@article{ref1,
title="Quantifying dispositional fear as threat sensitivity: development and initial validation of a model-based scale measure",
journal="Assessment",
year="2019",
author="Kramer, Mark D. and Patrick, Christopher J. and Hettema, John M. and Moore, Ashlee A. and Sawyers, Chelsea K. and Yancey, James R.",
volume="ePub",
number="ePub",
pages="1073191119837613-1073191119837613",
abstract="The Research Domain Criteria initiative aims to reorient the focus of psychopathology research toward biobehavioral constructs that cut across different modalities of measurement, including self-report and neurophysiology. Constructs within the Research Domain Criteria framework are intentionally transdiagnostic, with the construct of &quot;acute threat,&quot; for example, broadly relevant to clinical problems and associated traits involving fearfulness and stress reactivity. A potentially valuable referent for research on the construct of acute threat is a structural model of fear/fearlessness questionnaires known to predict variations in physiological threat reactivity as indexed by startle potentiation. The aim of the current work was to develop an efficient, item-based scale measure of the general factor of this structural model for use in studies of dispositional threat sensitivity and its relationship to psychopathology. A self-report scale consisting of 44 items from a conceptually relevant, nonproprietary questionnaire was first developed in a sample of 1,307 student participants, using the general factor of the fear/fearlessness model as a direct referent. This new Trait Fear scale was then evaluated for convergent and discriminant validity with measures of personality and psychopathology in a separate sample ( n = 213) consisting of community adults and undergraduate students. The strong performance of the scale in this criterion-validation sample suggests that it can provide an effective means for indexing variations along a dispositional continuum of fearfulness reflecting variations in sensitivity to acute threat.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="1073-1911",
doi="10.1177/1073191119837613",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1073191119837613"
}