Development of an instrument to assess personality adaptations

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop an instrument to measure six basic personality adaptations and to assess the instrument's reliability. The adaptations represent what I believe to be the basic underlying personality adaptations common to all individuals, and offer an important guide to treatment. An initial instrument of 195 items was constructed and administered to 268 clients of mental health professionals in various clinical settings (mental health clinics, private practice etc.). A goal was to reduce the original instrument to about 72 items. A reliability analysis was used to select items with moderate inter-item correlations ranging from 0.150 to 0.400. Each of the six scales measured one and only one adaptation reality. A factor analysis produced evidence for the existence of four of the adaptations. The final instrument contained 72 items made up of six scales of 12 items each with internal reliability ranging from .66 to .84 as measured by Cronbach's coefficient alpha. The instrument remains experimental with additional work needed to establish its overall reliability and validity.