Psychological Assessment

Introducing the Narcissistic Antagonism Scale: A missing puzzle piece in the assessment of momentary narcissism.
Narcissism is a relatively stable personality trait, which is most accurately described by three facets: agentic, antagonistic, and neurotic. Existing studies support the central role of antagonistic narcissism and its role in explaining the process of fluctuation in narcissism. However, there is a lack of a suitable adjective-based measure of antagonistic narcissism, resulting in intensive longitudinal studies assessing only agentic and neurotic narcissism. To address this gap and to advance research on fluctuations in narcissism, this article introduces the Narcissistic Antagonism Scale (NAS). Across six studies (total N = 1,862; k = 14,927 observations), we establish the NAS’s factorial, convergent, and divergent validity; reliability; and temporal stability. The three-factor model of narcissism, including antagonistic aspects, reproduces and proves to be invariant across daily and momentary perspectives. The NAS exhibits good psychometric properties at both between- and within-person levels. It is a valuable addition for intensive longitudinal studies and facilitates a nuanced examination of narcissistic states across diverse contexts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
The Hypersensitive Narcissism Scale: Updated and extended construct validation in community samples using a newly constructed German version.
The Hypersensitive Narcissism Scale (HSNS) is a an economical, widely used self-report measure of vulnerable narcissism. Developed and mostly used as a unidimensional scale, previous structural examinations suggest two correlated dimensions, one emphasizing hypersensitive/neurotic aspects and the other highlighting egocentric/antagonistic aspects of vulnerable narcissism. The few extant factor analyses of the HSNS, however, differ profoundly in their methodological approach, the resulting item-to-factor assignment, and lack a thorough validation of the two putative subscales. To fill these gaps, we systematically examined and compared alternative measurement models for the HSNS and conducted comprehensive correlation analyses to map the proposed HSNS dimensions onto current models of general personality, narcissism, and psychopathology. In a first study, we constructed a German adaptation using data from three large samples (accumulated N = 3,655). In-depth examination of this German HSNS (Study 2, N = 1,359) confirmed the dimensions Oversensitivity and Egocentrism and suggested at least metric model invariance across gender and age. The two dimensions displayed distinct nomological nets and differed with respect to various personality traits, personality pathology markers, the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology, and psychological (mal-)adjustment. HSNS-Oversensitivity corresponds with measures of neurotic narcissism and predicts internalizing pathology and intrapersonal dysfunctions, whereas Egocentrism overlaps with antagonistic narcissism, low agreeableness, and externalizing problems. Taken together, our research reconciles the HSNS with other multidimensional narcissism measures as well as current dimensional models of personality and psychopathology and attests to its utility to capture vulnerable narcissistic traits at a finer grained level. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Using natural spline models to explore the trajectories of empirically derived domains of premenstrual symptoms.
Premenstrual symptoms are distressing and impairing for individuals and costly to society. These symptoms are heterogeneous within and across people, dimensional, and dynamic. While some efforts have been made to understand the trajectories of premenstrual symptoms, two major gaps in the literature remain. First, we lack understanding of the covariation among symptoms over the course of the menstrual cycle. Second, we know little about the trajectories of these symptoms and why symptoms might take different courses. To address these gaps, a sample of female undergraduates (N = 85) who reported no use of hormonal birth control and regularly occurring menstrual periods were recruited for a 4-month-long electronic daily diary study of premenstrual symptoms. We explored the covariation of symptoms over the cycle by conducting a multilevel exploratory factor analysis of the daily diary items. We identified six distinct but correlated symptom domains at the within-person level which were affective, cognitive, interpersonal, pain, and somatic. Next, we characterized the trajectories of each symptom domain using multilevel natural spline models and their first/second derivatives. Somatic symptoms increased/decreased more sharply and quickly than other symptom domains, pointing to a unique trajectory. Interpersonal and affective symptoms, on the other hand, were milder throughout. We demonstrated the importance of investigating the differences among symptom domain trajectories and underscored the need for future research to elucidate the unique mechanisms that underlie each trajectory. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Validation of a transdiagnostic psychopathology ecological momentary assessment protocol in a university student sample.
Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) collects real-time data in daily life, enhancing ecological validity and reducing recall bias. An EMA questionnaire that measures symptoms and transdiagnostic factors was recently developed with network modeling purposes. This study examines this EMA protocol’s (a) subjective experience (e.g., burden, item clarity, survey frequency adequacy); (b) compliance, dropout, and predictors thereof; (c) the variability of EMA items across and within participants; and (d) the relations between EMA items and baseline standardized psychopathology questionnaires. University students (n = 262, Mage = 21.9, 84.8% females, 17.2% Dutch) completed eight daily momentary surveys (with the first including the morning survey), an evening survey, and a weekly survey during a 4-week EMA protocol. Additionally, a concluding survey examined participants’ subjective experiences. Perceived burden was 3.40 on a 7-point scale, and people with higher levels of psychopathology found it more burdensome and more difficult to complete. Moreover, 67% of the surveys were completed, and 16% of the participants dropped out. Baseline psychopathology was not significantly associated with dropout or compliance. Moreover, surveys triggered in later study days, during the weekend, longer surveys, and surveys with lower financial reward were more likely to be missed. Between-subjects and within-subjects variability and correlations with baseline psychopathology varied across EMA items, with most EMA items showing sufficient within-individual variability for network modeling purposes and showing correlations across all types of psychopathology and transdiagnostic factors. The results suggest that the collection of intensive time-series data is feasible, and data quality and characteristics match requirements of different network models. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Measuring eating behavior and motivations in the United Arab Emirates and the United States: Evaluating measurement and predictive invariance of the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire–Short Form and the Eating Motivation Survey.
Considerable proportions of college students in White, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic countries, such as the United States, suffer from eating disorders and other problematic eating behaviors. The prevalence of eating disorders in Western Asia has been historically low but is rapidly increasing. One of the most dramatic increases is occurring in the United Arab Emirates. Advancements in eating disorder research and intervention that would benefit college students in the United Arab Emirates are inhibited by the lack of psychometrically sound measures of eating behaviors and motivations that have been empirically demonstrated to perform well in this population. The present study took initial steps in filling this need by evaluating the measurement and predictive invariance of the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire–Short Form and The Eating Motivation Survey using college student samples from the United Arab Emirates (n = 366) and United States (n = 317), followed by a series of cross-country comparisons. Results offer important evidence supporting the measurement invariance of both instruments and the predictive invariance of the The Eating Motivation Survey when used to predict scores on the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire–Short Form. Although no significant cross-country differences in eating disorder features and behaviors were found, some cross-country differences in eating motivations were observed. Similar eating motivations emerged in both countries as possible protective and risk factors for eating disorders. The implications of these findings for eating disorder assessment and practice are discussed, along with their implications for theory and research on eating motivations, nutritional health, and people’s relationships with food. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Validation and cross-sample consistency of Chinese Five-Factor Narcissism Inventory (FFNI) in community and offender samples.
Three-factor models of narcissism (Agentic, Neurotic, and Antagonistic Narcissism) have gained widespread recognition in the field. The Five-Factor Narcissism Inventory (FFNI) stands out as the most comprehensive and only tool to date that assesses all three narcissism domains. However, its validation in Chinese culture and forensic contexts remains largely unexplored. With community (N = 578) and offender (N = 726) samples from China, we examined 60-, 30-, and 15-item versions of the Chinese FFNI in terms of internal structure, external associates, and consistency across samples and versions. Our findings demonstrate acceptable internal consistencies and structural validity of each version of the Chinese FFNI, albeit with minor deviations in the Neurotic Narcissism factor. The FFNI demonstrated good cross-sample and cross-version consistency. These results suggest the utility of the FFNI in Chinese samples and suggest some comparability across community and offender groups. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)

Psychological Assessment - Vol 37, Iss 1-2