Measures Of Affective State Research Articles

Measurement of affective states in adults. Evaluation of an adjective rating scale instrument.

A cross-sectional sample of adults, ages 20-79, were administered an adjective rating scale instrument measuring multiple affective states, including items from the Profile of Mood States (POMS) instrument. Confirmatory item factor analysis supported, for the most part, a priori assignments of items to scales based upon prior research, but revealed a few small, additional item factors that were cross-validated in a second sample. Items measuring different aspects of psychological distress, including anxiety and depressive affect, showed appreciable skew and kurtosis, with a substantial proportion of respondents indicating no perceived distress. Items measuring psychological well-being tended to show more normal response distributions. Tests of age-related invariance in item factor structure indicated that the unstandardized factor pattern weights (loadings) were not fully equivalent across two age groups, but showed that the same configuration of items loading on factors was supported. The scales perform well enough to justify continued use in older populations, but further research on the contributions of item distributions to age differences in factor loadings is needed.

Reduced Sexual Activity in HIV-Infected Homosexual Men-Reply

In Reply. — Drs Brown and Pace raise interesting questions regarding the reasons why the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)—infected men in our study, as well as HIV-infected persons in their own studies, have reduced their sexual activity in recent years. We recognize that personal health concerns may have had different meanings for the men in our study who reported this as a reason for change in sexual behavior. We do have some data concerning depression in our group of men. Of the 31 men in our study, 24, including 6 of the 7 who reported no sex partners in the 6-month period before the second questionnaire was administered in 1987, were administered measures of affective state, including the Zung Depression Scale, as part of a study of neuropsychiatric complications of HIV infection in 1986. 1 The men were also asked whether they had ever been diagnosed by a physician as

Attributions of Blame and Coping Following Spinal Cord Injury: Is Self-Blame Adaptive?

The present study assessed the relationship between self-blame and psychometrically defined adjustment among persons who were paralyzed as a result of traumatic spinal cord injury. Fifty-eight participants were assigned to high and low self-blame conditions on the basis of an attribution questionnaire. Adjustment was assessed using a variety of instruments that measured coping style, attitudes related to physical illness, measures of affective state, and social support. These findings suggest that individuals who blame themselves for their injury cope more poorly than those who attribute blame externally. Psychological characteristics of self-blamers are described and the implications discussed.

Assessing affective states: A new methodology for some old problems

Demand characteristics and reactivity can jeoparadize the validity of adjective checklists. The present studies test a methodology for distinguishing among positive, neutral, and negative states, while minimizing demand and reactivity. Results from the studies revealed that ratings of neutral words accurately discriminated among college students induced to feel happy, neutral, or sad. In addition, independent judges demonstrated that assessing mood with ratings of neutral words weakens the link between scale items and to-be-measured mood state, thus minimizing potential demand and reactivity. Ratings of neutral words are discussed as an alternative to adjective checklists regarding measurement of affective states.

Repeated Assessment of Stress, Mood and Performance Changes Resulting from Exposure to Vessel Motions at Sea

A preliminary study was conducted with six experienced male Coast Guardsmen and a small monohull vessel (95' Coast Guard Patrol Boat) to evaluate the feasibility of a proposed experimental paradigm as well as the sensitivity of an array of performance, physiological and affective state measures to vessel motions and motion sickness. Performance measures (e.g. Navigation Plotting, Critical Tracking, Visual Search, Complex Auditory Monitoring, Grammatical Reasoning, etc.), physiological measures (e.g., motion sickness severity, stress hormone excretion, urine output and specific gravity), and affective state measures (e.g., mood dimensions) were sampled continuously for eight hours each day for three consecutive days. All variables were compared between control (dockside, engines running) and steaming conditions (four-hour octagonal steaming patterns were repeated twice each eight hour day). Results show all physiological measures examined to be sensitive to the Influence of vessel motions or motion sickness. Motion sickness severity was found to rise and fall depending upon the encounter direction of the vessel to the movement of the primary swell; steaming courses with head or bow seas produced significantly greater degrees of illness than did courses possessing stern or quartering seas. Vessel motions led to significant increases in crew fatigue and changes in concentration. Some performance tasks (e.g. Navigation Plotting and Visual Search) were degraded at sea despite the potential contribution of practice effects, habituation to stress and motivation to perform. The Implications of such factors are discussed In terms of past, current and future performance assessment paradigms utilizing repeated testing.

Social Position and Self-Evaluation: The Relative Importance of Race

Evidence and argument designed to demonstrate that blacks suffer higher levels of personal disorganization than whites has not seriously attempted to assess the relative effects of racial status upon psychological state. Here two samples of blacks and whites are used to evaluate the relative effects of racial status on a measure of self-esteem and on a measure of psychological symptoms of stress. In competition with sexual status, city, age, education, marital status, and work-force participation, racial status has minimal effects upon these measures of affective state employing a multiple classification analysis. City and work-force participation have a greater effect upon whites than upon blacks; marital status has a greater effect upon blacks than upon whites; and education has strong effects upon both racial groups. Caution is therefore suggested for researchers who employ racial differences as an explanation for behavioral differences between racial groups.

Multiple rating scales for the measurement of affective states.

Multiple rating scales for the measurement of affective states.