Category: Mental Health Diagnostics

What is Subjective Well-Being (Questionnaire)?

Published on by Andrew Marshall1 Comment

Introduction

Subjective well-being (SWB) is a self-reported measure of well-being, typically obtained by questionnaire.

Ed Diener developed a tripartite model of subjective well-being in 1984, which describes how people experience the quality of their lives and includes both emotional reactions and cognitive judgments. It posits “three distinct but often related components of wellbeing: frequent positive affect, infrequent negative affect, and cognitive evaluations such as life satisfaction.” Subjective well-being is an overarching ideology that encompasses such things as “high levels of pleasant emotions and moods, low levels of negative emotions and moods, and high life-satisfaction.”

SWB therefore encompasses moods and emotions as well as evaluations of one’s satisfaction with general and specific areas of one’s life. SWB is one definition of happiness.

Although SWB tends to be stable over the time and is strongly related to personality traits, the emotional component of SWB can be impacted by situations; for example, the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak, lowered emotional well-being by 74%. There is evidence that health and SWB may mutually influence each other, as good health tends to be associated with greater happiness, and a number of studies have found that positive emotions and optimism can have a beneficial influence on health.

Construction of SWB

Diener argued that the various components of SWB represent distinct constructs that need to be understood separately, even though they are closely related. Hence, SWB may be considered “a general area of scientific interest rather than a single specific construct”. Due to the specific focus on the subjective aspects of well-being, definitions of SWB typically exclude objective conditions such as material conditions or health, although these can influence ratings of SWB. Definitions of SWB therefore focus on how a person evaluates his/her own life, including emotional experiences of pleasure versus pain in response to specific events and cognitive evaluations of what a person considers a good life. Components of SWB relating to affect include positive affect (experiencing pleasant emotions and moods) and low negative affect (experiencing unpleasant, distressing emotions and moods), as well as “overall affect” or “hedonic balance”, defined as the overall equilibrium between positive and negative affect, and usually measured as the difference between the two. High positive affect and low negative affect are often highly correlated, but not always.

Components of SWB

There are three components of SWB:

  • Affect (hedonic measures);
  • Life satisfaction (cognitive measures); and
  • Eudaimonia (a sense of meaning and purpose).

Affect

Affect refers to the emotions, moods, and feelings a person has. These can be all positive, all negative, or a combination of both positive and negative. Some research shows also that feelings of reward are separate from positive and negative affect.

Life Satisfaction

Life satisfaction (global judgments of one’s life) and satisfaction with specific life domains (e.g. work satisfaction) are considered cognitive components of SWB. The term “happiness” is sometimes used in regards to SWB and has been defined variously as “satisfaction of desires and goals” (therefore related to life satisfaction), as a “preponderance of positive over negative affect” (therefore related to emotional components of SWB), as “contentment”, and as a “consistent, optimistic mood state”[8] and may imply an affective evaluation of one’s life as a whole. Life satisfaction can also be known as the “stable” component in one’s life. Affective concepts of SWB can be considered in terms of momentary emotional states as well as in terms of longer-term moods and tendencies (i.e. how much positive and/or negative affect a person generally experiences over any given period of time).Life satisfaction and in some research happiness are typically considered over long durations, up to one’s lifetime. “Quality of life” has also been studied as a conceptualisation of SWB. Although its exact definition varies, it is usually measured as an aggregation of well-being across several life domains and may include both subjective and objective components.

Eudaimonia

Eudaimonic measures seek to quantify traits like virtue and wisdom as well as concepts related to fulfilling our potential such as meaning, purpose, and flourishing. Eudaimonic measures are often regarded as a core component of SWB, particularly in the field of positive psychology. However, it is unclear whether measures of meaning are really measures of wellbeing and little data has been collected on them.

Measurement

Life satisfaction and Affect balance are generally measured separately and independently.

  • Life satisfaction is generally measured using a self-report method. A common measurement for life satisfaction is questionnaires.
  • Affective balance is also generally measured using a self-report method. An example of a measurement of affective balance is the PANAS (Positive Affect Negative Affect Schedule).

Sometimes a single SWB question attempts to capture an overall picture. For example, the World Happiness Report uses a Cantril ladder survey, in which respondents are asked to think of a ladder, with the best possible life for them being a 10, and the worst possible life being a 0, and are then asked to rate their own current lives on that 0 to 10 scale.

The issue with the such measurements of life satisfaction and affective balance is that they are self-reports. The problem with self-reports is that the participants may be lying or at least not telling the whole truth on the questionnaires. Participants may be lying or holding back from revealing certain things because they are either embarrassed or they may be filling in what they believe the researcher wants to see in the results. To gain more accurate results, other methods of measurement have been used to determine one’s SWB.

Another way to corroborate or confirm that the self-report results are accurate is through informant reports. Informant reports are given to the participant’s closest friends and family and they are asked to fill out either a survey or a form asking about the participants mood, emotions, and overall lifestyle. The participant may write in the self-report that they are very happy, however that participant’s friends and family record that he/she is always depressed. This would obviously be a contradiction in results which would ultimately lead to inaccurate results.

Another method of gaining a better understanding of the true results is through ESM, or the Experience Sampling Method. In this measure, participants are given a beeper/pager that will randomly ring throughout the day. Whenever the beeper/pager sounds, the participant will stop what he/she is doing and record the activity they are currently engaged in and their current mood and feelings. Tracking this over a period of a week or a month will give researchers a better understanding of the true emotions, moods, and feelings the participant is experiencing, and how these factors interact with other thoughts and behaviours. A third measurement to ensure validity is the Day Reconstruction Method. In this measure, participants fill out a diary of the previous days’ activities. The participant is then asked to describe each activity and provide a report of how they were feeling, what mood they were experiencing, and any emotions that surfaced. Thus to ensure valid results, a researcher may tend to use self-reports along with another form of measurement mentioned above. Someone with a high level of life satisfaction and a positive affective balance is said to have a high level of SWB.

Theories

Theories of the causes of SWB tend to emphasize either top-down or bottom-up influences.

Top-Down Perspective

In the top-down view, global features of personality influence the way a person perceives events. Individuals may therefore have a global tendency to perceive life in a consistently positive or negative manner, depending on their stable personality traits. Top-down theories of SWB suggest that people have a genetic predisposition to be happy or unhappy and this predisposition determines their SWB “setpoint”. Set Point theory implies that a person’s baseline or equilibrium level of SWB is a consequence of hereditary characteristics and therefore, almost entirely predetermined at birth. Evidence for this genetic predisposition derives from behaviour-genetic studies that have found that positive and negative affectivity each have high heritability (40% and 55% respectively in one study). Numerous twin studies confirm the notion of set point theory, however, they do not rule out the possibility that is it possible for individuals to experience long term changes in SWB.

Diener et al. note that heritability studies are limited in that they describe long-term SWB in a sample of people in a modern western society but may not be applicable to more extreme environments that might influence SWB and do not provide absolute indicators of genetic effects. Additionally, heritability estimates are inconsistent across studies.

Further evidence for a genetically influenced predisposition to SWB comes from findings that personality has a large influence on long-term SWB. This has led to the dynamic equilibrium model of SWB. This model proposes that personality provides a baseline for emotional responses. External events may move people away from the baseline, sometimes dramatically, but these movements tend to be of limited duration, with most people returning to their baseline eventually.

Bottom-Up Perspective

From a bottom-up perspective, happiness is created from happy experiences. Bottom-up influences include external events, and broad situational and demographic factors, including health and marital status. Bottom-up approaches are based on the idea that there are universal basic human needs and that happiness results from their fulfilment. In support of this view, there is evidence that daily pleasurable events are associated with increased positive affect, and daily unpleasant events or hassles are associated with increased negative affect.

However, research suggests that external events account for a much smaller proportion of the variance in self-reports of SWB than top-down factors, such as personality. A theory proposed to explain the limited impact of external events on SWB is hedonic adaptation. Based originally on the concept of a “hedonic treadmill”, this theory proposes that positive or negative external events temporarily increase or decrease feelings of SWB, but as time passes people tend to become habituated to their circumstances and have a tendency to return to a personal SWB “setpoint” or baseline level.

The hedonic treadmill theory originally proposed that most people return to a neutral level of SWB (i.e. neither happy nor unhappy) as they habituate to events. However, subsequent research has shown that for most people, the baseline level of SWB is at least mildly positive, as most people tend to report being at least somewhat happy in general and tend to experience positive mood when no adverse events are occurring. Additional refinements to this theory have shown that people do not adapt to all life events equally, as people tend to adapt rapidly to some events (e.g. imprisonment), slowly to others (e.g. the death of a loved one), and not at all to others (e.g. noise and sex).

Factors

Personality and Genetics

A number of studies have found that SWB constructs are strongly associated with a range of personality traits, including those in the five factor model. Findings from numerous personality studies show that genetics account for 20–48% of the variance in the Five-Factor Model and the variance in subjective well-being is also heritable. Specifically, neuroticism predicts poorer subjective well-being whilst extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experience tend to predict higher subjective well-being. A Meta-analyses found that neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness were significantly related to all facets of SWB examined (positive, negative, and overall affect; happiness; life satisfaction; and quality of life). Meta-analytic research shows that neuroticism is the strongest predictor of overall SWB and is the strongest predictor of negative affect.

A large number of personality traits are related to SWB constructs, although intelligence has negligible relationships. Positive affect is most strongly predicted by extraversion, to a lesser extent agreeableness, and more weakly by openness to experience. Happiness was most strongly predicted by extraversion, and also strongly predicted by neuroticism, and to a lesser extent by the other three factors. Life satisfaction was significantly predicted by neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Quality of life was very strongly predicted by neuroticism, and also strongly predicted by extraversion and conscientiousness, and to a modest extent by agreeableness and openness to experience. One study found that subjective well-being was genetically indistinct from personality traits, especially those that reflected emotional stability (low Neuroticism), and social and physical activity (high Extraversion), and constraint (high Conscientiousness).

DeNeve (1999) argued that there are three trends in the relationship between personality and SWB. Firstly, SWB is closely tied to traits associated with emotional tendencies (emotional stability, positive affectivity, and tension). Secondly, relationship enhancing traits (e.g. trust, affiliation) are important for subjective well-being. Happy people tend to have strong relationships and be good at fostering them. Thirdly, the way people think about and explain events is important for subjective well-being. Appraising events in an optimistic fashion, having a sense of control, and making active coping efforts facilitates subjective well-being. Trust, a trait substantially related to SWB, as opposed to cynicism involves making positive rather than negative attributions about others. Making positive, optimistic attributions rather than negative pessimistic ones facilitates subjective well-being.

The related trait of eudaimonia or psychological well-being, is also heritable. Evidence from one study supports 5 independent genetic mechanisms underlying the Ryff facets of psychological well-being, leading to a genetic construct of eudaimonia in terms of general self-control, and four subsidiary biological mechanisms enabling the psychological capabilities of purpose, agency, growth, and positive social relations.

Social Influences

A person’s level of subjective well-being is determined by many different factors and social influences prove to be a strong one. Results from the famous Framingham Heart Study indicate that friends three degrees of separation away (that is, friends of friends of friends) can affect a person’s happiness. From abstract: “A friend who lives within a mile (about 1.6 km) and who becomes happy increases the probability that a person is happy by 25%.”

Family

Research has not demonstrated that there are significant differences in subjective well-being between childless couples and couples with children. A research study by Pollmann-Schult (2014) found that when holding finances and time costs constant, parents are happier and show increased life satisfaction than non-parents.

Wealth

Research indicates that wealth is related to many positive outcomes in life. Such outcomes include: improved health and mental health, greater longevity, lower rates of infant mortality, experience fewer stressful life events, and less frequently the victims of violent crimes However, research suggests that wealth has a smaller impact on SWB than people generally think, even though higher incomes do correlate substantially with life satisfaction reports.

The relative influence of wealth together with other material components on overall subjective well-being of a person is being studied through new research. The Well-being Project at Human Science Lab investigates how material well-being and perceptual well-being works as relative determinants in conditioning our mind for positive emotions.

In a study done by Aknin, Norton, & Dunn (2009), researchers asked participants from across the income spectrum to report their own happiness and to predict the happiness of others and themselves at different income levels. In study 1, predicted happiness ranged between 2.4 and 7.9, and actual happiness ranged between 5.2 and 7.7. In study 2, predicted happiness ranged between 15-80 and actual happiness ranged between 50 and 80. These findings show that people believe that money does more for happiness than it really does. However, some research indicates that while socioeconomic measures of status do not correspond to greater happiness, measures of sociometric status (status compared to people encountered face-to-face on a daily basis) do correlate to increased subjective well-being, above and beyond the effects of extroversion and other factors.

The Easterlin Paradox also suggests that there is no connection between a society’s economic development and its average level of happiness. Through time, the Easterlin has looked at the relationship between happiness and gross domestic product (GDP) across countries and within countries. There are three different phenomena to look at when examining the connection between money and Subjective well-being; rising GDP within a country, relative income within a country, and differences in GDP between countries.

More specifically, when making comparisons between countries, a principle called the Diminishing Marginal Utility of Income (DMUI) stands strong. Veenhoven (1991) said, “[W]e not only see a clear positive relationship [between happiness and GNP per capita], but also a curvilinear pattern; which suggest that wealth is subject to a law of diminishing happiness returns.” Meaning a $1,000 increase in real income, becomes progressively smaller the higher the initial level of income, having less of an impact on subjective well-being. Easterlin (1995) proved that the DMUI is true when comparing countries, but not when looking at rising gross domestic product within countries.

Health

There are substantial positive associations between health and SWB so that people who rate their general health as “good” or “excellent” tend to experience better SWB compared to those who rate their health as “fair” or “poor”. A meta-analysis found that self-ratings of general health were more strongly related to SWB than physician ratings of health. The relationship between health and SWB may be bidirectional. There is evidence that good subjective well-being contributes to better health. A review of longitudinal studies found that measures of baseline subjective well-being constructs such as optimism and positive affect predicted longer-term health status and mortality. Conversely, a number of studies found that baseline depression predicted poorer longer-term health status and mortality. Baseline health may well have a causal influence on subjective well-being so causality is difficult to establish. A number of studies found that positive emotions and optimism had a beneficial impact on cardiovascular health and on immune functioning. Changes in mood are also known to be associated with changes in immune and cardiovascular response. There is evidence that interventions that are successful in improving subjective well-being can have beneficial effects on aspects of health. For example, meditation and relaxation training have been found to increase positive affect and to reduce blood pressure. The effect of specific types of subjective well-being is not entirely clear. For example, how durable the effects of mood and emotions on health are remains unclear. Whether some types of subjective well-being predict health independently of others is also unclear. Meditation has the power to increase happiness because it can improve self-confidence and reduces anxiety, which increases your well-being. Cultivating personal strengths and resources, like humour, social/animal company, and daily occupations, also appears to help people preserve acceptable levels of SWB despite the presence of symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress.

Research suggests that probing a patient’s happiness is one of the most important things a doctor can do to predict that patient’s health and longevity. In health-conscious modern societies, most people overlook the emotions as a vital component of one’s health, while over focusing on diet and exercise. According to Diener & Biswas-Diener, people who are happy become less sick than people who are unhappy. There are three types of health: morbidity, survival, and longevity. Evidence suggests that all three can be improved through happiness:

  1. Morbidity, simply put, is whether or not someone develops a serious illness, such as the flu or cancer. In a 30-year longitudinal study, participants who were high in positive emotions were found to have lower rates of many health problems. Some of these illnesses/problems include lower death rates from heart disease, suicide, accidents, homicides, mental illnesses, drug dependency, and liver disease related to alcoholism. Additionally, results showed that depressed participants were more likely to have heart attacks and recurrences of heart attacks when compared to happy people.
  2. Survival is the term used for what happens to a person after he/she has already developed or contracted a serious illness. Although happiness has been shown to increase health, with survival, this may not be the case. Survival may be the only area of health that evidence suggests happiness may actually be sometimes detrimental. It is unclear why exactly research results suggest this is the case, however Diener & Biswas-Diener offer an explanation. It is possible that happy people fail to report symptoms of the illness, which can ultimately lead to no treatment or inadequate treatment. Another possible reason may be that happy people tend to be optimistic, leading them to take their symptoms too lightly, seek treatment too late, and/or follow the doctor’s instructions half-heartedly. And lastly, Diener & Biswas-Diener suggest that people with serious illnesses may be more likely to choose to live out the rest of their days without painful or invasive treatments.
  3. Longevity, the third area of health, is measured by an individual’s age of death. Head researcher Deborah Danner of the University of Kentucky researched links between an individual’s happiness and that individual’s longevity. Danner recruited 180 Catholic nuns from a nearby convent as the participants of her study. She chose nuns because they live very similar lives. This eliminates many confounding variables that might be present in other samples, which can lead to inaccurate results. Such confounding variables could include substance use, diet, and sexual risk-taking. Since there are few differences among the nuns as far as the confounding variables, this sample offered the best option to match a controlled laboratory setting. Results showed that nuns who were considered happy or positive in their manner and language on average lived 10 years longer than the nuns who were considered unhappy or negative in their manner and language. A follow-up study by health researcher Sarah Pressman examined 96 famous psychologists to determine if similar results from the nun research would be seen as well. Pressman’s results showed that the positive or happy psychologists lived, on average, 6 years longer. The psychologists who were considered negative or unhappy lived, on average, 5 years less.

Physical Characteristics

A positive relationship has been found between the volume of gray matter in the right precuneus area of the brain, and the subject’s subjective happiness score. A six-week mindfulness based intervention was found to correlate with a significant gray matter increase within the precuneus.

Leisure

There are a number of domains that are thought to contribute to subjective well-being. In a study by Hribernik and Mussap (2010), leisure satisfaction was found to predict unique variance in life satisfaction, supporting its inclusion as a distinct life domain contributing to subjective well-being. Additionally, relationship status interacted with age group and gender on differences in leisure satisfaction. The relationship between leisure satisfaction and life satisfaction, however, was reduced when considering the impact of core affect (underlying mood state). This suggests that leisure satisfaction may primarily be influenced by an individual’s subjective well-being level as represented by core affect. This has implications for possible limitations in the extent to which leisure satisfaction may be improved beyond pre-existing levels of well-being and mood in individuals.

Cultural Variations

Although all cultures seem to value happiness, cultures vary in how they define happiness. There is also evidence that people in more individualistic cultures tend to rate themselves as higher in subjective well-being compared to people in more collectivistic cultures.

In Western cultures, predictors of happiness include elements that support personal independence, a sense of personal agency, and self-expression. In Eastern cultures, predictors of happiness focus on an interdependent self that is inseparable from significant others. Compared to people in individualistic cultures, people in collectivistic cultures are more likely to base their judgments of life satisfaction on how significant others appraise their life than on the balance of inner emotions experienced as pleasant versus unpleasant. Pleasant emotional experiences have a stronger social component in East Asian cultures compared to Western ones. For example, people in Japan are more likely to associate happiness with interpersonally engaging emotions (such as friendly feelings), whereas people in the United States are more likely to associate happiness with interpersonally disengaging emotions (pride, for example). There are also cultural differences in motives and goals associated with happiness. For example, Asian Americans tend to experience greater happiness after achieving goals that are pleasing to or approved of by significant others compared to European Americans. There is also evidence that high self-esteem, a sense of personal control and a consistent sense of identity relate more strongly to SWB in Western cultures than they do in Eastern ones. However, this is not to say that these things are unimportant to SWB in Eastern cultures. Research has found that even within Eastern cultures, people with high self-esteem and a more consistent sense of identity are somewhat happier than those who are low in these characteristics. There is no evidence that low self-esteem and so on are actually beneficial to SWB in any known culture.

A large body of research evidence has confirmed that people in individualistic societies report higher levels of happiness than people in collectivistic ones and that socioeconomic factors alone are insufficient to explain this difference. In addition to political and economic differences, individualistic versus collectivistic nations reliably differ in a variety of psychological characteristics that are related to SWB, such as emotion norms and attitudes to the expression of individual needs. Collectivistic cultures are based around the belief that the individual exists for the benefit of the larger social unit, whereas more individualistic cultures assume the opposite. Collectivistic cultures emphasize maintaining social order and harmony and therefore expect members to suppress their personal desires when necessary in order to promote collective interests. Such cultures therefore consider self-regulation more important than self-expression or than individual rights. Individualistic cultures by contrast emphasize the inalienable value of each person and expect individuals to become self-directive and self-sufficient. Although people in collectivistic cultures may gain happiness from the social approval they receive from suppressing self-interest, research seems to suggest that self-expression produces a greater happiness “payoff” compared to seeking approval outside oneself.

Despite westerners reporting higher levels of subjective well-being than easterners, they also have more frequent reports of depression. The differing beliefs on self-expression help explain what may at first seem paradoxical. Westerners tend to encourage individual expression, which leads to a greater focus on one’s own emotions. This increased self-awareness combines with the normative belief that joy should be more common than sadness. People living under these conditions can catastrophize their own negative emotions; feeling increased sadness over the fact that they are either not currently happy or frequently happy. Easterners tend to be more concerned about their collective’s feelings over their own individual feelings. They do not typically catastrophise their sadness, and learn to brush it off.

Positive Psychology

Positive psychology is particularly concerned with the study of SWB. Positive psychology was founded by Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000) who identified that psychology is not just the study of pathology, weakness, and damage; but it is also the study of strength and virtue. Researchers in positive psychology have pointed out that in almost every culture studied the pursuit of happiness is regarded as one of the most valued goals in life. Understanding individual differences in SWB is of key interest in positive psychology, particularly the issue of why some people are happier than others. Some people continue to be happy in the face of adversity whereas others are chronically unhappy at the best of times.

Positive psychology has investigated how people might improve their level of SWB and maintain these improvements over the longer term, rather than returning to baseline. Lyubomirsky (2001) argued that SWB is influenced by a combination of personality/genetics (studies have found that genetic influences usually account for 35-50% of the variance in happiness measures), external circumstances, and activities that affect SWB. She argued that changing one’s external circumstances tends to have only a temporary effect on SWB, whereas engaging in activities (mental and/or physical) that enhance SWB can lead to more lasting improvements in SWB.

Use in Happiness Economics

SWB is often used in appraising the wellbeing of populations.

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_well-being >; it is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA). You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the CC-BY-SA.

What is the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM?

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Introduction

The Structured Clinical Interview for DSM (SCID) is a semi-structured interview guide for making diagnoses according to the diagnostic criteria published in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). The development of SCID has followed the evolution of the DSM and multiple versions are available for a single edition covering different categories of mental disorders. The first SCID (for DSM-III-R) was released in 1989, SCID-IV (for DSM-IV) was published in 1994 and the current version, SCID-5 (for DSM-5), is available since 2013.

It is administered by a clinician or trained mental health professional who is familiar with the DSM classification and diagnostic criteria. The interview subjects may be either psychiatric or general medical patients or individuals who do not identify themselves as patients, such as participants in a community survey of mental illness or family members of psychiatric patients. SCID users should have had sufficient clinical experience to be able to perform diagnostic evaluation, however, non-clinicians who have comprehensive diagnostic experience with a particular study population may be trained to administer the SCID. Generally additional training is required for individuals with less clinical experience.

DSM-III Editions of SCID

The SCID for the DSM-III-R helped determine Axis I (SCID-I) and Axis II disorders (SCID-II). Separate versions were used to assess psychiatric patients (SCID-P) and to study non-patient populations (SCID-NP). Another form of the SCID-P, SCID-P W/PSY SCREEN, was developed for patients in which psychotic disorders were expected to be rare and only included screening questions for these disorders but not the complex module. Special versions were also created for studying panic disorder, assessing PTSD and combat experience in Vietnam veterans and studying the social and psychiatric consequences of HIV infection.

The reliability and validity of the SCID for DSM-III-R has been reported in several published studies. With regard to reliability, the range in reliability is enormous, depending on the type of the sample and research methodology (i.e. joint vs. test-retest, multi-site vs. single site with raters who have worked together, etc.).

SCID-D

The Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Dissociative Disorders (SCID-D) is used to diagnose dissociative disorders, especially in research settings. It was originally designed for the DSM-III-R but early access to DSM-IV criteria for dissociative disorders allowed them to be incorporated into the SCID-D.

For subjects with non-dissociative disorders administration takes between 30 minutes and 1.5 hours. Subjects with dissociative disorders usually require between 40 minutes to 2.5 hours. These subjects should be given enough time to describe their experiences fully.

The SCID-D has been translated into Dutch and Turkish and is used in the Netherlands and Turkey.

DSM-IV Editions of SCID

SCID for DSM-IV also follows the multi-axial system, SCID-I for Axis I disorders (major mental disorders) and SCID-II for Axis II disorders (personality disorders).

There are several variants of SCID-I addressed to different audiences. Similarly to the previous edition SCID-I is available for examining psychiatric patients (SCID-I/P) and studying non-patients (SCID-I/NP) and patient populations where psychotic disorders are not expected (SCID-I/P W/ PSY SCREEN). Specific version for clinicians (SCID-CV) and clinical trials (SCID-CT) were also developed. The SCID-II for DSM-IV comes in a single edition.

A variant of the tool (KID-SCID) was developed at York University for generating childhood DSM-IV diagnoses for clinical research studies. In 2015 a study evaluated the psychometric properties of the KID-SCID in a Dutch sample of children and adolescents which later led to the creation of SCID-5-Junior for the DSM-5 (see below).

An Axis I SCID assessment with a psychiatric patient usually takes between 1 and 2 hours, depending on the complexity of the subject’s psychiatric history and their ability to clearly describe episodes of current and past symptoms. A SCID with a non-psychiatric patient takes 1⁄2 hour to 1+1⁄2 hours. A SCID-II personality assessment takes about 1⁄2 to 1 hour.

There are at least 700 published studies in which the SCID was the diagnostic instrument used. Major parts of the SCID have been translated into other languages, including Danish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, and Zulu.

DSM-5 Editions of SCID

SCID-5-RV (Research Version) is the most comprehensive version of the SCID-5. It contains more disorders and includes all of the relevant subtypes and severity and course specifiers. An important feature is its customisability, allowing the instrument to be tailored to meet the requirements of a particular study. SCID-5-CV (Clinician Version) is a reformatted version of the SCID-5-RV for use by clinicians. It covers the most common diagnoses seen in clinical settings. Despite the “clinician” designation, it can be used in research as long as the disorders of interest are among those included in this version. SCID-5-CT (Clinical Trials version) is an adaptation of the SCID-5-RV that has been optimised for use in clinical trials.

SCID-5-PD (Personality Disorders version) is used to evaluate the 10 personality disorders. Its name reflects the elimination of the multiaxial system of the SCID-IV. The SCID-5-AMPD (Alternative Model for Personality Disorders) provides dimensional and categorical approaches to personality disorders. Designed for trained clinicians, the modular format allows the researcher or clinician to focus on those aspects of the Alternative Model of most interest.

Various versions of the SCID-5 have been translated to Chinese, Danish, Dutch, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Turkish.

As a result of earlier studies conducted on Dutch youth a variant of the tool, SCID-5-Junior, a revision of the KID-SCID, is available in Dutch. There are plans to create a more widely available version for children and adolescents.

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structured_Clinical_Interview_for_DSM >; it is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA). You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the CC-BY-SA.

What is the Scale of Protective Factors?

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Introduction

The Scale of Protective Factors (SPF) is a measure of aspects of social relationships, planning behaviours and confidence.

These factors contribute to psychological resilience in emerging adults and adults.

Brief History

The SPF was developed by Dr. Elisabeth Ponce-Garcia at the science of protective factors laboratory (SPF Lab) to capture multiple aspects of adult resilience. A Confirmatory Factor Analysis was subsequently published as collaborative research. The SPF was found to assess resilience effectively in both men and women, across risk and socio-economic status, and ethnic/racial categories.

In order to verify effectiveness in comparison to other measures, Madewell and Ponce-Garcia (2016) analysed the SPF and four other commonly used measures of adult resilience. They found that the SPF was the only measure that assessed social and cognitive aspects and that it outperformed three other measures and performed comparably with a fourth.

The structure of the SPF in comparison to four other adult resilience measures, as well as comparison data, is available as a Data in Brief article. Noticing the absence of research examining the effectiveness of adult resilience measures in child or adult sexual assault, Ponce-Garcia, Madewell and Brown (2016) demonstrated SPF’s effectiveness in that domain. An investigation of the effectiveness of the SPF in the Southern Plains Tribes of the Native American and American Indian community in 2016.

A brief version of the 24 item SPF was developed in 2019 to result in 12 item measure that can be taken as a self-assessment. The SPF-24 and the SPF-12 have been used throughout the United States and in several other countries to include Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, India, Australia, Malesia, Paraguay, Mexico, and Canada. It is listed as a resource by Harvard University, was included in the United States Army Substance Abuse Programme (ASAP-Fort Sill, OK), and is provided by the State of Oklahoma ReEntry Programme.

Contents

The SPF consists of twenty-four statements for which individuals are asked to rate the degree to which each statement describes them. The SPF assesses a wider range of protective factors than other scales. The SPF is the only measure that has been shown to assess social and cognitive protective factors. The SPF includes four sub-scales that indicate the strengths and weaknesses that contribute to overall resilience. The SPF is the only measure to have been used in measuring resilience in sexual assault survivors within the United States.

Properties

The SPF consists of four sub-scales, two social protective factors and two cognitive protective factors.

Social Subscales

Social support measures the availability of social resources in the form of family and/or friends. Social skill measures the ability to make and maintain relationships. The two should be positively correlated. Higher scores on the social sub-scales indicate unity with friends and/or family, friend/family group optimism and general friend/family support.

Cognitive Subscales

The goal efficacy sub-scale measures confidence in the ability to achieve goals. The planning and prioritising behaviour sub-scale measures the ability to recognise the relative importance of tasks, the tendency to approach tasks in order of importance, and the use of lists for organisation.

Scoring

Adding the scores from the four sub-scales results in an overall resilience score. Adding scores from either the two social sub-scales or the two cognitive sub-scales results in a social resilience or cognitive resilience score, respectively. The sub-scale scores can also be viewed as an individual profile of strengths and deficits to indicate priorities for therapeutic plans.

This additive approach could theoretically allow varying subscale scores to cancel each other out and incorrectly indicate low overall resilience. However, research shows that social and cognitive characteristics work together to support resilience. This concern is also not supported by the characteristics of the SPF. Rather than assessing the number of friends or the frequency of social interaction, the SPF assesses the level of comfort in interacting socially. Similarly, rather than assessing the number of goals or tasks, the SPF assesses confidence in reaching goals once set.

The sub-scales are moderately positively correlated and that they all contribute to overall resilience.

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What is the Social Support Questionnaire?

Published on by Andrew Marshall1 Comment

Introduction

The Social Support Questionnaire (SSQ) is a quantitative, psychometrically sound survey questionnaire intended to measure social support and satisfaction with said social support from the perspective of the interviewee.

Degree of social support has been shown to influence the onset and course of certain psychiatric disorders such as clinical depression or schizophrenia. The SSQ was approved for public release in 1981 by Irwin Sarason, Henry Levine, Robert Basham and Barbara Sarason under the University of Washington Department of Psychology and consists of 27 questions. Overall, the SSQ has good test-retest reliability and convergent internal construct validity.

Refer to Peer Support.

Overview

The questionnaire is designed so that each question has a two-part answer. The first part asks the interviewee to list up to nine people available to provide support that meet the criteria stated in the question. These support individuals are specified using their initials in addition to the relationship to the interviewee. Example questions from the first part includes questions such as “Whom could you count on to help if you had just been fired from your job or expelled from school?” and “Whom do you feel would help if a family member very close to you died?”.

The second part asks the interviewee to specify how satisfied they are with each of the people stated in the first part. The SSQ respondents use a 6 -point Likert scale to indicate their degree of satisfaction with the support from the above people ranging from “1 – very dissatisfied” to “6 – very satisfied”.

The Social Support Questionnaire has multiple short forms such as the SSQ3 and the SSQ6.

Brief History

The SSQ is based on 4 original studies. The first study set out to determine whether the SSQ had the desired psychometric properties. The second study tried to relate SSQ and a diversity of personality measures such as anxiety, depression and hostility in connection with the Multiple Affect Adjective Checklist. The third study considered the relationship between social support, the prior year’s negative and positive life events, internal-external locus of control and self- esteem in conjunction with the Life Experiences Survey. The fourth study tested the idea that social support could serve as a buffer when faced with difficult life situations via trying to solve a maze and subsequently completing the Cognitive Interference Questionnaire.

Scoring

The overall support score (SSQN) is calculated by taking an average of the individual scores across the 27 items. A high score on the SSQ indicates more optimism about life than a low score. Respondents with low SSQ scores have a higher prevalence of negative life events and illness. Scoring is as follows:

  1. Add the total number of people for all 27 items (questions). (Max. is 243). Divide by 27 for average item score. This gives you SSQ Number Score, or SSQN.
  2. Add the total satisfaction scores for all 27 items (questions). (Max is 162). Divide by 27 for average item score. This gives you SSQ Satisfaction score or SSQS.
  3. Finally, you can average the above for the total number of people that are family members – this results in the SSQ family score.

Reliability

According to Sarason, the SSQ takes between fifteen and eighteen minutes to properly administer and has “good” test-retest reliability.

Validity

The SSQ was compared with the depression scale and validity tests show significant negative correlation ranging from -0.22 to -0.43. The SSQ and the optimism scale have a correlation of 0.57. The SSQ and the satisfaction score have a correlation of 0.34. The SSQ has high internal consistency among items.

Linkages

The SSQ has been used to show that higher levels of social support correlated with less suicide ideation in Military Medical University Soldiers in Iran in 2015. A low level of social support is an important risk factor in women for dysmenorrhea or menstrual cramps. Low Social Support is the strongest predictor of dysmenorrhea when compared to affect, personality and alexithymia.

Related Surveys

SSQ3

The SSQ3 is a short form of the SSQ and has only three questions. The SSQ3 has acceptable test-test reliability and correlation with personality variables as compared to the long form of the Social Support Questionnaire. The internal reliability was borderline but this low level of internal reliability is as expected since there are only three questions.

SSQ6

The SSQ6 is a short form of the SSQ. The SSQ6 has been shown to have high correlation with: the SSQ, SSQ personality variables and internal reliability. In the development of the SSQ6, the research suggests that professed social support in adults may be a connected to “early attachment experience.” The SSQ6 consists of the below 6 questions:

  1. Whom can you really count on to be dependable when you need help?
  2. Whom can you really count on to help you feel more relaxed when you are under pressure or tense?
  3. Who accepts you totally, including both your worst and your best points?
  4. Whom can you really count on to care about you, regardless of what is happening to you?
  5. Whom can you really count on to help you feel better when you are feeling generally down-in-the-dumps?
  6. Whom can you count on to console you when you are very upset?

Interpersonal Support Evaluation List (ISEL)

The Interpersonal Support Evaluation List includes 40 items (questions) with four sub-scales in the areas of Tangible Support, Belonging Support, Self-Esteem Support and Appraisal Support. The interviewee rates each item based on how true or false they feel the item is for themselves. The four total response options are “Definitely True”, “Probably True”, “Probably False”, and “Definitely False”.

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Support_Questionnaire >; it is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA). You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the CC-BY-SA.

What is Psychometrics?

Published on by Andrew Marshall1 Comment

Introduction

Psychometrics is a field of study within psychology concerned with the theory and technique of measurement.

Psychometrics generally refers to specialised fields within psychology and education devoted to testing, measurement, assessment, and related activities. Psychometrics is concerned with the objective measurement of latent constructs that cannot be directly observed. Examples of latent constructs include intelligence, introversion, mental disorders, and educational achievement. The levels of individuals on non-observable latent variables are inferred through mathematical modelling based on what is observed from individuals’ responses to items on tests and scales.

Practitioners are described as psychometricians, although not all who engage in psychometric research go by this title. Psychometricians usually possess specific qualifications such as degrees or certifications, and most are psychologists with advanced graduate training in psychometrics and measurement theory. In addition to traditional, academic institutions, practitioners also work for organisations such as the Educational Testing Service and Psychological Corporation. Some psychometric researchers focus on the construction and validation of assessment instruments including surveys, scales, and open- or close-ended questionnaires. Others focus on research relating to measurement theory (e.g. item response theory; intraclass correlation) or specialise as learning and development professionals.

Historical Foundation

Psychological testing has come from two streams of thought: the first, from Darwin, Galton, and Cattell on the measurement of individual differences, and the second, from Herbart, Weber, Fechner, and Wundt and their psychophysical measurements of a similar construct. The second set of individuals and their research is what has led to the development of experimental psychology and standardised testing.

Victorian Stream

Charles Darwin was the inspiration behind Sir Francis Galton, a scientist who advanced the development of psychometrics. In 1859, Darwin published his book On the Origin of Species. Darwin described the role of natural selection in the emergence, over time, of different populations of species of plants and animals. The book showed how individual members of a species differ among themselves and how they possess characteristics that are more or less adaptive to their environment. Those with more adaptive characteristics are more likely to survive to procreate and give rise to another generation. Those with less adaptive characteristics are less likely. These ideas stimulated Galton’s interest in the study of human beings and how they differ one from another and, more importantly, how to measure those differences.

Galton wrote a book entitled Hereditary Genius. The book described different characteristics that people possess and how those characteristics make some more “fit” than others. Today these differences, such as sensory and motor functioning (reaction time, visual acuity, and physical strength), are important domains of scientific psychology. Much of the early theoretical and applied for work in psychometrics was undertaken in an attempt to measure intelligence. Galton often referred to as “the father of psychometrics,” devised and included mental tests among his anthropometric measures. James McKeen Cattell, a pioneer in the field of psychometrics, went on to extend Galton’s work. Cattell coined the term mental test, and is responsible for research and knowledge that ultimately led to the development of modern tests.

German Stream

The origin of psychometrics also has connections to the related field of psychophysics. Around the same time that Darwin, Galton, and Cattell were making their discoveries, Herbart was also interested in “unlocking the mysteries of human consciousness” through the scientific method. Herbart was responsible for creating mathematical models of the mind, which were influential in educational practices for years to come.

E.H. Weber built upon Herbart’s work and tried to prove the existence of a psychological threshold, saying that a minimum stimulus was necessary to activate a sensory system. After Weber, G.T. Fechner expanded upon the knowledge he gleaned from Herbart and Weber, to devise the law that the strength of a sensation grows as the logarithm of the stimulus intensity. A follower of Weber and Fechner, Wilhelm Wundt is credited with founding the science of psychology. It is Wundt’s influence that paved the way for others to develop psychological testing.

20th Century

In 1936, the psychometrician L.L. Thurstone, founder and first president of the Psychometric Society, developed and applied a theoretical approach to measurement referred to as the law of comparative judgement, an approach that has close connections to the psychophysical theory of Ernst Heinrich Weber and Gustav Fechner. In addition, Spearman and Thurstone both made important contributions to the theory and application of factor analysis, a statistical method developed and used extensively in psychometrics. In the late 1950s, Leopold Szondi made a historical and epistemological assessment of the impact of statistical thinking on psychology during previous few decades: “in the last decades, the specifically psychological thinking has been almost completely suppressed and removed, and replaced by a statistical thinking. Precisely here we see the cancer of testology and testomania of today.”

More recently, psychometric theory has been applied in the measurement of personality, attitudes, and beliefs, and academic achievement. These latent constructs cannot truly be measured, and much of the research and science in this discipline has been developed in an attempt to measure these constructs as close to the true score as possible.

Figures who made significant contributions to psychometrics include Karl Pearson, Henry F. Kaiser, Carl Brigham, L.L. Thurstone, E.L. Thorndike, Georg Rasch, Eugene Galanter, Johnson O’Connor, Frederic M. Lord, Ledyard R. Tucker, Louis Guttman, and Jane Loevinger.

Definition of Measurement in the Social Sciences

The definition of measurement in the social sciences has a long history. A current widespread definition, proposed by Stanley Smith Stevens, is that measurement is “the assignment of numerals to objects or events according to some rule.” This definition was introduced in a 1946 Science article in which Stevens proposed four levels of measurement. Although widely adopted, this definition differs in important respects from the more classical definition of measurement adopted in the physical sciences, namely that scientific measurement entails “the estimation or discovery of the ratio of some magnitude of a quantitative attribute to a unit of the same attribute.”

Indeed, Stevens’s definition of measurement was put forward in response to the British Ferguson Committee, whose chair, A. Ferguson, was a physicist. The committee was appointed in 1932 by the British Association for the Advancement of Science to investigate the possibility of quantitatively estimating sensory events. Although its chair and other members were physicists, the committee also included several psychologists. The committee’s report highlighted the importance of the definition of measurement. While Stevens’s response was to propose a new definition, which has had considerable influence in the field, this was by no means the only response to the report. Another, notably different, response was to accept the classical definition, as reflected in the following statement:

Measurement in psychology and physics are in no sense different. Physicists can measure when they can find the operations by which they may meet the necessary criteria; psychologists have to do the same. They need not worry about the mysterious differences between the meaning of measurement in the two sciences. (Reese, 1943, p.49).

These divergent responses are reflected in alternative approaches to measurement. For example, methods based on covariance matrices are typically employed on the premise that numbers, such as raw scores derived from assessments, are measurements. Such approaches implicitly entail Stevens’s definition of measurement, which requires only that numbers are assigned according to some rule. The main research task, then, is generally considered to be the discovery of associations between scores, and of factors posited to underlie such associations.

On the other hand, when measurement models such as the Rasch model are employed, numbers are not assigned based on a rule. Instead, in keeping with Reese’s statement above, specific criteria for measurement are stated, and the goal is to construct procedures or operations that provide data that meet the relevant criteria. Measurements are estimated based on the models, and tests are conducted to ascertain whether the relevant criteria have been met.

Instruments and Procedures

The first psychometric instruments were designed to measure intelligence. One early approach to measuring intelligence was the test developed in France by Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon. That test was known as the Test Binet-Simon .The French test was adapted for use in the US by Lewis Terman of Stanford University, and named the Stanford-Binet IQ test.

Another major focus in psychometrics has been on personality testing. There has been a range of theoretical approaches to conceptualizing and measuring personality, though there is no widely agreed upon theory. Some of the better-known instruments include the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, the Five-Factor Model (or “Big 5”) and tools such as Personality and Preference Inventory and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Attitudes have also been studied extensively using psychometric approaches. An alternative method involves the application of unfolding measurement models, the most general being the Hyperbolic Cosine Model (Andrich & Luo, 1993).

Theoretical Approaches

Psychometricians have developed a number of different measurement theories. These include classical test theory (CTT) and item response theory (IRT). An approach that seems mathematically to be similar to IRT but also quite distinctive, in terms of its origins and features, is represented by the Rasch model for measurement. The development of the Rasch model, and the broader class of models to which it belongs, was explicitly founded on requirements of measurement in the physical sciences.

Psychometricians have also developed methods for working with large matrices of correlations and covariances. Techniques in this general tradition include: factor analysis, a method of determining the underlying dimensions of data. One of the main challenges faced by users of factor analysis is a lack of consensus on appropriate procedures for determining the number of latent factors. A usual procedure is to stop factoring when eigenvalues drop below one because the original sphere shrinks. The lack of the cutting points concerns other multivariate methods, also.

Multidimensional scaling is a method for finding a simple representation for data with a large number of latent dimensions. Cluster analysis is an approach to finding objects that are like each other. Factor analysis, multidimensional scaling, and cluster analysis are all multivariate descriptive methods used to distil from large amounts of data simpler structures.

More recently, structural equation modelling and path analysis represent more sophisticated approaches to working with large covariance matrices. These methods allow statistically sophisticated models to be fitted to data and tested to determine if they are adequate fits. Because at a granular level psychometric research is concerned with the extent and nature of multidimensionality in each of the items of interest, a relatively new procedure known as bi-factor analysis can be helpful. Bi-factor analysis can decompose “an item’s systematic variance in terms of, ideally, two sources, a general factor and one source of additional systematic variance.”

Key Concepts

Key concepts in classical test theory are reliability and validity. A reliable measure is one that measures a construct consistently across time, individuals, and situations. A valid measure is one that measures what it is intended to measure. Reliability is necessary, but not sufficient, for validity.

Both reliability and validity can be assessed statistically. Consistency over repeated measures of the same test can be assessed with the Pearson correlation coefficient, and is often called test-retest reliability. Similarly, the equivalence of different versions of the same measure can be indexed by a Pearson correlation, and is called equivalent forms reliability or a similar term.

Internal consistency, which addresses the homogeneity of a single test form, may be assessed by correlating performance on two halves of a test, which is termed split-half reliability; the value of this Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient for two half-tests is adjusted with the Spearman-Brown prediction formula to correspond to the correlation between two full-length tests. Perhaps the most commonly used index of reliability is Cronbach’s α, which is equivalent to the mean of all possible split-half coefficients. Other approaches include the intra-class correlation, which is the ratio of variance of measurements of a given target to the variance of all targets.

There are a number of different forms of validity. Criterion-related validity refers to the extent to which a test or scale predicts a sample of behaviour, i.e. the criterion, that is “external to the measuring instrument itself.” That external sample of behaviour can be many things including another test; college grade point average as when the high school SAT is used to predict performance in college; and even behaviour that occurred in the past, for example, when a test of current psychological symptoms is used to predict the occurrence of past victimisation (which would accurately represent postdiction). When the criterion measure is collected at the same time as the measure being validated the goal is to establish concurrent validity; when the criterion is collected later the goal is to establish predictive validity. A measure has construct validity if it is related to measures of other constructs as required by theory. Content validity is a demonstration that the items of a test do an adequate job of covering the domain being measured. In a personnel selection example, test content is based on a defined statement or set of statements of knowledge, skill, ability, or other characteristics obtained from a job analysis.

Item response theory models the relationship between latent traits and responses to test items. Among other advantages, IRT provides a basis for obtaining an estimate of the location of a test-taker on a given latent trait as well as the standard error of measurement of that location. For example, a university student’s knowledge of history can be deduced from his or her score on a university test and then be compared reliably with a high school student’s knowledge deduced from a less difficult test. Scores derived by classical test theory do not have this characteristic, and assessment of actual ability (rather than ability relative to other test-takers) must be assessed by comparing scores to those of a “norm group” randomly selected from the population. In fact, all measures derived from classical test theory are dependent on the sample tested, while, in principle, those derived from item response theory are not.

Standards of Quality

The considerations of validity and reliability typically are viewed as essential elements for determining the quality of any test. However, professional and practitioner associations frequently have placed these concerns within broader contexts when developing standards and making overall judgements about the quality of any test as a whole within a given context. A consideration of concern in many applied research settings is whether or not the metric of a given psychological inventory is meaningful or arbitrary.

Testing Standards

In 2014, the American Educational Research Association (AERA), American Psychological Association (APA), and National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) published a revision of the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, which describes standards for test development, evaluation, and use. The Standards cover essential topics in testing including validity, reliability/errors of measurement, and fairness in testing. The book also establishes standards related to testing operations including test design and development, scores, scales, norms, score linking, cut scores, test administration, scoring, reporting, score interpretation, test documentation, and rights and responsibilities of test takers and test users. Finally, the Standards cover topics related to testing applications, including psychological testing and assessment, workplace testing and credentialing, educational testing and assessment, and testing in programme evaluation and public policy.

Evaluation Standards

In the field of evaluation, and in particular educational evaluation, the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation has published three sets of standards for evaluations. The Personnel Evaluation Standards was published in 1988, The Program Evaluation Standards (2nd edition) was published in 1994, and The Student Evaluation Standards was published in 2003.

Each publication presents and elaborates a set of standards for use in a variety of educational settings. The standards provide guidelines for designing, implementing, assessing, and improving the identified form of evaluation. Each of the standards has been placed in one of four fundamental categories to promote educational evaluations that are proper, useful, feasible, and accurate. In these sets of standards, validity and reliability considerations are covered under the accuracy topic. For example, the student accuracy standards help ensure that student evaluations will provide sound, accurate, and credible information about student learning and performance.

Controversy and Criticism

Because psychometrics is based on latent psychological processes measured through correlations, there has been controversy about some psychometric measures. Critics, including practitioners in the physical sciences, have argued that such definition and quantification is difficult, and that such measurements are often misused by laymen, such as with personality tests used in employment procedures. The Standards for Educational and Psychological Measurement gives the following statement on test validity: “validity refers to the degree to which evidence and theory support the interpretations of test scores entailed by proposed uses of tests”. Simply put, a test is not valid unless it is used and interpreted in the way it is intended.

Two types of tools used to measure personality traits are objective tests and projective measures. Examples of such tests are the: Big Five Inventory (BFI), Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2), Rorschach Inkblot test, Neurotic Personality Questionnaire KON-2006, or Eysenck’s Personality Questionnaire (EPQ-R). Some of these tests are helpful because they have adequate reliability and validity, two factors that make tests consistent and accurate reflections of the underlying construct. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), however, has questionable validity and has been the subject of much criticism. Psychometric specialist Robert Hogan wrote of the measure: “Most personality psychologists regard the MBTI as little more than an elaborate Chinese fortune cookie.”

Lee Cronbach noted in American Psychologist (1957) that, “correlational psychology, though fully as old as experimentation, was slower to mature. It qualifies equally as a discipline, however, because it asks a distinctive type of question and has technical methods of examining whether the question has been properly put and the data properly interpreted.” He would go on to say, “The correlation method, for its part, can study what man has not learned to control or can never hope to control … A true federation of the disciplines is required. Kept independent, they can give only wrong answers or no answers at all regarding certain important problems.”

Non-Human: Animals and Machines

Psychometrics addresses human abilities, attitudes, traits, and educational evolution. Notably, the study of behaviour, mental processes, and abilities of non-human animals is usually addressed by comparative psychology, or with a continuum between non-human animals and the rest of animals by evolutionary psychology. Nonetheless, there are some advocators for a more gradual transition between the approach taken for humans and the approach taken for (non-human) animals.

The evaluation of abilities, traits and learning evolution of machines has been mostly unrelated to the case of humans and non-human animals, with specific approaches in the area of artificial intelligence. A more integrated approach, under the name of universal psychometrics, has also been proposed.

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychometrics >; it is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA). You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the CC-BY-SA.

What is the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire?

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Introduction

In psychology, the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) is a questionnaire to assess the personality traits of a person. It was devised by psychologists Hans Jürgen Eysenck and Sybil B.G. Eysenck.

Hans Eysenck’s theory is based primarily on physiology and genetics. Although he was a behaviourist who considered learned habits of great importance, he believed that personality differences are determined by genetic inheritance. He is, therefore, primarily interested in temperament. In devising a temperament-based theory, Eysenck did not exclude the possibility that some aspects of personality are learned, but left the consideration of these to other researchers.

Dimensions

Eysenck initially conceptualised personality as two biologically-based independent dimensions of temperament, E and N, measured on a continuum, but then extending this to include a third, P.

E – Extraversion/Introversion

  • Extraversion is characterised by being outgoing, talkative, high on positive affect (feeling good), and in need of external stimulation.
  • According to Eysenck’s arousal theory of extraversion, there is an optimal level of cortical arousal, and performance deteriorates as one becomes more or less aroused than this optimal level.
  • Arousal can be measured by skin conductance, brain waves or sweating.
  • At very low and very high levels of arousal, performance is low, but at a better mid-level of arousal, performance is maximised.
  • Extraverts, according to Eysenck’s theory, are chronically under-aroused and bored and are therefore in need of external stimulation to bring them UP to an optimal level of performance.
  • About 16% of the population tend to fall in this range.
  • Introverts, on the other hand, (also about 16 percent of the population) are chronically over-aroused and jittery and are therefore in need of peace and quietness to bring them DOWN to an optimal level of performance.
  • Most people (about 68% of the population) fall in the midrange of the extraversion/introversion continuum, an area referred to as ambiversion.

N – Neuroticism/Stability

  • Neuroticism or emotionality is characterised by high levels of negative affect such as depression and anxiety.
  • Neuroticism, according to Eysenck’s theory, is based on activation thresholds in the sympathetic nervous system or visceral brain.
  • This is the part of the brain that is responsible for the fight-or-flight response in the face of danger.
  • Activation can be measured by heart rate, blood pressure, cold hands, sweating and muscular tension (especially in the forehead).
  • Neurotic people – who have low activation thresholds, and unable to inhibit or control their emotional reactions, experience negative affect (fight-or-flight) in the face of very minor stressors – are easily nervous or upset.
  • Emotionally stable people – who have high activation thresholds and good emotional control, experience negative affect only in the face of very major stressors – are calm and collected under pressure.

The two dimensions or axes, extraversion-introversion and emotional stability-instability, define four quadrants. These are made up of:

  • Stable extraverts (sanguine qualities such as outgoing, talkative, responsive, easy going, lively, carefree, leadership).
  • Unstable extraverts (choleric qualities such as touchy, restless, excitable, changeable, impulsive, irresponsible).
  • Stable introverts (phlegmatic qualities such as calm, even-tempered, reliable, controlled, peaceful, thoughtful, careful, passive).
  • Unstable introverts (melancholic qualities such as quiet, reserved, pessimistic, sober, rigid, anxious, moody).

Further research demonstrated the need for a third category of temperament:

P – Psychoticism/Socialisation

  • Psychoticism is associated not only with the liability to have a psychotic episode (or break with reality), but also with aggression.
  • Psychotic behaviour is rooted in the characteristics of toughmindedness, non-conformity, inconsideration, recklessness, hostility, anger and impulsiveness.
  • The physiological basis suggested by Eysenck for psychoticism is testosterone, with higher levels of psychoticism associated with higher levels of testosterone.

The following table describes the traits that are associated with the three dimensions in Eysenck’s model of personality.

PsychoticismExtraversionNeuroticism
AggresiveSociableAnxious
AssertiveIrresponsibleDepressed
EgocentricDominantGuilt Feelings
UnsympatheticLack of ReflectionLow Self-Esteem
ManipulativeSensation-SeekingTense
Achievement-OrientatedImpulsiveMoody
DogmaticRisk-TakingHypochondriac
MasculineExpressiveLack of Autonomy
Tough-MindedActiveObsessive

L – Lie/Social Desirability

Although the first 3 scales were predicted upon a biologically based theory of personality, the fourth scale has not been theoretically specified to the same extent, but it was considered to be conceptually strong to the extent that it would demonstrate the same degree of measurement similarity across cultures.

Criticism

Since the re-evaluation of Eysenck’s work in the 21st century, amidst revelations of data fabrication or fraud committed by Eysenck, the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire has itself come under scrutiny as potentially biased, flawed, or based upon faulty data.

Versions

EPQ also exists in Finnish and Turkish versions.

In 1985 a revised version of EPQ was described – the EPQ-R – with a publication in the journal Personality and Individual Differences. This version has 100 yes/no questions in its full version and 48 yes/no questions in its short scale version. A different approach to personality measurement developed by Eysenck, which distinguishes between different facets of these traits, is the Eysenck Personality Profiler.

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eysenck_Personality_Questionnaire >; it is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA). You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the CC-BY-SA.

What is the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM?

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Introduction

The Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I Disorders (SCID-I) is a diagnostic exam used to determine DSM-IV Axis I disorders (major mental disorders). The SCID-II is a diagnostic exam used to determine Axis II disorders (personality disorders).

Outline

There are at least 700 published studies in which the SCID was the diagnostic instrument used. Major parts of the SCID have been translated into other languages, including Danish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, and Zulu.

An Axis I SCID assessment with a psychiatric patient usually takes between 1 and 2 hours, depending on the complexity of the subject’s psychiatric history and their ability to clearly describe episodes of current and past symptoms. A SCID with a non-psychiatric patient takes 1⁄2 hour to 1+1⁄2 hours. (See editions below.) A SCID-II personality assessment takes about 1⁄2 to 1 hour.

The instrument was designed to be administered by a mental health professional, for example a psychologist or psychiatrist. This must be someone who has relevant professional training and has had experience performing unstructured, open-ended question, diagnostic evaluations. However, for the purposes of some research studies, non-clinician research assistants, who have extensive experience with the study population in question, and who have demonstrated competence, have been trained to use the SCID. The less clinical experience and specific education the potential interviewer has had, the more training is required.

DSM-5 Editions of the SCID-5

The SCID-5 for DSM-5 has been published in 2016. The SCID-II has been replaced by the SCID-5-PD, the SCID-I by a clinical (SCID-5-CV) and research version (SCID-5-RV). The clinical version “covers the diagnoses most commonly seen in clinical settings”, while the research version contains more disorders and ” all of the relevant subtypes and severity and course specifiers”.

DSM-IV Editions of SCID-I and SCID-II

There are several editions of the SCID-I addressed to different audiences:

  • Three Research Versions:
    • Patient Edition (SCID-I/P).
    • Patient Edition, with psychotic screen (SCID-I/P W/ PSY SCREEN).
    • Non-patient Edition (SCID-I/NP).
  • A Clinical Trials Version (SCID-CT).
  • Clinician Version (SCID-CV).

The SCID-II for DSM-IV comes in a single edition.

The first version of the SCID for DSM-5, intended for researchers, was released on 24 November 2014. American Psychiatric Association Publishing offers four versions the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-5 (SCID-5), and pricing varies according to intended use.

DSM-III Editions of SCID-I and SCID-II

The DSM-III SCID had one edition per axis: SCID-P/SCID-NP and SCID-II.

The reliability and validity of the SCID for DSM-III-R has been reported in several published studies. With regard to reliability, the range in reliability is enormous, depending on the type of the sample and research methodology (i.e. joint vs. test-retest, multi-site vs. single site with raters who have worked together, etc.).

SCID-D

The Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Dissociative Disorders (SCID-D) is widely used to diagnose dissociative disorders, especially in research settings. This interview takes about 30 minutes to 1.5 hours, depending on individual’s experiences. The SCID-D has been translated into Dutch and Turkish and is used in the Netherlands and Turkey.

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structured_Clinical_Interview_for_DSM-IV#SCID-D >; it is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA). You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the CC-BY-SA.

What is the Severity of Alcohol Dependence Questionnaire?

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Introduction

The Severity of Alcohol Dependence Questionnaire (SADQ or SAD-Q) is a 20 item clinical screening tool designed to measure the presence and level of alcohol dependence.

It is divided into five sections:

  • Physical withdrawal symptoms.
  • Affective withdrawal symptoms.
  • Craving and relief drinking.
  • Typical daily consumption.
  • Reinstatement of dependence after a period of abstinence.

Each item is scored on a 4-point scale, giving a possible range of 0 to 60. A score of over 30 indicates severe alcohol dependence.

Some local clinical guidelines use the SADQ to predict the levels of medication needed during alcohol detoxification.

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severity_of_Alcohol_Dependence_Questionnaire >; it is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA). You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the CC-BY-SA.

What is the Dissociative Experiences Scale?

Published on by Andrew Marshall1 Comment

Introduction

The Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) is a psychological self-assessment questionnaire that measures dissociative symptoms.

Background

It contains twenty-eight questions and returns an overall score as well as four sub-scale results.

DES is intended to be a screening test, since only 17% of patients with scores over 30 will be diagnosed with having dissociative identity disorder. Patients with lower scores above normal may have other post-traumatic conditions.

The DES-II contains the same questions but with a different response scale.

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_Experiences_Scale >; it is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA). You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the CC-BY-SA.

What is the CRAFFT Screening Test?

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Introduction

The CRAFFT is a short clinical assessment tool designed to screen for substance-related risks and problems in adolescents.

CRAFFT stands for the key words of the 6 items in the second section of the assessment:

  • Car.
  • Relax.
  • Alone.
  • Forget.
  • Friends.
  • Trouble.

As of 2020, updated versions of the CRAFFT known as the “CRAFFT 2.1” and “CRAFFT 2.1+N” have been released.

The older version of the questionnaire contains 9 items in total, answered in a “yes” or “no” format.

  • The first three items (Part A) evaluate alcohol and drug use over the past year; and
  • The other six (Part B) ask about situations in which the respondent used drugs or alcohol and any consequences of the usage.

The CRAFFT 2.1 screening tool begins with past-12-month frequency items (Part A), rather than the previous “yes/no” question for any use over the past year, and the other six (Part B) questions remain the same.

The CRAFFT can function as a self-report questionnaire or an interview to be administered by a clinician. Both employ a skip pattern: those whose Part A score is “0” (no use) answer the Car question only of Part B, while those who report any use in Part A also answer all six Part B CRAFFT questions. Each “yes” answer is scored as “1” point and a CRAFFT total score of two or higher identifies “high risk” for a substance use disorder and warrants further assessment.

Development and Brief History

The CRAFFT Screening Test was developed by John R Knight, MD and colleagues at the Centre for Adolescent Behavioural Health Research (CABHRe), formerly known as the Centre for Adolescent Substance Abuse Research (CeASAR) at Boston Children’s Hospital. Their goal was to develop a screening tool that – like the CAGE questionnaire used for adults – was brief and easy to administer and score. Unlike the CAGE, the CRAFFT was designed to be developmentally appropriate for adolescents and screen conjointly for both alcohol and drug use. Because motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of death among adolescents, and often associated with alcohol and drug use, the CRAFFT includes a risk item to evaluate whether an adolescent has ever ridden in a car driven by someone (including themselves) who was under the influence of alcohol or other drugs. It has been established as valid and reliable for identifying youth who need further assessment and therapeutic intervention. The CRAFFT was originally designed to screen adolescents at high risk of substance use disorders in primary medical care offices. However, the necessity for a universal adolescent screening measure was made apparent by research findings suggesting that half of high school students drink, a third binge drink, and a fourth use marijuana. For drug use specifically, studies show that more than half of high school seniors have used an illegal drug of any kind and a fourth have used illegal drugs other than marijuana. In addition, more than two-thirds of high school seniors, half of sophomores, and a third of eighth graders have used alcohol in the past year. These findings also contributed to the identification of a need for a tool like the CRAFFT to be developed and widely implemented.

CRAFFT 2.1

This revised version of the CRAFFT screening tool incorporates changes that enhance the sensitivity of the system in terms of identifying adolescents with substance use, and presents new recommended clinician talking points, informed by the latest science and clinician feedback, to guide a brief discussion about substance use with adolescents. The CRAFFT 2.1 provides an updated and revised version of this well-validated and widely utilised adolescent substance use screening protocol. Although the previous version of the CRAFFT will still be available, CABHRe recommends that clinicians transition to using version 2.1.

The CRAFFT 2.1 screening tool begins with past-12-month frequency items, rather than the previous “yes/no” question for any use over the past year. A recent study examining these opening yes/no questions found that they had relatively low sensitivity in identifying youth with any past-12-month alcohol or marijuana use (62% and 72%, respectively). Research also has suggested that yes/no questions may contribute to lower sensitivity on certain measures by inhibiting disclosure of less socially desirable behaviours; i.e. they may be more prone to social desirability bias.

Alternatively, questions that ask “how many” or “how often” implicitly imply an expectation of the behaviour, and may thus mitigate discomfort around disclosure. The instruction, “Say ‘0’ if none” follows each question to convey that non-use is also normative. The CRAFFT 2.1 begins with past-12-month frequency items; i.e. “During the past 12 months, on how many days did you … [drink/use substance name]?”

This new set of frequency questions was tested in a recent study of 708 adolescent primary care patients ages 12-18 that found a sensitivity of 96% and specificity of 81% for detecting past-12-month use of any substance, suggesting better performance in identifying substance use compared to that of the “yes/no” questions found in the prior study.

The CRAFFT 2.1 has been translated into the following languages: Albanian, Arabic, Burmese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Cape Verdean Creole, Haitian Creole, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese, Khmer, Korean, Laotian, Lithuanian, Nepali, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Russian, Somali, Spanish (Latin Am), Spanish (Spain), Swahili, Telugu, Turkish, Twi, and Vietnamese.

CRAFFT 2.1+N

The CRAFFT 2.1+N expands upon the content from the CRAFFT 2.1 with the inclusion of the Hooked On Nicotine Checklist (HONC), which is a 10-item questionnaire that screens for dependence on tobacco and nicotine. If a teen indicates use of a vaping device containing nicotine and/or flavours or any tobacco products within the frequency questions, they are prompted to answer the HONC questions as well. A positive response to one or more of the items calls for further assessment regarding a serious problem with nicotine.

Psychometrics

Research has shown that CRAFFT has relatively high sensitivity and specificity, internal consistency, and test-retest reliability as a screener for alcohol and substance misuse. The CRAFFT questionnaire has been validated against the current edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) and demonstrates good ability to distinguish between those with and without clinical levels of any DSM-5 substance use disorder. It is supported by many studies as a reliable and valid assessment of substance use and misuse in adolescents and is considered an effective tool for assessing whether further assessment is warranted. It has been well-validated against criterion standard psychological tests and structured psychiatric diagnostic interviews. It has been recommended by the American Academy of Paediatrics’ Committee on Substance Abuse for use with adolescents. Findings suggest that paediatricians should regularly screen for substance use disorders in adolescents using the CRAFFT.

The CRAFFT has been translated into many languages, including Albanian, Arabic, Burmese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Cape Verdean Creole, Haitian Creole, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese, Khmer, Korean, Laotian, Lithuanian, Nepali, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Russian, Somali, Spanish (Latin Am), Spanish (Spain), Swahili, Telugu, Turkish, Twi, and Vietnamese. Studies attest to its validity and reliability across cultures.

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRAFFT_Screening_Test >; it is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA). You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the CC-BY-SA.