Measuring vaping-related expectancies in young adults: Psychometric evaluation of the Electronic Nicotine Vaping Outcomes (ENVO) scale.

OBJECTIVE: Electronic cigarettes are the most commonly used tobacco products by young adults. Measures of beliefs about outcomes of use (i.e., expectancies) can be helpful in predicting use, as well as informing and evaluating interventions to impact use. METHODS: We surveyed young adult students (N = 2296, Mean age=20.0, SD=1.8, 64 % female, 34 % White) from a community college, a historically black university, and a state university. Students answered ENDS expectancy items derived from focus groups and expert panel refinement using Delphi methods. Factor Analysis and Item Response Theory (IRT) methods were used to understand relevant factors and identify useful items. RESULTS: A 5-factor solution [Positive Reinforcement (consists of Stimulation, Sensorimotor, and Taste subthemes, α = .92), Negative Consequences (Health Risks and Stigma, α = .94), Negative Affect Reduction (α = .95), Weight Control (α = .92), and Addiction (α = .87)] fit the data well (CFI=0.95; TLI=0.94; RMSEA=0.05) and was invariant across subgroups. Factors were significantly correlated with relevant vaping measures, including vaping susceptibility and lifetime vaping. Hierarchical linear regression demonstrated factors were significant predictors of lifetime vaping after controlling for demographics, vaping ad exposure, and peer/family vaping. IRT analyses indicated that individual items tended to be related to their underlying constructs (a parameters ranged from 1.26 to 3.18) and covered a relatively wide range of the expectancies continuum (b parameters ranged from -0.72 to 2.47). CONCLUSIONS: A novel ENDS expectancy measure appears to be a reliable measure for young adults with promising results in the domains of concurrent validity, incremental validity, and IRT characteristics. This tool may be helpful in predicting use and informing future interventions. IMPLICATIONS: Findings provide support for the future development of computerized adaptive testing of vaping beliefs. Expectancies appear to play a role in vaping similar to smoking and other substance use. Public health messaging should target expectancies to modify young adult vaping behavior.

Openness to Experience: its lower level structure, measurement, and cross-cultural equivalence.

Openness to Experience is an important but relatively poorly understood personality construct. Advances in openness research require further construct clarification as well as establishment of a common framework for conceptualizing and measuring the lower level structure of the construct. In this article, we present data from 3 studies to address this research need. In Study 1, we identify 6 facets of Openness to Experience--intellectual efficiency, ingenuity, curiosity, aesthetics, tolerance, and depth--based on a factor analysis of 36 existing Openness-related scales. In Study 2, we present further validity evidence for the 6-facet structure based on a newly developed measure of Openness. Data from this study also suggest the presence of 2 intermediate-level factors (i.e., aspects) of Openness: intellect and culture. In Study 3, we present a short form of the newly developed measure, retaining items that showed the highest internal consistency and measurement invariance across 3 samples: U.S. undergraduates, Chinese MBA students, and Chinese undergraduates. Together these 3 studies offer a more nuanced understanding of the multifaceted nature of the Openness construct.

Validity of six openness facets in predicting work behaviors: a meta-analysis.

To illustrate the importance of facet-level investigations in predicting organizational outcomes and the need for more primary studies on this topic, we conducted a meta-analysis that took an exploratory look at differential relationships among 7 organizational criteria and Openness traits varying in breadth. Nine Openness predictors--the global dimension, 2 aspects (intellect and culture), and 6 facets (intellectual efficiency, ingenuity, curiosity, aesthetics, tolerance, and depth)--were examined in relations with various organizational criteria such as traditional performance outcomes (task performance, contextual performance, counterproductive work behavior), turnover, leadership effectiveness, training performance, and adaptive performance. Our results support the idea that Openness facets could exhibit differential validity for many organizational outcomes.