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The 7C of the vaccination readiness scale measures the 7 psychological components that structure people's vaccination readiness. We aimed to develop the Japanese version of this scale (7C scale Japanese version) and to assess its validity and reliability.The full and short versions of 7C scale Japanese were developed based on translation guidelines provided by the ISPOR Task Force. An Internet survey, including 709 participants, was performed to assess the scale's validity and reliability within a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) framework (men: 38.8%, age range: 20-92 years). Invariance analysis using multiple-group CFA was conducted to test cross-cultural validity between participants in this study and those in the 7C original version study. McDonald's omega and intraclass correlation coefficient were calculated to evaluate internal consistency and test-retest reliability, respectively. To clarify the criterion validity, regression analysis, with previous COVID-19 vaccination status as the dependent variable, was performed to calculate pseudo RThe 7C scale Japanese version exhibited good content validity, structural validity, configural invariance, and criterion validity. The results showed good internal consistency, and test-retest reliability, except for the "calculation" component.7C scale Japanese version exhibited acceptable reliability and validity; however, "calculation" may be a less reliable subscale.

To reach high vaccination rates against COVID-19, children and adolescents should be also vaccinated. To improve childhood vaccination rates and vaccination readiness, parents need to be addressed since they decide about the vaccination of their children. We adapted the 7C of vaccination readiness scale to measure parents’ readiness to vaccinate their children and evaluated the scale in a long and a short version in two studies. The study was first evaluated with a sample of N = 244 parents from the German COVID-19 Snapshot Monitoring (COSMO) and validated with N = 464 parents from the Danish COSMO. The childhood 7C scale showed acceptable to good psychometric properties in both samples and explained more than 80% of the variance in vaccination intentions. Additionally, differences in parents’ readiness to vaccinate their children against COVID-19 were strongly determined by their readiness to vaccinate themselves, explaining 64% of the variance. Vaccination readiness and intentions for children changed as a function of the children's age explaining 93% of differences between parents in their vaccination intentions for their children. Finally, we found differences in correlations of components with self- versus childhood vaccination, as well as between the children's age groups in the prediction of vaccination intentions. Thus, parents need to be targeted in specifically tailored ways, based on the age of their child, to reach high vaccination rates in children. The scale is publicly available in several languages (www.vaccination-readiness.com).

Mindfulness is defined inconsistently, and its various measures resemble established personality self-report scales. Therefore, jingle and jangle fallacies are likely to undermine the construct’s utility. To address these issues, we conducted two studies to test three hurdles of validity: 1) a sound definition and measurement model, 2) empirical distinctiveness, and 3) incremental criterion validity. We established an overarching and inclusive mindfulness definition covering twelve aspects. Based on this definition, we used an item sampling algorithm to select items from eight mindfulness scales. We established an eclectic bi-factor and a single-factor model, both fitting the data well. Bivariate latent variable correlations between a single mindfulness factor and big-five/six personality factors reached up to .68. Although 50% of mindfulness' variance was unaccounted for by the personality factors, it provided no meaningful incremental criterion validity over personality factors. Our results indicate that mindfulness has little or no incremental utility above established personality factors.

Face processing—a crucial social ability—is known to be carried out in multiple dedicated brain regions which form a distinguishable network. Previous studies on face processing mainly targeted the functionality of face-selective grey matter regions. Thus, it is still partly unknown how white matter structures within the face network underpins abilities in this domain. Furthermore, how relevant abilities modulate the relationship between face-selective and global fibers remains to be discovered. Here, we aimed to fill these gaps by exploring linear and non-linear associations between microstructural properties of brain fibers (namely fractional anisotropy, mean diffusivity, axial and radial diffusivity) and face processing ability. Using structural equation modeling, we found significant linear associations between specific properties of fibers in the face network and face processing ability in a young adult sample (N = 1025) of the Human Connectome Project. Furthermore, individual differences in the microstructural properties of the face processing brain system tended toward stronger differentiation from global brain fibers with increasing ability. This is especially the case in the low or high ability range. Overall, our study provides novel evidence for ability-dependent specialization of brain structure in the face network, which promotes a comprehensive understanding of face selectivity.

Abstract. Conventional self-report measures are prone to response biases, which distort measurement in any applied assessment. The forced-choice (FC) format was proposed as a potential remedy for these biases. The purpose of these studies was to develop and evaluate a FC questionnaire for the occupational context based on the five factor model of personality. A single-stimulus Likert questionnaire was contextualized for occupational settings and psychometrically optimized in Study 1 ( N = 401). Considering optimal design strategies, we subsequently used this questionnaire to construct and validate a FC questionnaire in Study 2 ( N = 517). Methodological add-ons to established approaches were applied to achieve decent confirmatory model fit. The new questionnaire shows good psychometric qualities and strong validity. We make suggestions for further applications and studies.

Socio-emotional abilities have been proposed as an extension to models of intelligence, but earlier measurement approaches have either not fulfilled criteria of ability measurement or have covered only predominantly receptive abilities. We argue that faking ability—the ability to adjust responses on questionnaires to present oneself in a desired manner—is a socio-emotional ability that can broaden our understanding of these abilities and intelligence in general. To test this theory, we developed new instruments to measure the ability to fake bad (malingering) and administered them jointly with established tests of faking good ability in a general sample of n = 134. Participants also completed multiple tests of emotion perception along with tests of emotion expression posing, pain expression regulation, and working memory capacity. We found that individual differences in faking ability tests are best explained by a general factor that had a large correlation with receptive socio-emotional abilities and had a zero to medium-sized correlation with different productive socio-emotional abilities. All correlations were still small after controlling these effects for shared variance with general mental ability as indicated by tests of working memory capacity. We conclude that faking ability is indeed correlated meaningfully with other socio-emotional abilities and discuss the implications for intelligence research and applied ability assessment, publishedVersion

The ability to express emotion is considered a core socioemotional skill; however, most research is focused on receptive abilities, with little investigation of productive abilities. We present an investigation of individual differences in facial expression of emotion using observational techniques. Given descriptions of highly psychopathic persons as successful liars and manipulators, we investigate the ability to intentionally pose emotional expressions when no emotion is elicited. A mixed sample of adult men (N = 316 community volunteers, prison inmates, and forensic-psychiatric patients) ranging along the psychopathy continuum were asked to facially express a nonfelt emotion, specifically anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise, through either written instructions or through imitation of a target's facial expression. Through structural equation modeling, we evaluate relations between this emotion expression ability and general mental ability, interpersonal abilities, and psychopathy. We find that psychopathy is moderately associated with poorer emotion expression ability, meaning highly psychopathic individuals are poorer at imitating the expressions of others and poorer at expressing all emotions. However, this deficit is largely attributable to deficits in general mental ability. These results challenge the view that highly psychopathic individuals have the cognitive skills to support a superior ability to deceive or manipulate others. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Abstract. Although vaccines are among the most effective interventions used in fighting diseases, vaccination readiness varies substantially among individuals. Vaccination readiness is defined as a set of components that increase or decrease AN individual’s likelihood of getting vaccinated. Building on earlier work that distinguished five components of vaccination readiness (confidence, complacency, constraints, calculation, and collective responsibility), we revised the questionnaire used to measure these components to improve its psychometric properties, specifically criterion validity. In doing so, we also developed two new components of vaccination readiness: compliance and conspiracy. Compliance is the tendency to support monitoring to control adherence to regulations; conspiracy is the tendency to endorse conspiratorial beliefs about vaccination. The newly introduced 7C scale was initially piloted in a cascade of serial cross-sectional studies and then validated with N = 681 participants from the COVID-19 Snapshot Monitoring in Denmark. We report a bifactor measurement model, convergent validity with other questionnaires, and an explanation of 85% variance in the willingness to vaccinate against COVID-19. We also present a 7-item short version of the scale. The instrument is publicly available in several languages ( www.vaccination-readiness.com ), and we seek collaboration to provide translations of our instrument into other languages.

Abstract. In the present study, we investigated individual differences in the motivation for Facebook use. In total N = 736 participants from Europe and Asia took part in the study. They filled in the Facebook questionnaire (FQ), including the two factors Attitude toward Facebook and Online Sociability, and the Unified Motive Scale (UMS-3), measuring the motives Achievement, Affiliation, Intimacy, Power, and Fear. The results showed that the Attitude toward Facebook was more positive in the subsample from Asia, but no differences could be found between the Asian and European sample with respect to the frequency of use of different activities on Facebook. The motives Fear, Power, Affiliation, and Intimacy significantly predicted the FQ factor Attitudes. Furthermore, the Attitude toward Facebook mediated the associations between the motives Power/Affiliation and Online Sociability. However, these results were only found for the European sample. The associations found suggest the important role of different motives such as Power/Affiliation for the study of Facebook use. The present work shows the possibility of motivational factors for Facebook use to differ depending on the culture. The study adds to the literature by investigating a classic motivation theory in the context of Facebook use.

Zusammenfassung. In diesem Beitrag werden wir Vor- und Nachteile onlinebasierter Leistungsprüfung thematisieren und ihre Anwendung zur Diagnostik von Lernstörungen diskutieren. Wir führen zunächst die Diagnosekriterien von Lernstörungen ein und setzen in der Folge etwaige defizitäre Leistungen bei den Betroffenen in einen Zusammenhang zu Intelligenzleistungen. Wir stellen fest, dass die Abwägungen der Validität onlinebasierter Intelligenzprüfungen ebenso für die Diagnostik beeinträchtigter Leistungen bei Lernstörungen gelten. Schließlich diskutieren wir Unterschiede herkömmlicher und onlinebasierter Testungen und folgern, dass onlinebasierte Leistungsprüfung zwar Vorteile bietet und sich als Screeninginstrument oder zur Verlaufsbeobachtung eignet, jedoch aufgrund von Antwortverzerrungen – bewusster Natur oder durch Störfaktoren in der Umwelt – nicht zur Stellung einer Initialdiagnose oder zur finalen Evaluation einer Intervention eingesetzt werden kann.

In this paper, we respond to comments by Neff et al. (2018) made about our finding that the negative dimensions of self-compassion were redundant with facets of neuroticism (rs ≥ .85; Pfattheicher et al., 2017) and not incrementally valid. We first provide epistemological guidance for establishing psychological constructs, namely three hurdles that new constructs must pass: theoretically and empirically sound measurement, discriminant validity, and incremental validity – and then apply these guidelines to the self-compassion scale (SCS). We then outline that the critique of Neff et al. (2018) is contestable. We question their decisions concerning data-analytic methods, that help them to circumvent instead of passing the outlined hurdles. In a reanalysis of the data provided by Neff et al. (2018), we point to several conceptual and psychometric problems and conclude that self-compassion does not overcome the outlined hurdles. Instead, we show that our initial critique of the SCS holds and that its dimensions are best considered facets of neuroticism., acceptedVersion

Supporting info item, per2168-sup-0001-Open_Practices_Disclosure_Form for Self–Compassion as A Facet of Neuroticism? A Reply to the Comments of Neff, TóTh–KiráLy, and Colosimo (2018) by Geiger Mattis, Pfattheicher Stefan, Hartung Johanna, Weiss Selina, Schindler Simon, Wilhelm Oliver and Kandler Christian in European Journal of Personality

Supporting info item, per2097-sup-0002-supplementary for Old Wine in New Bottles? The Case of Self–Compassion and Neuroticism by Kandler ChristianDr., Pfattheicher Stefan, Geiger Mattis, Hartung Johanna, Weiss Selina and Schindler Simon in European Journal of Personality

The assessment of pain relies mostly on methods that require a person to communicate. However, for people with cognitive and verbal impairments, existing methods are not sufficient as they lack reliability and validity. To approach this problem, recent research focuses on an objective pain assessment facilitated by parameters of responses derived from physiology, and video and audio signals. To develop reliable automated pain recognition systems, efforts have been made in creating multimodal databases in order to analyze pain and detect valid pain patterns. While the results are promising, they only focus on discriminating pain or pain intensities versus no pain. In order to advance this, research should also consider the quality and duration of pain as they provide additional valuable information for more advanced pain management. To complement existing databases and the analysis of pain regarding quality and length, this paper proposes a psychophysiological experiment to elicit, measure, and collect valid pain reactions. Participants are subjected to painful stimuli that differ in intensity (low, medium, and high), duration (5 s / 1 min), and modality (heat / electric pain) while audio, video (e.g., facial expressions, body gestures, facial skin temperature), and physiological signals (e.g., electrocardiogram [ECG], skin conductance level [SCL], facial electromyography [EMG], and EMG of M. trapezius) are being recorded. The study consists of a calibration phase to determine a subject's individual pain range (from low to intolerable pain) and a stimulation phase in which pain stimuli, depending on the calibrated range, are applied. The obtained data may allow refining, improving, and evaluating automated recognition systems in terms of an objective pain assessment. For further development of such systems and to investigate pain reactions in more detail, additional pain modalities such as pressure, chemical, or cold pain should be included in future studies. Recorded data of this study will be released as the "X-ITE Pain Database".

Environmental knowledge has been established as a behavior-distal, but necessary antecedent of pro-environmental behavior. The magnitude of its effect is difficult to estimate due to methodological deficits and variability of measures proposed in the literature. This paper addresses these methodological issues with an updated, comprehensive and objective test of environmental knowledge spanning a broad variety of current environment related topics. In a multivariate study (n = 214), latent data modeling was employed to explore the internal factor structure of environmental knowledge, its relationship with general knowledge and explanatory power on pro-environmental behavior. We tested competing factor models and uncovered a general factor of environmental knowledge. The main novel finding of the study concerns its relationship with general knowledge. Employing an established test of general knowledge to measure crystallized intelligence revealed a near perfect relationship between environmental and general knowledge. This general knowledge (including the environmental domain) accounted for 7% of the variance in environmentally significant behavior. Age, additionally to acquired education, emerged as a common predictor for both general knowledge and environmentally significant behavior. We discuss the consequences of the strong relation between general and environmental knowledge and provide a possible explanation for the positive age-environmental conservation relationship reported in the literature.

Research on self–compassion, which is defined as being understanding and kind to oneself when confronted with negative experiences, has produced an impressive number of articles in recent years. This research shows that individual differences in self–compassion, as measured by the Self–Compassion Scale (SCS), are positively related to life satisfaction, health and social functioning. However, a critical and systematic test of self–compassion from a personality perspective has not yet conducted so far. In the present study ( N = 576), we (i) tested the factor structure of the SCS, (ii) examined the distinctiveness of self–compassion with regard to the five–factor model of personality, focusing on neuroticism, and (iii) tested the incremental predictive power of self–compassion beyond the five–factor model in the context of life satisfaction. Confirmatory factor analyses supported a two–factor plus six facets solution of self–compassion (a positive factor and a negative factor). Additional analyses revealed that the negative factor was redundant with facets of neuroticism ( rs ≥ .85), whereas the positive factor had some unique variance left. However, neither the negative factor nor the positive factor could explain substantial incremental variance in life satisfaction beyond neuroticism. Recommendations for how to use the SCS are provided, and the future of research on self–compassion is discussed. Copyright © 2017 European Association of Personality Psychology

Facial emotion expressions are an important gateway for studying human emotions. For many decades, this research was limited to human ratings of arousal and valence of emotional expressions. Such ratings are very time-consuming and have limited objectivity due to rater biases. By exploiting improvements in machine learning, the demand for a swifter and more objective method to assess facial emotional expressions was met by a plethora of software. These novel approaches are based on theories of human perception and emotion and their algorithms are often trained with massive and almost-generalizable data bases. However, they still face limitations such as 2D recognition and cultural biases. Nevertheless, the accuracy of computerized emotion recognition software has surpassed human raters in many cases. Consequently, such software has become instrumental in psychological research and has delivered remarkable findings, e.g. on human emotional abilities and dynamic expressions. Furthermore, recent developments for mobile devices have introduced such software into daily life, allowing for the immediate and ambulatory assessment of facial emotion expression. These trends provide intriguing new opportunities for studying human emotions, such as photograph-based experience sampling, incidental or implicit data recording in interventions, and many more.

In light of Jaswal & Akhtar's compelling argument, we argue there should instead be more focus on deficits in socio-emotional abilities. However, current research is limited by the psychometric problems with most measures. We discuss specific problems, outlining examples for theory of mind. We conclude with recommendations for new lines of research derived from findings in the individual differences literature.

The meta-analytic finding that faking does not affect the criterion validity of self-report measures in applicant selection suggests cognitive abilities are crucial to fake personality to an expected optimal profile in self-report measures. Previous studies in this field typically focus on how the extent of faking changes self-report measurement. However, the effect of faking ability is rarely considered. In Study 1 (n = 151), we link two questionnaires, the WSQ and the NEO-PI-R, to use them for later faking ability tasks. With O���NET expert ratings and the linked questionnaires, we establish veridical responses of optimal personality profiles for both questionnaires. Based on this, in Study 2, we develop six faking ability task employing both questionnaires and three common jobs to fake for. To score the tasks, we introduce profile similarity metrics that compare faked response vectors to optimal profile vectors. The faking ability tasks were administered to a community sample (n = 210) who additionally completed measures of cognitive abilities, namely general mental ability, crystallized intelligence, and interpersonal abilities. For all, based on previous research, it can be argued that they should predict individual differences in faking ability. We establish a measurement model of faking ability and its relation to the other cognitive abilities. Using structural equations modeling, we find the strongest effect for crystallized intelligence and weaker effects for general mental ability and interpersonal abilities, all positively predicting faking ability. We show for the first time that we can measure faking ability with psychometrically sound techniques, establish a confirmatory factor model of faking ability and that it is largely explained by other cognitive abilities. We conclude that research supporting a positive link between self-reported personality and job performance is presumably confounded by cognitive abilities, because they are predictive of both faking self-reported personality and job performance. We recommend researchers to broaden their measurements with assessments of faking ability or other cognitive abilities (besides general mental ability) in research regarding applicant selection., publishedVersion

Individual differences in lie detection remain poorly understood. Bond and DePaulo's meta-analysis examined judges (receivers) who were ascertaining lies from truths and senders (deceiver) who told these lies and truths. Bond and DePaulo found that the accuracy of detecting deception depended more on the characteristics of senders rather than the judges' ability to detect lies/truths. However, for many studies in this meta-analysis, judges could hear and understand senders. This made language comprehension a potential confound. This paper presents the results of two studies. Extending previous work, in Study 1, we removed language comprehension as a potential confound by having English-speakers (N = 126, mean age = 19.86) judge the veracity of German speakers (n = 12) in a lie detection task. The twelve lie-detection stimuli included emotional and non-emotional content, and were presented in three modalities-audio only, video only, and audio and video together. The intelligence (General, Auditory, Emotional) and personality (Dark Triads and Big 6) of participants was also assessed. In Study 2, a native German-speaking sample (N = 117, mean age = 29.10) were also tested on a similar lie detection task to provide a control condition. Despite significantly extending research design and the selection of constructs employed to capture individual differences, both studies replicated Bond and DePaulo's findings. The results of Study1 indicated that removing language comprehension did not amplify individual differences in judge's ability to ascertain lies from truths. Study 2 replicated these results confirming a lack of individual differences in judge's ability to detect lies. The results of both studies suggest that Sender (deceiver) characteristics exerted a stronger influence on the outcomes of lie detection than the judge's attributes.

Self-report ratings of emotional intelligence (EI) can be faked in high-stakes situations. Although forced-choice administration can prevent response distortion, it produces ipsative scores when scored conventionally. This study ( n = 486) develops an 18-item EI rating scale assessing emotion perception, understanding, and management. We compare validity evidence for: (a) a single-stimulus rating scale; and (b) a forced-choice assessment scored with conventional methods versus item response theory (IRT) methods. The single-stimulus items showed acceptable fit to a three-factor solution, and the forced-choice items showed acceptable fit to the IRT solution. Correlations with criterion variables (ability and self-reported EI, Big Five personality, loneliness, life satisfaction, and GPA) were obtained for 283 participants. Correlations were in the expected direction for the single-stimulus and the IRT-based forced-choice scores. In contrast, the conventionally scored forced-choice test showed the expected correlations for emotion management, but not for emotion perception nor understanding. Results suggest that IRT-based methods for scoring forced-choice assessments produce equivalent validity to single-stimulus rating scales. As such, IRT-based scores on forced-choice assessments may allow EI tests to be used for high-stakes applications, where faking is a concern.