Assessment, Statistics, and Research

Taya Cohen of Carnegie Mellon University has made the Guilt and Shame Proneness Scale (GASP) available online. Here’s what Dr. Cohen said about the scale in 2011. I’ll include a link to the full scale below. The Guilt and Shame Proneness scale (GASP) measures individual differences in the propensity to experience guilt and shame across a range of personal transgressions. The GASP contains four four ‐ item subscales: Guilt ‐ Negative ‐ Behavior ‐ Evaluation (Guilt ‐ NBE), Guilt ‐ Repair, Shame ‐ Negative ‐ Self ‐ Evaluation (Shame ‐ NSE), and Shame ‐ Withdraw. Each item on the GASP is rated on a 7-point scale from 1 = very unlikely to 7 = very likely. Here’s an example of an item from the GASP scale. _____ 1. After realizing you have received too much change at a store, you decide to keep it because the salesclerk doesn't notice. What is the likelihood that you would feel uncomfortable about keeping the money? Information about reliability, validity, a...

Psychologists assess shame as one of a few measures of self-conscious emotions. In addition to shame, the list includes embarrassment, guilt, humiliation, and pride. As with many measures of person characteristics, there are measures of traits or dispositions and measures of states.  State shame is a temporary emotion such as a state of shame following a specific act that has been made public. Trait shame is a durable condition, which means a person experiences shame for a period of time in multiple settings. The classic measure of shame is the TOSCA (Test of Self-Conscious Affect. The TOSCA, developed by June P. Tangney , is now in its third edition and includes versions for adolescents (TOSCA-A) and children (TOSCA-C; Tangney & Dearing, 2002). People taking the TOSCA read a scenario and provide a response.  The TOSCA-3 is a 16-item scale. The responses reflect different ways to respond to a situation, which yield six dimensions of shame:  1. shame-...

The PCL-5 is a 20-item self-report checklist of symptoms that can help clinicians screen patients for PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). The scale can assist in making a diagnosis and in monitoring change during and after treatment. The VA site suggests the scale can be completed in 5-10 minutes. The scores range from 0 to 80. The items are organized according to DSM-5 clusters. Scale availability link Weathers, F.W., Litz, B.T., Keane, T.M., Palmieri, P.A., Marx, B.P., & Schnurr, P.P. (2013). The PTSD Checklist for  DSM-5  (PCL-5). Scale available from the National Center for PTSD at  www.ptsd.va.gov . Web link detail:  https://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/assessment/adult-sr/ptsd-checklist.asp Resource Link:  A – Z Test Index Applied Statistics for Counselors:   Buy on Amazon References (PCL-5) Blevins, C. A., Weathers, F. W., Davis, M. T., Witte, T. K., & Domino, J. L. (2015). The Posttraumatic Stre...

What are the leading causes of death in the United States? Based on what you have read or learned from news sources, what did you expect to see in the top five? If you thought of one that is missing, perhaps it is in the top 10. Still, when you look at the numbers, you may be surprised to learn how few people die in a given year, given the size of the US population. My point in this post is that we ought to examine total data instead of being guided by the headlines of news stories and misleading charts when we want to understand a health or social condition. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , the five leading causes of death in 2017 were heart disease, cancer, unintentional injury, chronic lower respiratory disease, and stroke. The report includes more causes, but I chose the top five based on the deaths per 100,000 U.S. standard population. When you add the numbers for the five causes, you find the top five causes of death accounted for 445 peo...

So many people are creating surveys in schools, government agencies, and major corporations. Some are better than others. Here are seven tips. 1  Stay focused on your goal.  Avoid asking everything you can think of on a subject. Unfortunately, I've been on project teams that would not heed this advice. Participants get frustrated and leave surveys incomplete. 2  Ask only one question at a time. Have someone look at your items to see if they are confused about what you are asking. 3  Use easy-to-understand language. Know your audience and how they use language. Again, ask a few people to check your wording. 4  Write well. Some participants will drop out of your survey when they identify misspelled words, common punctuation errors, and problems of grammar. 5  Cover all possible answers. If you aren't sure you have listed every option, then add an "other" option with a place to write in another response. This may lessen the frustration of p...

The Modified Parenting Scale is a shortened version of the Parenting Scale developed by Arnold, O'Leary, Wolff, & Acker ( 1993 ). The 2007 study by Prinzie, Onghena, and Hellinckx revealed two dimensions, which are overreactivity and laxness. The reliability data were reported as acceptable to good in this sample of more than 1000 parents. There is some evidence of predictive validity. Inadequate parenting was positively related to problem behavior on the Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach- See ASEBA for details) and stress as measured by the Parenting Stress Index (Dutch version; See Doll 1989 for a review). The full version can be found on PsycTESTS . There are 20 items, which are rated on 7-point Likert scales. Ad... Learn more about conduting surveys in Creating Surveys on AMAZON Item Examples Laxness items 16 When my child does something I don’t like . . . I do something about it every time it happens – I often let it go. 12 When I w...

The Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale (KMSS) is a frequently used short measure of relationship quality. using just three items, the KMSS has yielded highly reliable and validity data. Internal consistency (alpha) values were in the 90s range (see for example Schumm et al., 2008) . Validity data were also adequate when the KMSS was compared with longer measures like the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS; see for example Schumm et al., 1986 ). The scale was developed by Walter R. Schumm of Kansas State University. See additional references below. The scale may be used for educational and research purposes without permission. Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale (KMSS): 3-items Items are rated on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (extremely dissatisfied) to 7 (extremely satisfied). 1.       How satisfied are you with your marriage? 2.       How satisfied are you with your husband/wife as a spouse? 3.    ...