Social identity uncertainty: Conceptualization,measurement, and construct validity

The following paper establishes a measurement of social identity uncertainty. Based on uncertainty-identity theory, we propose social identity uncertainty is a unique type of self-uncertainty related to group identification. We further believe social identity uncertainty is comprised of two components: identity-uncertainty (i.e., uncertainty about one’s group identity) and membership-uncertainty (i.e., uncertainty about being a group member). Study 1 (N = 314) and Study 2 (N = 299) explored and confirmed that two subcomponents exist within social identity uncertainty. Study 3 (N = 295) developed convergent validity using various social identity-related constructs, and discriminant validity using dispositional constructs. Overall, we found (a) identity-uncertainty and membership-uncertainty are distinct constructs, and (b) our measurements have both convergent and discriminant validity.     

On construct validity: issues of method and measurement

Fifty years ago, L. J. Cronbach and P. E. Meehl (1955) advocated for the concept of construct validity, noting that psychologists study hypothetical, inferred entities and that validating measures of such entities involves basic theory testing. Three important developments in clinical assessment following that seminal article are noteworthy. First, clinical research has benefited from greater theoretical integration and subsequent differentiation among related constructs. Second, implementation of ongoing, critical evaluation of all aspects of the construct validity process, including theory development, hypothesis specification, research design, and empirical evaluation, has improved clinical assessment. Third, improvement in evaluating fit between hypotheses and observations has been sought. Improved means of evaluating multitrait, multimethod designs, and ways to increase their clinical representativeness, are one encouraging development. Ongoing efforts to improve the construct validity process reflect the legacy of L. J. Cronbach and P. E. Meehl.     

Memory control beliefs and everyday forgetfulness in adulthood: the effects of selection, optimization, and compensation strategies

Controlling for age, gender, education, and self-rated health, the present study used regression analyses to examine the relationships between memory control beliefs and self-reported forgetfulness in the context of the meta-theory of Selective Optimization with Compensation (SOC). Findings from this online survey (N = 409) indicate that, among adult New Zealanders, a higher sense of memory control accounts for a 22.7% reduction in self-reported forgetfulness. Similarly, optimization was found to account for a 5% reduction in forgetfulness while the strategies of selection and compensation were not related to self-reports of forgetfulness. Optimization partially mediated the beneficial effects that some memory beliefs (e.g., believing that memory decline is inevitable and believing in the potential for memory improvement) have on forgetfulness. It was concluded that memory control beliefs are important predictors of self-reported forgetfulness while the support for the SOC model in the context of memory controllability and everyday forgetfulness is limited.     

Resources and life-management strategies as determinants of successful aging: on the protective effect of selection, optimization, and compensation

In this research, the authors investigated the specific and shared impact of personal resources and selection, optimization, and compensation (SOC) life-management strategies (A. M. Freund & P. B. Baltes, 2002) on subjective well-being. Life-management strategies were expected to be most relevant when resources were constrained, particularly in very old age. In Study 1 (N=156, 71-91 years), age-differential predictive patterns supported this assumption: Young-old individuals' well-being was predicted independently by resources and SOC, whereas SOC buffered the effect of restricted resources in old-old individuals. Study 2 replicated the findings longitudinally with resource-poor and resource-rich older individuals (N=42). In both studies, specific SOC strategies were differentially adaptive. Results confirm that resources are important determinants of well-being but that life-management strategies have a considerable protective effect with limited resources.     

Selection,optimization, and compensation strategies: Interactive effects on daily work engagement

The theory of selective optimization with compensation (SOC) proposes that the “orchestrated” use of three distinct action regulation strategies (selection, optimization, and compensation) leads to positive employee outcomes. Previous research examined overall scores and additive models (i.e., main effects) of SOC strategies instead of interaction models in which SOC strategies mutually enhance each other's effects. Thus, a central assumption of SOC theory remains untested. In addition, most research on SOC strategies has been cross-sectional, assuming that employees' use of SOC strategies is stable over time. We conducted a quantitative diary study across nine work days (N = 77; 514 daily entries) to investigate interactive effects of daily SOC strategies on daily work engagement. Results showed that optimization and compensation, but not selection, had positive main effects on work engagement. Moreover, a significant three-way interaction effect indicated that the relationship between selection and work engagement was positive only when both optimization and compensation were high, whereas the relationship was negative when optimization was low and compensation was high. We discuss implications for future research and practice regarding the use of SOC strategies at work.     

Improving construct validity: Cronbach, Meehl, and Neurath's ship

Smith's article "On Construct Validity: Issues of Method and Measurement" is a fine tribute to L. J. Cronbach and P. E. Meehl (1955) that clarifies the current state and future directions in the understanding of construct validity. Construct validity is a dynamic process, and fit indices need to be used at the service of understanding, not in place of it. The failure of a study or set of studies to support a construct, a measure, or the theory underlying it admits of many explanations, and the ways scientists interpret such failures are prone to cognitive biases and motivated reasoning. This suggests why metrics designed to index the extent to which observations match expectations can be useful prostheses to scientific judgments. As P. E. Meehl (1954) showed decades ago, quantitative, statistical formulas and indices tend to outperform informal, qualitative judgments, and this applies as much to the way researchers evaluate constructs and measures as to judgments in the consulting room.     

The relationship between selection optimization with compensation, conscientiousness, motivation, and performance

This study tested the hypothesis that the relationship between conscientiousness and job performance is mediated by resource allocation strategies specific to a meta-theory called selective optimization with compensation (SOC). Data were collected from employees at a large, Midwestern financial institution. In general, results lend some support to the role of SOC as a mediator. Specifically, results indicated that especially for positions with larger amounts of autonomy and responsibility (i.e., managerial), highly conscientious individuals are more likely to report using strategies of loss-based selection and compensation and that these strategies in turn lead to higher levels of performance. However, the strategies of loss-based selection and compensation did not fully mediate the conscientious-performance relationship. Nevertheless, these strategies did contribute unique variance of their own in predicting work place performance. In fact, these strategies accounted for almost as much unique variance as conscientiousness and support the role of SOC as a unique predictor of job performance.     

Conceptual complexity and construct validity

Despite a century of methodological and conceptual advances in the technology of psychosocial measurement, poor correspondence between indicators and the constructs they are intended to represent remains a limiting factor to the accumulation of scientific knowledge. Longstanding conventions in measurement may contribute to the failure to develop optimal criteria. These conventions include the focus on complex over simple constructs and the use of multi-item measures of disparate content to represent those constructs. Several arguments suggest that such a measurement model compromises the potential for developing measures that accurately reflect psychosocial phenomena. The article concludes with some preliminary suggestions concerning an alternative model that may address this construct validity problem more effectively.     

Reduction of work-family conflict through the use of selection, optimization, and compensation behaviors

Prior research has examined both the antecedents to and outcomes of work-family conflict. However, little is known about the existence and efficacy of behavioral strategies that may be used by individuals to reduce the amount of stressors experienced both on the job and at home, which result in work-family conflict. The purpose of this study was to examine the role of selection, optimization, and compensation (SOC) behaviors in relation to both job and family stressors and work-in-family (WIF) conflict and family-in-work (FIW) conflict. Results suggest that the use of general SOC behaviors in both the work and family domains are related to lower amounts of job and family stressors and subsequently lower amounts of WIF conflict and FIW conflict. In general, these results held true even when additional variables (e.g., hours worked, gender, job involvement, family involvement, social support, and supervisor support) were controlled. Implications of these results are discussed.     

The measurement of reading comprehension: How not to trade construct validity for predictive power

This paper proposes a way to measure and understand individual differences in reading comprehension. The measure is based on the theory that individual differences in reading skill reflect differences in the processing capacity of working memory. The measure of processing capacity, called the reading span test, requires subjects to read aloud increasingly longer sets of sentences and to recall the final word of each sentence in the set. Reading span, the number of final words recalled, varies from two to five for university students. According to the proposed theory, poor readers devote so much capacity to processing the sentences, that they have less residual capacity for storing and producing the final words. The ability to keep information accessible in working memory is particularly crucial for the processes that integrate each ne word with previously read information. And, indeed, reading span is highly correlated with integration processes such as computing pronominal reference, monitoring and revising comprehension errors, and making inferences. The theoretical and predictive value of the reading span measure can be contrasted with the relatively limited value of existing atheoretical and theoretical measures of reading comprehension.     

Level validity of self-report whole-family measures

This article introduces an approach to testing the level validity of family assessment instruments (i.e., whether a family instrument measures family functioning at the level of the system it purports to assess). Two parents and 2 adolescents in 69 families rated the warmth in each of their family relationships and in the family as a whole. Family members' ratings of whole-family warmth assessed family functioning not only at the family level (i.e., characteristics of the family as a whole) but also at the individual level of analysis (i.e., characteristics of family members as raters), indicating a lack of level validity. Evidence was provided for the level validity of a latent variable based on family members' ratings of whole-family warmth. The findings underscore the importance of assessing the level validity of individual ratings of whole-family functioning.     

Depression, anxiety, and the MCMI-III: construct validity and diagnostic efficiency

This study aimed to enhance knowledge of the construct validity and diagnostic efficiency of the depression- and anxiety-related scales of the MCMI-III (Millon, 1994). The MCMI-III, various concurrent depression and anxiety measures, and an Axis I structured diagnostic interview were administered in a total sample of 696 outpatients with depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, or both. Sound construct validity was found for the Dysthymia and Major Depression clinical syndrome scales and the Avoidant and Depressive personality disorder scales. The validity of the Anxiety scale was poor, showing moderate convergence with panic and worry-related anxiety measures, but problems discriminating from depression. Operating characteristics for discriminating depressed patients from anxious patients were fair for the Major Depression scale, but poor for the Anxiety and Dysthymia scales.     

The structure and function of selection, optimization, and compensation in middle adolescence: Theoretical and applied implications

Intentional self-regulation is a core facet of human functioning, involving people's modulation of their thoughts, attention, emotions, and behaviors to react to environmental demands and to influence their own development. Using data from Grades 8, 9, and 10 of the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development (PYD), the structure of intentional self-regulation, as indexed by a measure of selection (S), optimization (O), and compensation (C), or SOC, was assessed. Within-and-across-time links between SOC scores and indicators of PYD, and risk/problem behaviors were ascertained. A tripartite structure of intentional self-regulation was identified across all three grades, and SOC scores at all times positively covaried with PYD and negatively with risk/problem behaviors. Findings were strongest for overall SOC scores and for the components of “O” and “C.” We discuss the implications of these findings for youth development programs.     

On-line versus memory-based orientations and self-report validity

A partial replication of a study by Nisbett and Bellows (1977) to which a memorization condition was added showed that subjects did not have introspective access to the determinants of their judgments, but did so only in the impression-formation condition. In the memorization condition, the subjects' self-reports matched the observed experimental effects. An analysis of the results showed that this was probably because the subjects' judgments in the latter condition were based on causal theories. ©1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Quantifying construct validity: two simple measures

Construct validity is one of the most central concepts in psychology. Researchers generally establish the construct validity of a measure by correlating it with a number of other measures and arguing from the pattern of correlations that the measure is associated with these variables in theoretically predictable ways. This article presents 2 simple metrics for quantifying construct validity that provide effect size estimates indicating the extent to which the observed pattem of correlations in a convergent-discriminant validity matrix matches the theoretically predicted pattern of correlations. Both measures, based on contrast analysis, provide simple estimates of validity that can be compared across studies, constructs, and measures meta-analytically, and can be implemented without the use of complex statistical procedures that may limit their accessibility.     

Honor Scale: evidence on construct validity

Honor is an important construct, mainly emphasized in collectivist cultures, such as Brazil. However, there is a lack of studies regarding honor in this cultural context. Therefore, the current research aims at proposing a short version of the Honor Scale (HS‐16) to the Brazilian context. Construct validity (i.e., factorial, convergent, and discriminant validity, as well as internal consistency and composite reliability) is reported in Studies 1 (n = 220) and 2 (n = 222), with participants from general population. In both studies, participants answered the Honor Scale and demographic questions. The authors find the HS‐16 to be a reliable and valid scale, thereby enabling its use in quantitative studies regarding the correlates of honor concerns.