Psychological Assessment

Development and psychometric evaluation of the Psychological Closeness to Suicide Methods Scale.
Psychological closeness to preferred suicide methods has consistently been linked to increased suicidal ideation, intent, and behaviors in past research. However, past work was limited by single-item measures. This study presents the development and validation of a multidimensional self-report measure of psychological closeness to preferred suicide methods. Samples of students (n = 489) and community-based adults (n = 278) with current suicidal ideation and/or a lifetime suicide attempt completed a series of self-report measures, including an item pool for the Psychological Closeness to Suicide Methods Scale. The Psychological Closeness to Suicide Methods Scale item pool was reduced from a pool of 54 items to 15 items, across four subscales, that are highly discriminant and of varying levels of difficulty. Measurement invariance was established across suicide attempt history, gender, and race/ethnicity, and convergent, discriminant, and incremental validity were examined. Distinct facets of psychological closeness were uniquely related to current suicidal ideation versus suicide attempt histories. Overall, these findings suggest that the Psychological Closeness to Suicide Methods Scale is a reliable, valid, and incrementally useful measure of multiple dimensions of psychological closeness to suicide methods. Clinical implications, limitations, and future research directions are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Validating the Proposed Specifiers for Conduct Disorder (PSCD) in Iranian justice-involved youths: A multi-informant study of parent and youth self-report versions.
The Proposed Specifiers for Conduct Disorder (PSCD) is a tool designed to measure psychopathy through its grandiose-manipulative, callous-unemotional, daring-impulsive, and conduct disorder subscales. The present study aimed to assess the psychometric properties of the PSCD’s parent and child self-report versions with a sample of 149 justice-involved youths (55% boys) and their parents (71% mothers) in Iran. Results indicated that both versions of the PSCD confirmed the originally proposed hierarchical four-factor structure. Internal consistency of both PSCD versions’ component scores was satisfactory, and correlations with theoretically related variables supported the PSCD scores’ validity. Also, good to excellent agreement between parent and child PSCD scores were found. The parent-report PSCD scores offered significant incremental validity over the child-version scores in predicting child-reported conduct problems, proactive aggression, and delinquency. Furthermore, both informant versions of the PSCD provided significant added values over an alternate measure of youth psychopathy in predicting externalizing psychopathology. The findings suggest that both versions of the PSCD are useful for assessing psychopathy subscales in Iranian justice-involved adolescents and hold promise for generating further research on this topic. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Assessing childhood and adolescent development of self-concepts via a self-referent encoding task.
Self-concept, which reflects individuals’ overarching views of themselves and their qualities, has been implicated in the development of depression. Studying developmental and sex differences in self-concept between middle childhood and mid-adolescence may speak to the processes by which early self-concept contributes to later depression risk; however, such an understanding requires valid assessment tools. We tested the measurement invariance of a widely used behavioral measure of self-concept, the Self-Referent Encoding Task (SRET), across sex and age from middle childhood (age 6) to mid-adolescence (age 15). Participants (n = 546) were assessed longitudinally four times over a 9-year follow-up at ages 6, 9, 12, and 15. The SRET showed measurement invariance, as well as moderate to high stability, across ages 9–15. Using findings of invariance to inform subsequent analyses of developmental differences in youth self-concept, we found that children’s negative self-concepts became increasingly negative from ages 9 to 15. Children’s positive self-concepts increased from ages 9 to 12 before decreasing to preadolescent levels of positivity from ages 12 to 15. We additionally found measurement invariance of the SRET across sex at ages 9, 12, and 15. No sex invariance was found at age 6. Boys and girls did not differ in positive or negative self-concept at age 9, 12, or 15. We make recommendations for the use of SRET indices in assessing youth self-concept. We also discuss implications for the developmental dynamics of youth self-concept across late childhood and adolescence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Development and validation of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment for People with Vision Impairment (MOCA-VI).
Vision impairment is common among older adults and affects dementia screening assessments, which include visually presented items. We developed and validated a version of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) for people with vision impairment that includes all the cognitive domains included in the standard MoCA. Visual components of the MoCA were adapted by developing alternative spoken forms. We used both individual item analysis and item substitution to identify the optimal set of alternative items for inclusion in the Montreal Cognitive Assessment for People With Vision Impairment (MoCA-VI) in place of the original items to maximize sensitivity and specificity for dementia. We evaluated the performance and reliability of the final tool, including adjustments for demographic factors. One hundred twenty-eight participants with vision impairment (presenting distance visual acuity worse than 6/12), 79 cognitively healthy and 49 with dementia, completed the adapted MoCA. An additional 86 participants with normal vision completed the standard MoCA and alternative items to assess score equivalence and independence from vision impairment. Twenty-six participants were retested 2–4 weeks after initial testing. With the optimal item set, the final MoCA-VI had an area under the curve of 0.96 (95% CI [0.93, 0.99]). At a cut point of 24 points or less, sensitivity was 95.9%, with a specificity of 92.4%. The intraclass correlation for test–retest reliability was 0.84 (95% CI [0.81, 0.96]). The MoCA-VI is a specific and reliable test for possible dementia among adults with vision impairment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Examining the factor structure of the nine-item Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder Screen in a national U.S. military veteran sample.
Disordered eating is a prevalent and relevant health concern that remains understudied among U.S. military veterans. Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) is a newly recognized feeding and eating disorder characterized by overly restrictive eating due to (a) picky eating, (b) lack of appetite, and (c) fear of aversive consequences related to eating. The Nine-Item ARFID Screen (NIAS) is a recently developed ARFID screening tool with initial validation studies demonstrating psychometric support. However, the psychometric properties of the NIAS have not been investigated in a veteran sample. To advance our understanding of ARFID screening tools that may be appropriate for use in veterans, the present study examined the factor structure of the NIAS using survey data from a large national sample of recently separated veterans (N = 1,486). Measurement invariance across key subgroups was tested in addition to exploring differential associations between the NIAS and related constructs. Results suggested that a three-factor model provided an excellent fit of the data and demonstrated scalar invariance across self-identified men and women, race and ethnicity, and sexual and gender minority (SGM) identity. Some subgroups had higher latent means on the picky eating (women, SGM, non-Hispanic Black), appetite (women, SGM), and fear (women) factors. The NIAS had some overlap with another measure of disordered eating and was moderately correlated with psychosocial impairment and mental health. Overall, the NIAS may be a useful screening tool for ARFID in veterans, given support for the three proposed subscales and equivalence across diverse identities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Theoretical limitations on mindreading measures: Commentary on Wendt et al. (2024).
In this Commentary article, we expand on issues in the theory of mind literature raised by Wendt et al. (2024) that limit progress in our understanding of how people read other minds. We critically assess how they categorized tasks in their study and, in so doing, raise deeper questions that need addressing: What exactly are mental states; how can we accurately measure mindreading when the “correct” answer lacks ground truth; and what are the contributions to individual differences in mindreading of general cognitive ability and specific experience in the kinds of minds being read? We conclude that developing a psychological theory of how people read other minds would advance ways in which we can better measure and explain what it means to be better or worse at mindreading and how general cognitive ability relates to this sociocognitive skill. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Points of contention in measure evaluation can arise from the use of divergent validity frameworks: A reply to Conway et al. (2025).
This reply to Conway et al. (2025) illustrates how points of contention in the evaluation of mindreading (or theory of mind) measures can arise from the use of divergent validity concepts. The construct validity model used in Wendt et al.’s (2024) empirical study contrasts with the perspective implicit in Conway and colleagues’ commentary, which is more consistent with Lennon’s (1956) content validity model. This is reflected in the authors’ conception of the nature of what is to be measured (i.e., the measurand), the criterion for what makes a measure superior (i.e., validity), and the proposed methods for judging this (i.e., validation). The mismatch between the validity concepts adopted by the respective authors has three major implications: First, Conway and colleagues’ critique does not fully address the specific goals, assumptions, and intricacies of construct validation methodology. Second, their approach to measuring mindreading should not be confused with, or considered as an alternative to, construct validation but is valuable in its own right. Third, the two validity frameworks mentioned offer unique opportunities for different phases of the research process. While a content validity approach can be valuable for describing an empirical phenomenon that seems worthy of explanation (e.g., real-world mindreading), a construct validity approach can identify the theoretical constructs that might help explain it (e.g., mindreading ability). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS-21) for Finnish-speaking adults: Validation and normative data.
We conducted the first validation of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS-21) in Finnish. DASS-21 is a short public domain questionnaire, which presents a way to quickly and effectively screen for mental ill health. We recruited two large samples, one aged 24–45 (N = 3,101 [2,488 women]), and the other aged 60–82 (N = 5,462 [4,473 women]), all employees of the city of Helsinki at inclusion (2017 and 2000–2002). DASS-21 measured depression, anxiety, stress, and general distress reliably among Finnish-speaking adults. It appeared invariant with age and gender as evinced by invariance analyses, latent mean comparisons, and an examination of psychometric properties for the subscales and individual items. The subscales negatively correlated with the Emotional Well-being subscale of the RAND-36, as expected. A comparison of five structural models using confirmatory factor analyses and a robust estimation method (weighted-least-squares method) showed a good fit for a one-factor solution. We discuss the use and interpretation of the DASS-21 as both a measure of specific affective symptoms and unidimensional general distress. We provide future researchers and clinicians with norms and estimates of measurement error among Finnish-speaking adults. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)

Psychological Assessment - Vol 37, Iss 3