Arousability,trait anxiety and the worry and emotionality components of test anxiety

Abstract

Eleventh- and twelfth-grade high-school students (or equivalent subjects in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Brazil) participated in this study. All subjects were administered the Test Anxiety Inventory and the Anxiety/Arousability Inventory in their native language. A confirmatory factor analysis yielded the following conclusions: (1) the measures of trait anxiety arousability, test anxiety (worry), and test anxiety (emotionality) demonstrated high reliability, factorial validity and discriminant validity in each of the four samples; (2) as hypothesized, significant positive correlations were found between all four measures in each of the four samples; (3) analyses of invariance supported the invariance of factor loadings and factor true variances across three cultural groups: Egypt, Brazil and the USA. (Saudi Arabia was eliminated from the invariance analysis because the sample was all male.) Analyses of invariance did not support the invariance of error/uniquenesses and factor correlations.     

Exploring the structure of Zuckerman's Sensation Seeking Scale, Form V in a Spanish sample

The psychometric properties of the original version of the Sensation Seeking Scale (Form V) were analyzed in a sample of 1,006 Spanish university students. The total sample was randomly split into two halves. Exploratory factor analyses were conducted on the calibration sample (n=504), whereas confirmatory factor analysis procedures were performed on the validation sample (n=502). As previous studies have suggested, exploratory factor structure indicated that several items load on a different factor or have loadings lower than .30. Those problems were surpassed when the best five items per factor were factor analyzed again. The confirmatory factor analyses showed that a 4-factor simple structure model gave a clearly imperfect fit. A model of 20 items (5 items per factor) gave a better fit, although with similar problems regarding the low reliabilities of the Experience Seeking and Boredom Susceptibility subscales. The need for improvement of the four-factor structure is discussed.     

Japanese children's trait and state worry and emotionality in a high-stakes testing environment

Our previous research using both Japanese Children's Trait and State Worry and Emotionality Scales indicated that there were several issues that needed resolution in a high-stakes testing environment. High-stakes testing environments are those in which there are serious consequences to the individual of how well he or she scores on a particular test. In this study, the high-stakes environment was characterized by higher state worry and emotionality but not higher trait worry and emotionality scores than in the previous study. A clear two-factor solution was found for the state measures but not for the trait measures. Males performed better on the achievement tests than females. The relationship of state anxiety to performance was non-linear. State worry was more highly predictive of poor performance than state emotionality.     

Reliability and validity of japanese children's trait and state worry and emotionality scales

There is a belief in both Japan and the U.S. that high levels of test anxiety interfere with performance. However, there are no measures of anxiety (i.e., worry or emotionality) for Japanese children. In this study, since the consequences of testing are even more salient in Japan than the U.S., it was expected that levels of anxiety, both trait and state, would be higher in Japan than the U.S. Further, we expected that the two-factor structure (worry and emotionality) of both trait and state anxiety scales would be verified and that females would exhibit more anxiety than males. In general, the results for the state worry and emotionality scale were consistent with expectations. On the trait scales, anxiety was less than the United States version. Further, there was not a two-factor structure. There was no effect of sex on any of the anxiety measures.     

The heterogeneity of attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms and conduct problems: Cognitive inhibition,emotion regulation,emotionality, and disorganized attachment

This study examined the contributions of several important domains of functioning to attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms and conduct problems. Specifically, we investigated whether cognitive inhibition, emotion regulation, emotionality, and disorganized attachment made independent and specific contributions to these externalizing behaviour problems from a multiple pathways perspective. The study included laboratory measures of cognitive inhibition and disorganized attachment in 184 typically developing children (M age = 6 years, 10 months, SD = 1.7). Parental ratings provided measures of emotion regulation, emotionality, and externalizing behaviour problems. Results revealed that cognitive inhibition, regulation of positive emotion, and positive emotionality were independently and specifically related to ADHD symptoms. Disorganized attachment and negative emotionality formed independent and specific relations to conduct problems. Our findings support the multiple pathways perspective on ADHD, with poor regulation of positive emotion and high positive emotionality making distinct contributions to ADHD symptoms. More specifically, our results support the proposal of a temperamentally based pathway to ADHD symptoms. The findings also indicate that disorganized attachment and negative emotionality constitute pathways specific to conduct problems rather than to ADHD symptoms.     

Psychometric Properties of Bully,Fighting, and Victimization Scales Among Clinically Referred Youth

Bullying involvement is a multidimensional issue and a significant concern for school-aged youth. However, research on bullying involvement within clinical samples is limited. The present study examines the psychometric properties of the University of Illinois Bully, Fighting, and Victimization Scales among children and adolescents presenting for mood symptoms at a behavioral health outpatient clinic. Patients (n = 165) with an age range of 8–18 years were included in this investigation. Item frequencies, internal consistency, and construct validity were examined while confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses were conducted. Results showed that the scales were low to moderately correlated with each other. Internal consistencies were acceptable for the Bully (α = .70), Fighting (α = .84), and Victimization (α = .88) Scales. Exploratory factor analysis revealed clean three-factor solutions with items loading on their intended factors and with few cross-loadings. Fit of the confirmatory factor analysis was good when items were treated as ordinal and two items were allowed to cross-load on more than one factor. The University of Illinois Bully, Fighting, and Victimization Scales show utility for use with clinically referred youth.     

Relationship of worry and emotionality to test performance in a juku environment

The relationships between trait and state worry and emotionality and performance in a Juku environment were explored; these Japanese anxiety data were also compared in an international context. The Juku or ‘cram school’ provides additional after-school instruction to improve the probability of students getting into select private junior high schools. The subjects were 362 students in the fourth, fifth and sixth grades. Test anxiety was measured by the Japanese Children's Trait Worry and Emotionality Scale and the Japanese Children's State Worry and Emotionality Scale. The performance tests measured achievement in mathematics, social studies, Japanese language, and science. As expected, the relationship between the state worry measures and performance was stronger than between either state emotionality or the trait measures. The data also indicate that trait anxiety was dramatically less here than in other international contexts while state anxiety was moderately less.     

Intrusive parenting,teacher sensitivity,and negative emotionality on the development of emotion regulation in early head start toddlers

Toddler emotion regulation develops within the context of relationships but is also influenced by toddlers’ individual characteristics. Drawing on transactional and differential susceptibility frameworks, this study examined direct and interactive associations of intrusive parenting, teacher sensitivity, and negative emotionality on toddler emotion regulation development in a sample of Early Head Start families utilizing center-based child care. Latent growth models indicated that, after controlling for a series of family and child care covariates, intrusive parenting at 14 months had diminishing effects on trajectories of emotion regulation across toddlerhood (14 to 36 months), whereas teacher sensitivity in child care was promotive for emotion regulation growth. Toddlers with high negative emotionality were not more susceptible to the effects of intrusive parenting or teacher sensitivity on emotion regulation development, however, results suggested emerging evidence for individual differences in the protective nature of teacher sensitivity in the context of high intrusion at home. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for informing parents and early care and education providers in nurturing relationships with the children who may be the most challenging to care for but may stand to make the greatest gains in emotion regulation development in quality caregiving settings.     

Resilience facilitates positive emotionality and integration of negative memories in need satisfying memory networks: An experimental study

Resilience has been associated with the capacity to experience positive emotions in the midst of negative life events or following the recall of such events. Apparently, resilient people are able to self-generate those positive emotions because they tend to integrate and associate such past negative life events with other positive past events in memory networks. However, study designs on resilience have remained either cross-sectional or longitudinal. The causal effect of resilience on these outcomes remains to be shown as a third variable or unknown factor could be at play. In this study, we used a resilience intervention from a self-help clinical program to induce resilience and compared this condition against Jacobson type relaxation and neutral music background. Results showed that the resilience intervention increased positive emotionality following the recall of a negative self-defining memory and facilitated the integration of that memory within more positive and need satisfying memory networks.     

Parenting style as a mediator between children's negative emotionality and problematic behavior in early childhood

Negative emotionality is considered to be the core of the difficult temperament concept (J. E. Bates, 1989; R. L. Shiner, 1998). In this correlational study, the authors examined whether the relations between children's negative emotionality and problematic behavior (internalizing and externalizing) were partially mediated by parenting style (authoritative and authoritarian) in a community sample of 196 3-year-old children and their mothers. The authors assessed maternal perception of child negative emotionality using the Children's Behavior Questionnaire (M. K. Rothbart, S. A. Ahadi, K. L. Hershey, & P. Fisher, 2001) and assessed problematic child behavior by means of maternal report using the Child Behavior Checklist (T. M. Achenbach, 1992). The results showed that the relations between child negative emotionality and internalizing and externalizing behaviors were partially mediated by mothers' authoritative parenting style. Moreover, when the authors used confirmatory factor analysis to decontaminate possible overlap in item content between measures assessing temperament and problematic behavior, the association between negative emotionality and internalizing behavior was fully mediated by authoritative parenting.     

Understanding cognitive failures: what's dissociation got to do with it?

Intuitively, cognitive failures and dissociation seem to encompass overlapping mental phenomena. This study used a large sample to examine the nature of the relationship between these constructs. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analyses were performed on the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ). The single factor resulting from the EFA of the CFQ correlated significantly with all factors from the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES). A conjoint item-level factor analysis using all items from both measures was performed, and two factors resulted. The first included all items from the CFQ and appeared to describe an absorption-like phenomenon. The second factor's highest positively loading items assessed more pathological forms of dissociation. Based on our results, we conclude that the CFQ and DES are assessing similar cognitive processes and that cognitive failures, as measured by the CFQ, overlap with nonpathological dissociation.     

心理健康素质测评系统·中国成年人坚韧人格量表的编制

本研究的目的是结合中国社会文化特点,编制适合中国成年人使用的坚韧人格量表。通过开放式问卷调查、专家访谈及参考国外同类问卷等方式编写条目,分别以大学生和普通人群为被试,通过三次施测获得数据,经项目筛选和修改,最终确定坚韧人格量表包含4个维度,共27个项目。对正式量表的心理测量学考察表明,坚韧人格量表具有较高的内部一致性信度和重测信度,量表的模型拟合度较好,具有较高的结构效度、内容效度、会聚效度和校标效度。结论,坚韧人格量表具备较好的心理测量学特征,可以作为中国成年人人格坚韧性的测量工具。     

A general factor of personality: Evidence for the Big One in the five-factor model

Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses using different personality measures in three samples confirmed the existence of general factor of personality (The Big One) within the five-factor model. The Big One is characterized by high versus low Emotional Stability, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Extraversion, and Openness, and by high versus low higher-order factors of personality, Stability, and Plasticity. A comprehensive theoretical model of personality structure was therefore proposed with the Big One at the highest level of the hierarchy. The Big One was interpreted as a basic personality disposition that integrates the most general non-cognitive dimensions of personality. It is associated with social desirability, emotionality, motivation, well-being, satisfaction with life, and self-esteem. It also may have deep biological roots, evolutionary, genetic, and neurophysiological.     

The moderating role of internalising negative emotionality in the relation of self-regulation to social adjustment in Italian preschool-aged children

The purpose of this study was to examine the moderating role of internalising negative emotionality (i.e., anxious, concerned, and embarrassed displays) in the association between children's self-regulation and social adjustment. Seventy-four Italian children (44 girls, 30 boys; M age?=?35.05 months, SD?=?3.57) were assessed using two self-regulation tasks. Internalising negative emotionality was assessed through observations of children's emotion expressions during the tasks. Teachers evaluated children's social competence and internalising and externalising problems. Results demonstrated that among children who exhibited internalising negative emotionality, self-regulation was positively associated with social competence and negatively related to externalising problems. Our results suggest that self-regulation may play a crucial role for social adjustment when children show emotions such as anxiety and embarrassment during challenging situations.     

Septal damage in infant and adult rats: Effects on activity,emotionality, and muricide

Septal lesions produced signs of increased emotionality in the adult rat, the septal syndrome (hyperresponsiveness to handling; in the open field: decreased rearing and ambulation activity, increased defecation, deficient habituation) being more or less complete and more or less marked depending on the age at which the lesion was performed (7 days or 3 months), the extent of the lesion (restricted to the septum or extending to more ventrally located structures) and the environmental conditions in which the animals were reared (in groups or in isolation). All septal lesions provoked a similar and significant increase in the probability of occurrence of mouse-killing behavior, irrespective of age of operation, extent of lesion and kind of rearing environment. In a 24-hour actography starting at 11:30 a.m., the rats septalectomized at adult age were less active than controls during the initial period, while all septals were markedly more active than controls during the night period. Early septal lesions only transiently disrupted weight gain. The results obtained point to complex interactions between the effects of early brain damage and environmental conditions.     

Preliminary Psychometric Evidence for Distinct Affective and Cognitive Mechanisms Mediating Contamination Aversion

Contamination aversion is implicated in a range of psychological disorders, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder and health anxiety. Despite broad implications, the core mechanisms mediating contamination aversion are mixed and have not clearly been elucidated. The present studies are psychometric investigations of the components of contamination aversion and tests of the different mechanisms that mediate the severity of these components. In Study 1, items from existing measures of contamination aversion were compiled into one measure and administered to a large sample of nonclinical participants (N?=?1,286). Exploratory factor analyses demonstrated a two-factor structure, with one factor comprised of items related to intrinsically (direct) contaminated objects and the other factor comprised of items related to extrinsically (indirect) contaminated objects. In Study 2, items were added and confirmatory factor analyses supported a two-factor model in another large nonclinical sample (N?=?612). In Study 3 (N?=?471), structural modeling demonstrated distinct relations between the two factors and affective and cognitive constructs. Affective constructs related more to aversions toward more directly contaminated objects and situations while cognitive constructs related more to aversions toward more indirectly contaminated objects and situations. The present studies help clarify and articulate the unique roles of cognition and affect in specific contamination aversions, and, as such, have important implications for conceptual modeling of contamination-related psychopathology.     

Comparison of several shortened versions of the EMBU: exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses

The aim of the present study was to analyze the psychometric properties of different versions of the EMBU (Egna Minnen av Barndoms Uppfostran – My memories of upbringing) in a non-clinical sample of adolescents. The factor structure of the questionnaire was studied by means of more adequate exploratory and confirmatory factor procedures in order to ascertain which version achieves a better fit to data. The 64-item version of the EMBU was administered to a non-clinical sample of 832 adolescents. Exploratory and Confirmatory factor analyses were carried out for successive versions of 64, 37, 24 and 23 items. The theoretical four-factor structure of the 64-item version is not replicated in a factor analysis through principal axis extraction with direct oblimin rotation. The "Favoring Subject" factor was not found. 37 items present loadings equal to or larger than 0.30 for the "Rejection", "Emotional Warmth" and "Overprotection" factors. A re-analysis of these items shows a clear three-factor structure. When Arrindell et al .'s (1999 ) 23-item version was analysed, the three expected factors were also found. Confirmatory factor analyses allow us to reduce the 36-item version to a shorter one of 24 items. This last version achieves the best fit to data, including the 23-item version. The new 24-item version improves the construct validity of the EMBU and presents similar reliability coefficients.     

Hardiness: a review of theory and research.

Although a large body of research on hardiness (a personality construct with dimensions of commitment, control, and challenge) has accumulated, several fundamental issues remain unresolved. Although there are several hardiness scales, the properties of these scales have not been compared. There is debate as to whether hardiness is one or several characteristics. Research studying the pathways through which hardiness exerts its effects has not been comprehensively evaluated. Whereas critics have argued that hardiness does not buffer stress, others have suggested that hardiness buffers for working adults, for males, and in prospective analyses. There is also growing concern that hardiness is related to neuroticism. A review of the literature supports the following conclusions: The Dispositional Resilience Scale (DRS) has several advantages over alternative scales; DRS items form three factors that are consistent with hardiness theory; hardiness dimensions generally show low to moderate intercorrelations; the most common way of categorizing subjects as high or low in hardiness is not consistent with hardiness theory; hardiness does not buffer stress, and it does not buffer stress for working adults, for males, or in prospective analyses; both old and new hardiness scales inadvertently measure neuroticism. Recommendations for future research are provided.