The field interrater reliability of three assessment tools frequently used by mental health professionals when evaluating sex offenders' risk for reoffending--the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), the Minnesota Sex Offender Screening Tool-Revised (MnSOST-R) and the Static-99--was examined within the context of sexually violent predator…

The study of endophenotypes, notably with configured self-reports, represents a promising research pathway to overcome the limits of a syndromal approach of psychiatric diseases. The Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales (ANPS) is a self-report questionnaire, based on neuroethological considerations, that could help to assess emotional…

A fundamental dimension along which all social and personal relationships vary is closeness. The Unidimensional Relationship Closeness Scale (URCS) is a 12-item self-report scale measuring the closeness of social and personal relationships. The reliability and validity of the URCS were assessed with college dating couples (N = 192), female friends…

Given substantial interest in the traits conceived of as part of the "Dark Triad"--psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism--assessment of these traits is of great importance. The Dirty Dozen (DD; Jonason & Webster, 2010) is a brief measure of the Dark Triad constructs that uses 4 items to assess each of these constructs. In the present…

Although information about individuals' exposure to highly stressful events such as traumatic stressors is often very useful for clinicians and researchers, available measures are too long and complex for use in many settings. The Trauma History Screen (THS) was developed to provide a very brief and easy-to-complete self-report measure of exposure…

Agreement among informants' ratings of children's and adults' internalizing and externalizing problems is moderate. Each informant contributes unique information about an individual's problems. Thus, it has been advocated to obtain ratings from multiple sources in child psychiatry, whereas adult psychiatry relies mostly on self-reports.…

Of the several measures of optimism presently available in the literature, the Life Orientation Test (LOT; Scheier & Carver, 1985) has been the most widely used in empirical research. This article explores, confirms, and cross-validates the factor structure of the Chinese version of the LOT with ordinal data by using robust weighted least…

This study examined the reliability and validity of an expanded version of the Iowa Sleep Disturbances Inventory (ISDI; Koffel & Watson, 2010) in 2 samples (219 college students and 200 psychiatric patients). The expanded ISDI includes the scales Sleep Paralysis and Sleep Hallucinations. These scales, along with the Nightmares scale, help define a…

There has been an exponential increase of interest in the dark side of human nature during the last decade. To better understand this dark side, the authors developed and validated a concise, 12-item measure of the Dark Triad: narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism. In 4 studies involving 1,085 participants, they examined its structural…

Objective: To develop a youth form of the Motivators of and Barriers to Health-Smart Behaviors Inventory (MB-HSBI--Youth) for use in identifying self-reported motivators of and barriers to the following health-promoting behaviors (called "health-smart" behaviors): eating a healthy breakfast, eating healthy foods and snacks, drinking healthy…

We examined the psychometric properties of the Novaco Anger Scale--Provocation Inventory (NAS-PI, 1994 version) in Dutch violent forensic psychiatric patients and secondary vocational students. A confirmatory factor analysis of the subscale structure of the NAS was carried out, reliability was investigated, and relations were calculated between…

The Severity Indices of Personality Problems (SIPP-118; Verheul et al., 2008) is a self-report questionnaire focusing on core components of (mal)adaptive personality functioning. The SIPP-118 was developed and validated in an adult population. In adult populations, the 16 facets of the SIPP-118 fit into 5 higher order domains: self-control,…

An Inventory of Interpersonal Strengths (IIS) was developed and validated in a series of large college student samples. Based on interpersonal theory and associated methods, the IIS was designed to assess positive characteristics representing the full range of interpersonal domains, including those generally thought to have negative qualities…

Five independent studies were used to test the hypothesis that a reliable 2-factor structure underlies the Reactive-Proactive Aggression Questionnaire (RPQ) items and that the 2 scales show distinct patterns of association with personality and bullying behavior measures. Study 1 (N = 1,447) gave evidence of a clear 2-factor structure of RPQ items…

The Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS; Goodman, Price, Rasmussen, Mazure, Delgado, et al., 1989) is acknowledged as the gold standard measure of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) symptom severity. A number of areas where the Y-BOCS may benefit from revision have emerged in past psychometric studies of the Severity Scale and Symptom…