomes with respect to training programs’ mentorship goals.     

A Psychometric Analysis of the Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale—Parent Version in a Clinical Sample

The Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale—Parent Version (RCADS-P) is a 47-item parent-report questionnaire of youth anxiety and depression, with scales corresponding to the DSM-IV categories of Separation Anxiety Disorder, Social Phobia, Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Panic Disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, and Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). The RCADS-P is currently the only parent-report questionnaire that concurrently assesses youth symptomatology of individual anxiety disorders as well as depression in accordance with DSM-IV nosology. The present study examined the psychometric properties of the RCADS-P in a large (N = 490), clinic-referred sample of youths. The RCADS-P demonstrated favorable psychometric properties, including high internal consistency, convergent/divergent validity, as well as strong discriminant validity—evidencing an ability to discriminate between anxiety and depressive disorders, as well as between the targeted anxiety disorders. Support for the DSM-related six-factor RCADS-P structure was also evidenced. This structure demonstrated superior fit to a recently suggested alternative to the DSM-IV classification of anxiety and affective disorders—namely, the MDD/GAD “distress” factor.     

The Assessment of Adult Health Care Orientations: Development and Preliminary Validation of the Multidimensional Health Profile–Health Functioning Index (MHP-H) in a National Sample

This paper describes the development and preliminary validation of the Multidimensional Health Profile–Health Functioning Index (MHP-H), a 69-item self-report instrument designed to assess a variety of behaviors, perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs presumed to influence health status and the pursuit of lay and professional health care. The MHP-H briefly measures adult health history, health habits, health care utilization, health beliefs and attitudes, and response to illness (help-seeking behaviors). A national sample of adults (N = 673) was assessed, comprising 3 age groupings (18–32, 33–50, and 51–89) crossed with gender and then further subdivided into several subsamples for purposes of reliability and validity assessment. In addition, a group of spouse key informants was also recruited. Preliminary validation of single-item indicators as well as confirmatory factor analyses of multi-item scales was achieved. The present findings support the psychometric and practical utility of the MHP-H and warrant its use by health psychologists in a variety of research and applied settings.     

Development of a Response Inconsistency Scale for the Personality Inventory for DSM–5

The advent of a dimensional model of personality disorder included in DSM–5 has necessitated the development of a new measurement scheme, specifically a self-report questionnaire termed the Personality Inventory for DSM–5 (PID–5; Krueger, Derringer, Markon, Watson, &; Skodol, 2012 Krueger, R. F., Derringer, J., Markon, K. E., Watson, D., &; Skodol, A. E. (2012). Initial construction of a maladaptive personality trait model and inventory for DSM–5. Psychological Medicine, 42, 1879–1890. doi:10.1017/S0033291711002674[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). However, there are many threats to the validity of a self-report measure, including response inconsistency. This study outlines the development of an inconsistency scale for the PID–5. Across both college student and clinical samples, the inconsistency scale was able to reliably differentiate real from random responding. Random responses led to increased scores on the PID–5 facets, indicating the importance of detecting inconsistent responding prior to test interpretation. Thus, this inconsistency scale could be of use to researchers and clinicians in detecting inconsistent responses to this new personality disorder measure.     

Development of the Drooling Infants and Preschoolers Scale (DRIPS) and reference charts for monitoring saliva control in children aged 0–4 years

ObjectivesTo develop and validate a parent questionnaire to quantify drooling severity and frequency in young children (the Drooling Infants and Preschoolers Scale – the DRIPS). To investigate development of saliva control in typically developing young children in the age of 0–4 years. To construct sex-specific reference charts presenting percentile curves for drooling plotted for age to monitor the development of saliva control in infancy and preschool age.Study designThe DRIPS was developed consisting of 20 items to identify severity and frequency of drooling during meaningful daily activities. Factor analysis was performed to test construct validity. A piecewise logistic regression was followed by a piecewise linear regression to construct sex-specific reference charts.ResultsWe obtained 652 completed questionnaires from parents of typically developing children. The factor analysis revealed four discriminating components: drooling during Activities, Feeding, Non nutritive sucking, and Sleep. To illustrate the development of saliva control, eight sex-specific reference curves were constructed to plot the scores of the DRIPS by age group, at the 15th, 50th, 85th and 97th percentile. About 3–15% of the preschoolers in our cohort did not acquire full saliva control at the age of 4 years.ConclusionsWith the DRIPS it is possible to validly compare and visualize the development of saliva control in an individual infant or preschooler and allow clinicians to timely initiate individually targeted interventions if children outperform.     

Postnatal Depression: The Role of “Good Mother” Ideals and Maternal Shame in a Community Sample of Mothers in Australia

Sex Roles - Contemporary literature confirms that “good mother” ideology dominates cultural discourses of motherhood in Australia, USA, United Kingdom, and Korea. Within this context,...     

Obsessional Beliefs and Symptoms of Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder in a Clinical Sample

The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationships among a broad range of obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) symptoms and obsessional beliefs in a clinical sample of OCD patients. Ninety-nine treatment-seeking adult OCD patients completed the Obsessive Beliefs Questionnaire and the Obsessive–Compulsive Inventory-Revised. Hierarchical regression analyses, controlling for comorbid symptoms, suggested that washing was predicted by responsibility/threat estimation beliefs. Checking/doubting was not predicted by any obsessional beliefs. Hoarding was predicted by perfectionism/certainty beliefs. Neutralizing was predicted by responsibility/threat estimation beliefs. Obsessing was predicted by importance/control of thoughts and perfectionism/certainty beliefs. Ordering was predicted by perfectionism/certainty beliefs. A principal components analysis of OCD symptom dimensions and accompanying beliefs yielded two components, accounting for 53% of the variance: one, which was labeled “Fear/Threat,” consisted of importance/control of thoughts, obsessing, responsibility/threat estimation, and washing. The second, which was labeled “Incompleteness/Not Just Right,” consisted of neutralizing, perfectionism/certainty, checking/doubting, and hoarding.     

Initial Development and Validation of the Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale–Adolescent Version

The factor structure of a new self-report scale, the Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale–Adolescent version, was examined. Reliability and 2-week stability estimates of the domain scores and total score were calculated. Relationships of the domain and total scores with other well-being measures were examined as well as the impact of social desirability responding. Although additional development is necessary, results provided preliminary psychometric support for the MSLSS–A for research purposes.The usefulness of life satisfaction measures vis-à-vis the positive psychology movement (Seligman and Csikzentmihalyi, American Psychologist, 55(1): 5-14, 2000) is highlighted.     

Development of a Brief Form of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (B–IRI)

The Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) is a standardized self-report measure of disposition to empathic responsiveness for the general adult population (the domain for which it was developed), and for the general adolescent population. The IRI has a number of problems, however, including some uncertainty about its factor structure, low reliabilities, and poor readability of some items for people with limited literacy skills. To address these issues, we constructed an abbreviated form of the index, the Brief IRI (B–IRI). Three studies demonstrated that this 16-item B–IRI has a clear and coherent factor structure, adequate internal consistency, measurement invariance across gender and age, and theoretically meaningful associations with a range of external criteria that support its construct validity. The B–IRI substantially preserves the psychometric properties of the long form, and we recommend its use in all research settings.     

Structure of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale – Revised in the Italian Normal Standardisation Sample

Six multifactor correlated traits models and a single-factor model of the WAIS-R's factor pattern were examined by confirmatory maximum likelihood factor analyses of a data matrix from the WAIS-R's Italian normative sample raw scores (N=2284). The main aim was to identify what model(s) best fit(s) the data for the different age groups considered. Analyses were designed to determine which of seven hypothesised factor solutions best explained the intellectual ability of four age bands (16 to 74 years of age) and of all samples. Results showed the same three-correlated-factors model (Verbal, Performance, and Freedom From Distractibility) for the younger (16 to 24 years of age) and for more aged (65 to 74 years of age), and two different three-factor models for the adult (band from 25 to 64 years of age) that had in common the presence of Digit Symbol loading on Freedom From Distractibility, that in the younger and aged band loaded on Perceptual Organisation. The individuals may use different strategies when performing a given task on the WAIS-R. Such differences in latent variability may represent real differences in neuropsychological functioning, and as such can account for some of the variability in results noted in the literature. Differences in latent variability across distinct demographic and clinical groups could provide important insight into brain–behaviour relationships.