Criterion and incremental validity of the emotion regulation questionnaire.

Although research on emotion regulation (ER) is developing, little attention has been paid to the predictive power of ER strategies beyond established constructs. The present study examined the incremental validity of the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ; Gross and John, 2003), which measures cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression, over and above the Big Five personality factors. It also extended the evidence for the measure's criterion validity to yet unexamined criteria. A university student sample (N = 203) completed the ERQ, a measure of the Big Five, and relevant cognitive and emotion-laden criteria. Cognitive reappraisal predicted positive affect beyond personality, as well as experiential flexibility and constructive self-assertion beyond personality and affect. Expressive suppression explained incremental variance in negative affect beyond personality and in experiential flexibility beyond personality and general affect. No incremental effects were found for worry, social anxiety, rumination, reflection, and preventing negative emotions. Implications for the construct validity and utility of the ERQ are discussed

An Examination of a New Psychometric Method for Optimizing Multi-Faceted Assessment Instruments in the Context of Trait Emotional Intelligence.

Driven by the challenge of representing and measuring psychological attributes, this article outlines a psychometric method aimed at identifying problem facets. The method, which integrates theoretical and empirical steps, is applied in the context of the construct of trait emotional intelligence (trait EI), using data from six different samples (N = 1284) collected across Europe. Alternative representations of the trait EI variance, derived from the outcome variables used in previous validation studies of the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire, were regressed on the 15 trait EI facets using the stepwise method. The analyses revealed five facets, which did not occupy unique construct variance in any of the six samples. As expected, a composite of the remaining 10 facets consistently showed greater construct validity than the original 15-facet composite. Implications for construct and scale development are discussed, and directions for further validation of the method and for its application to other constructs are provided. © 2014 The Authors. European Journal of Personality published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Association of Personality Psychology

Trait Emotional Intelligence and Personality: Gender-Invariant Linkages Across Different Measures of the Big Five.

This study investigated if the linkages between trait emotional intelligence (trait EI) and the Five-Factor Model of personality were invariant between men and women. Five English-speaking samples (N = 307-685) of mostly undergraduate students each completed a different measure of the Big Five personality traits and either the full form or short form of the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEIQue). Across samples, models predicting global TEIQue scores from the Big Five were invariant between genders, with Neuroticism and Extraversion being the strongest trait EI correlates, followed by Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, and Openness. However, there was some evidence indicating that the gender-specific contributions of the Big Five to trait EI vary depending on the personality measure used, being more consistent for women. Discussion focuses on the validity of the TEIQue as a measure of trait EI and its psychometric properties, more generally

Facet Benchmarking: A psychometric method for refining multi-faceted assessment instruments

Driven by the challenge of defining and measuring psychological attributes, this thesis advances an instrument refinement method aimed at identifying “problem” facets detrimental to construct validity. The method, labelled “Facet Benchmarking” (FB), integrates theoretical and empirical steps and is intended to supplement established scale construction approaches; it is part of the wider construct validation paradigm. FB seeks to detect redundant and extraneous facets based on their inability to occupy a unique part of the variance attributed to a given construct. An alternative, more objectively derived representation of the construct is used to assess if the hypothetical facets of a given measure fulfil this general criterion. That representation is a composite extracted from systematically selected criteria, or outcomes, of the construct. In this thesis, FB is examined across three investigations (three chapters) of increasing rigour, each involving a different construct and data from multiple samples. The first application of FB (Chapter 2) was based on existing data, gathered in previous validation studies of the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire. Chapter 3 lays the psychometric groundwork for the second application of FB, addressing issues of homogeneity and dimensionality of the relevant measures. These were measures of dispositional mindfulness, the construct to which FB is applied in Chapter 4. The third application of FB focuses on the General Factor of Motivation, a re-conceptualisation of motivation proposed and validated in Chapter 5 (two measures were developed and used for this purpose). The purpose of this final investigation (Chapter 6) was to assess plausible alternative explanations for the method’s efficacy: domain underrepresentation and common-method variance between facets and criteria. The results from all three investigations of FB supported the efficacy and integrity of FB. The implications are, therefore, discussed in detail in Chapter 7, along with considerations for the method’s application and future development

Toward understanding body image importance: individual differences in a Canadian sample of undergraduate students.

This study examined the relationships between body image importance (BII) and perfectionism and body satisfaction in a Canadian sample of undergraduate students. Specifically, perfectionism was conceptualized as a common cause of BII and body satisfaction. Furthermore, gender-schematic processing was examined as a moderator of sex differences in BII, which have been inconsistently found. As hypothesized, there was no significant partial correlation between BII and body satisfaction, controlling for perfectionism. Also, a significant Sex × Gender Schematicity interaction indicated that gender schematicity moderates sex differences in BII. Implications for understanding individual differences in, and elevated levels of BII are discussed

The Incremental Validity of the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEIQue): A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

A criticism leveled against the conceptualization of emotional intelligence (EI) as a personality trait is that it overlaps considerably with the higher order personality dimensions and, therefore, has weak utility. To investigate this criticism, a systematic review and meta-analysis were conducted to synthesize the literature examining the incremental validity of the 2 adult self-report forms of the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEIQue). Twenty-four articles reporting 114 incremental validity analyses of the TEIQue were reviewed according to the studies' methodological features. Additionally, data from 18 studies (providing 105 effect sizes) were pooled in a meta-analysis. Results suggest that the TEIQue consistently explains incremental variance in criteria pertaining to different areas of functioning, beyond higher order personality dimensions and other emotion-related variables. The pooled effect size was relatively small, but statistically and practically significant (ΔR(2) = .06, SE = .0116; 95% CI [.03, .08]). The number of covariates controlled for, the form of the TEIQue, and the focus on higher order personality dimensions versus other individual-difference constructs as baseline predictors did not affect the effect size. Analyses conducted at the factor level indicated that the incremental contribution is mainly due to the well-being and self-control factors of trait EI. Methodological issues and directions for future research are discussed

Incremental Validity of the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire-Adolescent Short Form (TEIQue-ASF)

This study examined the incremental validity of the adolescent short form of the Trait Emotional Questionnaire (TEIQue-ASF) in two European secondary-school samples. The TEIQue-ASF was administered as a predictor of socioemotional or academic achievement criteria, along with measures of coping strategies or cognitive ability, respectively. In Dutch high school students (N = 282), the TEIQue-ASF explained variance in all socioemotional criteria, controlling for coping strategies and demographics. In a sample of British preadolescents, the measure showed incremental contributions to academic achievement in the core areas (English, math, and science) of the English curriculum, controlling for cognitive ability subscales and gender (N = 357–491). Implications for the validity and applied utility of the TEIQue-ASF are discussed

Facet Benchmarking: Advanced application of a new instrument refinement method

This article presents an advanced application of Facet Benchmarking (FB), an instrument refinement method that sets out to identify redundant and extraneous facets (Siegling, Petrides, & Martskvishvili, 2015). FB uses external benchmarks to determine whether a measure's facets each occupy unique construct variance. In Study 1, three samples completed measures of dispositional mindfulness and an objectively derived set of construct-relevant criteria. A general factor extracted from these criteria was used to benchmark the measures' facets or subscales. Structural Equation Modelling, featuring a common latent (method) factor, was incorporated as an alternative statistical procedure, indicating that statistical or methodological artefacts were unlikely to account for the obtained results. Study 2 was conducted to cross-validate the results for a benchmark derived from a different set of criteria. The results support the method's robustness and efficacy

A Preliminary Investigation into Effects of Linguistic Abstraction on the Perception of Gender in Spoken Language

We investigated the role that linguistic abstraction may play in people's perceptions of gender in spoken language. In the first experiment, participants told stories about their best friend and romantic partner. Variations in linguistic abstraction and gender-linked adjectives for describing their close others were examined. Participants used significantly more abstract language to describe men compared to women, possibly reflecting a gender stereotype associated with the dispositionality factor of linguistic abstraction. In a second experiment, a new group of participants judged the gender of the protagonists from the stories generated in Experiment 1, after the explicit linguistic gender cues were removed. Consistent with the dispositionality factor, linguistic abstraction moderated the effects of the gender stereotypicality of the context (masculine, feminine, or neutral) on participants' gender judgments. Discussion focuses on the implications of the results for the communication of gender stereotypes and the effects of linguistic abstraction in more naturalistic language

Drive: Measurement of a Sleeping Giant

Effective strategies for increasing work motivation will consider person factors and individual differences. This article expands on the theory and construct of drive in the context of the development of a new inventory and concurrent validation of a short form. The results support the measurement of drive, which hitherto had not been explicitly defined and operationalized accordingly. Exploratory structural equation modeling recovered 3 oblique factors, labeled "passion," "effort," and "ideation." The instrument also evidenced reliability (internal consistency and test-retest), as well as convergent/ discriminant, predictive, and incremental validity. Consistency between 2 forms and with previous results strengthens the robustness of findings. Applications of drive theory and assessment in organizational and career contexts are discussed