Depressive and Anxious Symptoms, Experimentally Manipulated Acute Social-Evaluative Threat, and Cortisol Reactivity.

OBJECTIVE: Exposure to social-evaluative threat (SET) can elicit greater physiological responses, including cortisol, compared to non-SET stressors. An individual's level of depressive and anxious symptoms predicts variability in cortisol responses to stressors, and other research suggests these individual differences may predict vulnerability to social evaluation. The current study integrates both lines of research, testing if there are different relationships between depressive and/or anxious symptoms and cortisol reactivity in the presence or absence of SET. METHODS: Healthy undergraduate students (N = 158, 65% female) were randomly assigned to deliver a speech in the presence (SET) or absence (non-SET) of two evaluators. Salivary cortisol was collected throughout, and self-reported depressive and anxious symptoms were assessed. We hypothesized that in the SET condition, higher levels of depressive and/or anxious symptoms would predict dysregulated cortisol responses compared to lower levels of symptoms and/or assignment to the non-SET group. RESULTS: In spite of inconclusive p-values (which might be attributed to low statistical power), individuals with high depressive or high anxious symptoms appeared to have exaggerated cortisol responses in the SET condition, as indicated by more concave trajectories. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that both depression and anxiety could be associated with increased cortisol reactivity to SET.

Are reflective models appropriate for very short scales? Proofs of concept of formative models using the Ten-Item Personality Inventory.

OBJECTIVE: Because of their length and objective of broad content coverage, very short scales can show limited internal consistency and structural validity. We argue that it is because their objectives may be better aligned with formative investigations than with reflective measurement methods that capitalize on content overlap. As proofs of concept of formative investigations of short scales, we investigate the Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI). METHOD: In Study 1, we administered the TIPI and the Big Five Inventory (BFI) to 938 adults and fitted a formative Multiple Indicators Multiple Causes model, which consisted of the TIPI items forming five latent variables, which in turn predicted the five BFI scores. These results were replicated in Study 2 on a sample of 759 adults, but this time with the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) as the external criterion. RESULTS: The models fit the data adequately, and moderate to strong significant effects (.37 < |ß| < .69, all ps < .001) of all five latent formative variables on their corresponding BFI and NEO-PI-R scores were observed. CONCLUSIONS: This study presents a formative approach that we propose to be more consistent with the aims of scales with broad content and short length like the TIPI.

Monitoring stress among internal medicine residents: an experience-driven, practical and short measure.

Residents experience severely high levels of stress, depression and burnout, leading to perceived medical errors, as well as to symptoms of impairment, such as chronic anger, cognitive impairment, suicidal behavior and substance abuse. Because research has not yet provided a psychometrically robust population-specific tool to measure the level of stress of medicine residents, we aimed at building and validating such a measure. Using an inductive scale development approach, a short, pragmatic measure was built, based on the interviews of 17 medicine residents. The Internal Medicine Residency Stress Scale (IMRSS) was then administered in a sample of 259 internal medicine residents (199 females, 60 males, MAge = 25.6) along with the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, Maslach Burnout Inventory, Satisfaction With Life Scale and Ways of Coping Checklist. The IMRSS showed satisfactory internal reliability (Cronbach's α = .86), adequate structural validity - studied through Confirmatory Factor Analysis (χ2/df = 2.51, CFI = .94; SRMR = .037, RMSEA = .076) - and good criterion validity - the IMRSS was notably strongly correlated with emotional exhaustion (r = .64; p < .001) and anxiety (r = .57; p < .001). Because of its short length and robust psychometric qualities, the use of the IMRSS is recommended to quickly and frequently assess and monitor stress among internal medicine residents.

French validation of the overexcitability questionnaire 2: psychometric properties and factorial structure.

Overexcitability corresponds to an overall response to stimulations in 5 domains: psychomotor, sensual, intellectual, imaginational, and emotional. The aim of this study was to develop a French version of the Overexcitability Questionnaire 2 (OEQ2) and to expand its psychometric properties. Two studies were conducted: one with a sample of 474 adolescents and another with a sample of 436 adults. Internal consistency, factorial structure, and validity (correlations with intelligence, personality, and alexithymia) were examined. The French OEQ2 showed satisfactory psychometric properties, thus advocating for its use in further research on overexcitability and in clinical practice.

Modeling Sequential Dependencies in Progressive Matrices: An Auto-Regressive Item Response Theory (AR-IRT) Approach.

Measurement models traditionally make the assumption that item responses are independent from one another, conditional upon the common factor. They typically explore for violations of this assumption using various methods, but rarely do they account for the possibility that an item predicts the next. Extending the development of auto-regressive models in the context of personality and judgment tests, we propose to extend binary item response models-using, as an example, the 2-parameter logistic (2PL) model-to include auto-regressive sequential dependencies. We motivate such models and illustrate them in the context of a publicly available progressive matrices dataset. We find an auto-regressive lag-1 2PL model to outperform a traditional 2PL model in fit as well as to provide more conservative discrimination parameters and standard errors. We conclude that sequential effects are likely overlooked in the context of cognitive ability testing in general and progressive matrices tests in particular. We discuss extensions, notably models with multiple lag effects and variable lag effects.

Analysis of an Intelligence Dataset.

It is perhaps popular belief-at least among non-psychometricians-that there is a unique or standard way to investigate the psychometric qualities of tests [...].

A Mokken Scale Analysis of the Last Series of the Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM-LS).

Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices Raven (1941) is a widely used 60-item long measure of general mental ability. It was recently suggested that, for situations where taking this test is too time consuming, a shorter version, comprised of only the last series of the Standard Progressive Matrices (the SPM-LS; Myszkowski and Storme (2018)) could be used, while preserving satisfactory psychometric properties Garcia-Garzon et al. (2019); Myszkowski and Storme (2018). In this study, I argue, however, that some psychometric properties have been left aside by previous investigations. As part of this special issue on the reinvestigation of Myszkowski and Storme's dataset, I propose to use the non-parametric Item Response Theory framework of Mokken Scale Analysis Mokken (1971, 1997) and its current developments Sijtsma and van der Ark (2017) to shed new light on the SPM-LS. Extending previous findings, this investigation indicated that the SPM-LS had satisfactory scalability ( H = 0 . 469 ), local independence and reliability ( M S = 0 . 841 , L C R C = 0 . 874 ). Further, all item response functions were monotonically increasing, and there was overall evidence for invariant item ordering ( H T = 0 . 475 ), supporting the Double Monotonicity Model Mokken (1997). Item 1, however, appeared problematic in most analyses. I discuss the implications of these results, notably regarding whether to discard item 1, whether the SPM-LS sum scores can confidently be used to order persons, and whether the invariant item ordering of the SPM-LS allows to use a stopping rule to further shorten test administration.

Commentary on Corradi et al.'s (2019) new conception of aesthetic sensitivity: Is the ability conception dead?

Corradi et al. (British Journal of Psychology, 2019) argue that their new conception of visual aesthetic sensitivity (as responsiveness to aesthetic features in one's preferences) presents several advantages in comparison with the current ability view of aesthetic sensitivity, usually defined as the ability to judge aesthetic stimuli in accordance with standards (The Journal of Psychology, 1964, 57 and 49). Although the measure they propose is interesting and presents advances to the field, we point to important issues. Notably, the authors conveniently base their comparison between the two conceptions on psychometric double standards, discard a century of research on aesthetic sensitivity by focusing on Eysenck's speculations, and disguise an extension of already existing aesthetic preference tests (e.g., The Journal of Psychology, 1952, 33 and 199; Empirical Studies of the Arts, 2005, 23 and 165) as a redefinition of aesthetic sensitivity. We conclude that both aesthetic preference and aesthetic sensitivity research are legitimate objects of study, that the authors present interesting ideas to further the study of aesthetic preferences, but that their approach is not new and that its proposed renaming only adds confusion to the field.

Same Test, Better Scores: Boosting the Reliability of Short Online Intelligence Recruitment Tests with Nested Logit Item Response Theory Models.

Assessing job applicants' general mental ability online poses psychometric challenges due to the necessity of having brief but accurate tests. Recent research (Myszkowski & Storme, 2018) suggests that recovering distractor information through Nested Logit Models (NLM; Suh & Bolt, 2010) increases the reliability of ability estimates in reasoning matrix-type tests. In the present research, we extended this result to a different context (online intelligence testing for recruitment) and in a larger sample ( N = 2949 job applicants). We found that the NLMs outperformed the Nominal Response Model (Bock, 1970) and provided significant reliability gains compared with their binary logistic counterparts. In line with previous research, the gain in reliability was especially obtained at low ability levels. Implications and practical recommendations are discussed.

Confirmation of a Two-Factor Solution to the Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy in a French Population of Patients With Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders.

The Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy (QCAE) is a tool for self-assessing the cognitive and emotional components of empathy. A study showed that a two-factor model fits the data of patients with schizophrenia, whereas other reports on healthy subjects have suggested a five-factor decomposition. We aimed to replicate the model of Horan et al. in a French population with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (i.e., schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders) participating in the EVACO Study (NCT02901015). In total, 133 patients were assessed with the QCAE, the Positive and Negative Symptom Scale (PANSS), the Personal and Social Performance Scale (PSP), and the Self rating Quality of Life Scale (S-QoL). The two-factor model demonstrated an adequate fit with the data, comparable to that reported by Horan et al. Males scored higher on the Affective subscore than females. After correction for multiple tests, psychopathology (PANSS) and functioning (PSP) did not correlate significantly with the QCAE subscores. However, quality of life (S-QoL) correlated positively with the Emotional Contagion subscore. Thus, the variability of empathetic disposition in schizophrenia may be considered through the cognitive versus affective dichotomy and properly investigated with the QCAE. The results support further investigation of the relationship between QCAE scores and subjective outcome measurements, such as quality of life, and emphasize the importance of cross-cultural comparisons.

Is the Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy measuring two or five dimensions? Evidence in a French sample.

Although many instruments measure empathy, most of them focus on specific facets (e.g., Spreng et al., 2009) or specific contexts (e.g. Wang et al., 2003) of empathy. For this reason, the Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy (QCAE; Reniers et al., 2011) was recently built to grasp the general construct of empathy through its Affective-Cognitive duality, although not providing clear-cut results about the bidimensionality of the scale. In this study, Confirmatory Factor Analyses were conducted on the responses of 418 adults on the French QCAE (backtranslated for this study). A total of 8 models were tested - including the models of the original investigation. The 5-correlated factors model had the best fit, and the pattern of correlations between the factors did not support the Cognitive-Affective distinction. The QCAE is discussed as showing signs of psychometrical robustness, but also as a tool that is more 5-dimensional than bidimensional.

Anger and sadness as adaptive emotion expression strategies in response to negative competence and warmth evaluations.

Previous literature suggested that anger and sadness may be necessary to restore social bonds in the face of immediate relationship threat. The present research compared the social effectiveness of expressing anger and sadness in response to a negative personal evaluation. Results indicated that target anger in response to a negative competence evaluation, and target sadness in response to a negative warmth evaluation, had the most positive effects on the evaluators' subjectively perceived persuasiveness of the targets' communication (Study 1) and on the subjectively perceived fluency of the interaction by both interaction partners (Study 2). Results are discussed in light of the social functionality of emotion expression and the importance of interpersonal emotion congruency with evaluation content.