Validation of the Approach-Avoidance Temperament Questionnaire in Individuals with Anxiety and Depression
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21352058 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Madeleine Rassaby (0000-0003-3306-525X, San Diego State University), Jeffrey M Rogers (0000-0001-8621-8948, San Diego State University), Charles T Taylor (0000-0002-2337-0392, San Diego State University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 107 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 114-126 |
| Publication date | 2025-01-02 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Personality Assessment (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-3891 • E-ISSN: 1532-7752 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/00223891.2024.2350466 |
| PMID | 38776435 |
| OpenAlex | W4398198794 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 62 |
The Approach-Avoidance Temperament Questionnaire (ATQ) is a well-established measure assessing heightened sensitivity and reactivity to reward/positive stimuli (approach temperament) and to punishment/negative stimuli (avoidance temperament). These basic dimensions of personality are believed to be important for understanding the etiology and maintenance of anxiety and depressive disorders. Despite the ATQ’s potential utility in clinical psychology research, its psychometric properties and factor structure have yet to be examined in a psychiatric sample. The aims of the present study were to 1) conduct confirmatory factor analysis to replicate the ATQ’s factor structure in individuals diagnosed with an anxiety or depressive disorder (N = 244), 2) assess internal consistency and convergent and divergent validity, and 3) explore differences in approach and avoidance temperaments in individuals with versus without a diagnosis of anxiety or depression. Results confirmed the original two-factor structure of the ATQ in a clinical sample, with approach and avoidance temperaments representing orthogonal dimensions. The measure demonstrated strong internal consistency, convergent and divergent validity, and predictive validity. Individuals with anxiety and depression scored higher on avoidance items and lower on approach items compared to those without clinical diagnoses. This study supports the use of the ATQ in clinical populations
Anxiety · Confirmatory factor analysis · Construct validity · Convergent validity · Developmental psychology · Internal consistency · Personality · Psychiatry · Psychometrics · Structural equation modeling · Temperament · Test validity · Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes · Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development · Clinical Psychology · Personality Disorders and Psychopathology · Psychology · Social Psychology
Research Domain Criteria (RDoC)
Reconsidering anhedonia in depression
Structural equation modelling
Tripartite model of anxiety and depression
Testing a tripartite model
The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness
Depression and the response of others.
The Nature, Diagnosis, and Treatment of Neuroticism
Measures of multivariate skewness and kurtosis with applications
The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (Panas)
Transdiagnostic approaches to mental health problems
A Review and Synthesis of the Measurement Invariance Literature
Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis
Ensuring Positiveness of the Scaled Difference Chi-square Test Statistic
Confirmatory factor analysis with ordinal data
In Search of Golden Rules
Mice
Making sense of Cronbach's alpha
A Scaled Difference Chi-Square Test Statistic for Moment Structure Analysis
Why Ordinal Variables Can (Almost) Always Be Treated as Continuous Variables
Approach and Avoidance Temperament as Basic Dimensions of Personality
Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect
Who emphasizes positivity? An exploration of emotion values in people of Latino, Asian, and European heritage living in the United States
Use Omega Rather than Cronbach’s Alpha for Estimating Reliability. But
Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests
Behavioral inhibition, behavioral activation, and affective responses to impending reward and punishment
Significance tests and goodness of fit in the analysis of covariance structures
Approach-avoidance motivation in personality
From alpha to omega
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |