Further evidence for cross-sample invariance of phobic factors: Psychiatric inpatient ratings on the fear survey schedule—III

Abstract

Using two distinct methods of confirmatory analysis (factor invariance), phobic dimensions as measured by the Wolpe and Lang (1964) Fear Survey Schedule—III (“Social Fears”, “Agoraphobic Fears”, “Fears of Bodily Injury, Death and Illness”, “Fears of Sexual and Aggressive Scenes” and “Harmless Animals Fears”), identified in a previous study (Arrindell, 1980), were found to generalize from a non-institutionalized phobic (predominantly agoraphobic) sample to a heterogeneous psychiatric inpatient sample, irrespective of the method of analysis. Psychometric properties of the corresponding scales (inter-subscale correlations and reliability data) were encouraging and very similar to those obtained previously (Arrindell, 1980; Arrindell, Emmelkamp and van der Ende, 1984). The use of confirmatory techniques in determining the factorial validity of fear measures or their stability or generalizability across important S parameters is emphasized. It is argued that there is invariance of an Agoraphobic factor across multisamples and its importance is briefly pinpointed.