Differential Item Functioning of the Symptoms of Major Depression by Race and Ethnicity: An Item Response Theory Analysis

This study examines the psychometric properties, and particularly differential item functioning (DIF) due to racial and ethnic group, of the criteria for a major depressive episode using a large sample (N?=?1,063) of outpatients seeking treatment for mood and anxiety disorders. DIF was evaluated using multiple group confirmatory factor analysis. Item thresholds fell along a continuum with the core features of depressed mood and anhedonia, along with fatigue, being endorsed at lower levels of depression, and change in appetite and suicidal ideation endorsed at more severe levels of depression. Item discriminations, reflecting an item’s ability to discriminate between lower and higher levels of depression, were highest for depressed mood and anhedonia, and lowest for change in appetite and suicidal ideation. When examining model fit among the racial groups we did not find differences in symptom functioning, providing support for the use of these symptoms across diverse groups. This is of particular importance given the paucity of studies examining this question using a semi-structured clinician administered instrument to a clinical sample.     

Cigarette Smoking,Academic Lifestyle,and Social Impact Efficacy: An Eight-Year Study from Early Adolescence to Young Adulthood1

Two hundred and twenty-one males and 518 females were followed for 8 years from early adolescence. A causal model was proposed that related five constructs measured in adolescence to four corresponding constructs measured 8 years later. The predictor constructs included smoking involvement, academic lifestyle orientation, emotional well-being, social impact efficacy, and peer smoking behavior. Academic lifestyle orientation was found to be a central organizing construct, with the strongest within-time and across-time correlations with other constructs. The relatively weak causal influences of teenage smoking and teenage social impact efficacy suggested an explanation for the limited impact of past drug abuse prevention programs. Policy implications are discussed.     

Detection and Validation of Unscalable Item Score Patterns Using Item Response Theory: An Illustration with Harter's Self-Perception Profile for Children

To test the hypothesis that age of first separation from a home environment is a factor in the emotional health of institutionalized boys, Rorschach protocols of 82 residents of Saint Francis Vocational School, a facility for deprived nondelinquent nonretarded youth aged 10 to 18, were examined. Seven Rorschach variables were used as dependent variables of emotional status. It was found that boys who had first been institutionalized before age 10 gave more color-dominant and pure color responses (p .005), and more responses with pathological overtones (p < .005), than did youth first placed at ages 10 to 13 or ages 14 to 17. Fixation was proposed as the basis for the group differences.     

Initiation and Maintenance of Tobacco Smoking: Changing Personality Correlates in Adolescence and Young Adulthood1

Youthful smokers have been described as extroverted and peer-involved, whereas older smokers are often characterized as depressed and withdrawn. Recognizing this contradiction, we examined cross-sectional and prospective associations between smoking and personality and social constructs assessed every 4 years in a sample (N= 461) originally recruited in junior high school. At Time 1, smoking was positively related to good social relations, extroversion, friends' cigarette use, and cheerfulness. At Times 2–4, smoking was positively related to depression and friends' cigarette use, negatively correlated with good Social Relations, and unrelated to extroversion. Cigarette use was stable over time, but least stable between Times 1 and 2. Findings suggest the instability of early social smoking with peers; those who persist may smoke for tension reduction and self-medication.     

Development of Borderline Personality Disorder in Adolescence and Young Adulthood: Introduction to the Special Section

Recognizable symptoms and features of borderline personality disorder (BPD) appear during adolescence. However, there has been resistance to diagnose or research this disorder prior to adulthood because of clinical lore that BPD is a long-standing illness and that personality traits are not stable until adulthood. This has resulted in little information regarding the development of and risk factors for BPD in youth. The goal of this special section is to examine the development of BPD in adolescence and young adulthood using a broad collection of approaches, including a theoretical review paper, two prospective studies, and a multi-method cross-sectional study. This body of work provides new insights into vulnerabilities that may transact with early attachment relationships and experiences to predict the emergence of BPD in adolescence and young adulthood. These papers also point to future research that is needed to better understand the etiology, development, and course of BPD.     

Optimal Scores: An Alternative to Parametric Item Response Theory and Sum Scores

Psychometrika - The aim of this paper is to discuss nonparametric item response theory scores in terms of optimal scores as an alternative to parametric item response theory scores and sum scores....     

Null Results in Assessing Survey Score Comparability: Illustrating Measurement Invariance Using Item Response Theory

In using organizational surveys for decision-making, it is essential to consider measurement equivalence/invariance (ME/I), which addresses the questions of whether score differences are attributable to differences in the latent variable we intend to measure, or attributable to confounding differences in measurement properties. Due to the tendency for null results to remain unpublished, most articles have focused on findings of, and reasons for violations of ME/I. On the other hand, little is available to practitioners and researchers concerning situations where ME/I can be expected to uphold. This is especially disconcerting due to the fact that the null is the desired result in such analyses, and allows for unfettered observed-score comparisons. This special issue presents a unique opportunity to provide such a discussion using real-world examples from an organizational culture survey. In doing so we hope to clear up confusion surrounding the concept of ME/I, when it can be expected, and how it relates to actual differences in scores. First, we review the basic tenets and past findings focusing on ME/I, and discuss the item response theory differential item functioning framework used here. Next, we show ME/I being upheld using organizational survey data wherein violations of ME/I would reasonably not be expected (i.e., the null hypothesis was predicted and supported), and simulate the consequences of ignoring ME/I. Finally, we suggest a set of conditions wherein ME/I is likely to be upheld.     

Religious Coping and Depression in Young Adulthood: Effects of Global Stress Exposure and Pre-Teenage Religious Service Attendance

This paper builds upon previous research on the association between religiosity and depressive symptomatology in young adults by focusing on the coping aspects of religious involvement (use of beliefs, comfort seeking, and prayer). Data come from a representative sample of Miami-Dade County, Florida, youths interviewed initially at around age 11 and then at age 19 to 21 (N = 1,210). OLS regression models demonstrate an inverted U-shaped curvilinear relationship between religious coping and depression which, in subgroup analyses, applies only to females, and specifically to those young women reporting above-average stress exposure who had attended religious services at least once a week during their middle school years. No association is found among those reporting lower stress exposure or less frequent pre-teenage service attendance. These results provide evidence that early religious exposure on a regular basis and high global stress exposure may be essential preconditions for a relationship at the aggregate level between current religious coping and depressive symptomatology in young adults.     

Advances in Clinical Personality Measurement: An Item Response Theory Analysis of the MMPI-2 PSY-5 Scales

Item response theory (IRT) provides valuable methods for the analysis of the psychometric properties of a psychological measure. To date, however, these methods have not been used frequently by personality assessment researchers, in part because many researchers have not been introduced to the methods and in part because most of the development of IRT has taken place in applied education assessment settings, resulting in terminology that is ability focused rather than trait focused. The purpose of this article is twofold. First, an overview of IRT is presented, highlighting the concepts of the three-parameter IRT model, item and test information, and conditional standard error of measurement. Second, the psychometric properties of the (MMPI-2) PSY-5 scales are examined to demonstrate IRT's value.     

Psychometric Properties of the Wisconsin Schizotypy Scales in an Undergraduate Sample: Classical Test Theory,Item Response Theory,and Differential Item Functioning

The Wisconsin Schizotypy Scales are widely used for assessing schizotypy in nonclinical and clinical samples. However, they were developed using classical test theory (CTT) and have not had their psychometric properties examined with more sophisticated measurement models. The present study employed item response theory (IRT) as well as traditional CTT to examine psychometric properties of four of the schizotypy scales on the item and scale level, using a large sample of undergraduate students (n = 6,137). In addition, we investigated differential item functioning (DIF) for sex and ethnicity. The analyses revealed many strengths of the four scales, but some items had low discrimination values and many items had high DIF. The results offer useful guidance for applied users and for future development of these scales.     

The Influence of Authoritative Parenting During Adolescence on Depressive Symptoms in Young Adulthood: Examining the Mediating Roles of Self-Development and Peer Support

A diverse sample of 1,143 high school seniors and 182 students who were part of the same cohort but who left high school without graduating were interviewed during late adolescence (Time 1 [T1]) as well as 2 (Time 2 [T2]) and 4 years later (Time 3 [T3]). Perceived self-development, peer support, and prior levels of depressive symptoms (T2) were hypothesized to mediate the relationship between authoritative parenting during adolescence (T1) and depressive symptoms during young adulthood (T3). T2 sense of self as worthy and efficacious and depressive symptoms, but not peer support, fully mediated the effect of authoritative parenting on T3 depressive symptoms. The authors discuss the importance of parenting for healthy, emerging adult self-development and the continuing influence of parenting styles during adolescence on young adult depressive symptoms.     

Recalled Challenging Parenting Behavior and Anxiety in Adulthood: An Exploratory Retrospective Cohort Study

This research examined the relationship between recalled challenging parenting behavior (CPB) and adult anxiety and aimed to determine the underlying latent factors involved in CPB. CPB is a novel parenting construct that involves the encouragement of children to go beyond their own limits and engage with concepts they may find scary or that destabilises them, in a playful and fun way. Participants in the current study were 386 undergraduate psychology students (M age?=?19.89 years, SD?=?4.6; range 17–56). Questionnaire measures of CPB, anxiety, and social anxiety were delivered to participants via an online survey. An exploratory factor analysis was conducted using Principle Axis Factoring with Oblimin rotation. This identified three latent constructs underlying adults recall of CPB during childhood; parental encouragement of social assertion (‘Social’), parental encouragement to engage in novel or new situations (‘Novelty’), and intentional teasing (‘Teasing’) CPB. Both mother and father Social and Novelty CPB was associated with lower report of adult anxiety. However, only fathers Teasing was able to predict adult anxiety.     

Attention Network Performance and Psychopathic Symptoms in Early Adolescence: An ERP Study

Reaction time (RT) and event-related potential (ERP) measures were used to examine the relationships between psychopathic symptoms and three major attention networks (alerting, orienting, and executive attention) among a community sample of youth. Antisocial Process Screening Device (APSD; Frick and Hare 2001) total and subscale scores were negatively correlated with ERP measures of attentional alerting, indicating that youth with psychopathic symptoms had difficulty using warning cues to prepare for upcoming targets. APSD total scores were not related to performance on measures of orienting or executive attention, although weaker executive attention was found among youth with higher scores on the Impulsivity subscale. These findings support attention-based models of psychopathy and provide evidence of specific deficits in attentional alerting among youth with psychopathic traits. Deficiencies in attentional alerting may be related to noradrenergic functioning and may have cascading effects on higher order cognitive and affective processing.     

The 10-Item Positive and Negative Affect Schedule for Children, Child and Parent Shortened Versions: Application of Item Response Theory for More Efficient Assessment

The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule for Children (PANAS-C/P; child and parent versions) yield positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) scales that are clinically useful for identifying youth with anxiety and mood problems. Despite the advantages that item response theory (IRT) offers relative to classical test theory with respect to shortening test instruments, no studies to date have applied IRT methodology to the PANAS-C/P scales. In the present study, we thus applied IRT methodology using a school-based development sample (child sample: N = 799; parent sample: N = 553) and developed a shortened 5-item PA scale (joyful, cheerful, happy, lively, proud) and a 5-item NA scale (miserable, mad, afraid, scared, sad) for the sake of simultaneously increasing the assessment efficiency of the PANAS-C/P scales while improving the psychometric properties of the scales. The reduced PA and NA child scales classified relevant diagnostic groups in a separate clinic-referred validation sample (N = 662) just as well as the original PANAS-C child scales and may be used to help identify youth with internalizing disorders in need of mental health services.     

Self-Knowledge and Depressive Symptoms in Late Adolescence: A Study Using the Repertory Grid Technique

The goal of this study is to explore the relationship, suggested by recent developmental approaches, between several aspects of self-knowledge organization and depressive symptomatology in late adolescence, within the comprehensive framework of Kelly's personal construct psychology. The repertory grid technique was used to obtain six measures of self-knowledge organization: global differentiation; polarization; presence of conflicts; and discrepancies between actual self, ideal self, and others. Two inventories were used to create two samples of late adolescents according to their level of depressive symptoms. Results supported the expectations of greater global differentiation and actual–ideal self discrepancy (or lower self-esteem) for adolescents with depressive symptoms, as well as a higher likelihood of intrapersonal conflicts. However, discrepancies between self (actual or ideal) and others (identification, and perceived adequacy of others), and polarization showed no significant differences. Furthermore, the association of symptom severity with different grid measures was stronger for adolescents with depressive symptoms. Results and limitations of this study are discussed, and the potential of using personal construct theory and the repertory grid technique in studies of self-knowledge and psychological adjustment during adolescence is explored.     

Using a Multivariate Multilevel Polytomous Item Response Theory Model to Study Parallel Processes of Change: The Dynamic Association Between Adolescents' Social Isolation and Engagement With Delinquent Peers in the National Youth Survey

The application of multidimensional item response theory models to repeated observations has demonstrated great promise in developmental research. It allows researchers to take into consideration both the characteristics of item response and measurement error in longitudinal trajectory analysis, which improves the reliability and validity of the latent growth curve (LGC) model. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the potential of Bayesian methods and the utility of a comprehensive modeling framework, the one combining a measurement model (e.g., a multidimensional graded response model, MGRM) with a structural model (e.g., an associative latent growth curve analysis, ALGC). All analyses are implemented in WinBUGS 1.4.3 (Spiegelhalter, Thomas, Best, &; Lunn, 2003 Spiegelhalter, D. J., Thomas, A., Best, N. G. and Lunn, D. 2003. WinBUGS user manual Cambridge, , UK: MRC Biostatistics Unit, Institute of Public Health. Retrieved October 24, 2006, from http://www.mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk/bugs [Google Scholar]), which allows researchers to use Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation methods to fit complex statistical models and circumvent intractable analytic or numerical integrations. The utility of this MGRM-ALGC modeling framework was investigated with both simulated and empirical data, and promising results were obtained. As the results indicate, being a flexible multivariate multilevel model, this MGRM-ALGC model not only produces item parameter estimates that are readily estimable and interpretable but also estimates the corresponding covariation in the developmental dimensions. In terms of substantive interpretation, as adolescents perceived themselves more socially isolated, the chance that they are engaged with delinquent peers becomes profoundly larger. Generally, boys have a higher initial exposure extent than girls. However, there is no gender difference associated with other latent growth parameters.     

Child-Centered Play Therapy and Childhood Depression: An Effectiveness Study in Schools

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Depression in childhood is a significant mental health concern, impacting cognitive, affective, social, behavioral, and physical domains. Children who...     

Social Support in Couples: An Examination of Gender Differences Using Self-report and Observational Methods

We explored gender differences in actual and perceived spousal support in a survey study involving 458 married Belgian couples and in an observational study involving 32 married Belgian couples. Self-reports were used in both studies to assess spouses’ support behaviors and perceived support. These measures were supplemented in Study 2 with measures of observed support behavior and on-line perceived support, as assessed during support interactions. Overall, the self-report measures yielded significant gender differences in support soliciting and support provision, whereas the observational measures did not. Furthermore, the results concerning global and on-line perceived support and support profiles were inconsistent with the “support gap” perspective. These findings were discussed in light of the existing research on gender differences in support and marriage.