Validation of the psychological control disrespect scale with emerging adults: Psychometric properties and sex measurement invariance of the PCDS

ABSTRACT

The current study is the first to describe the validation of the Psychological Control Disrespect Scale (PCDS; Barber etal., 2012) with a large age-range of emerging adults, in an attempt to broaden the usage of the scale to late and post-adolescence population. The sample consisted of 364 participants (184 females and 179 males; 1 unknown sex), whose age ranged between 18 and 29 (M = 24.38, SD = 3.03). Subject to the exclusion of one item, the PCDS exhibited acceptable to good model-fit indices when used with emerging adults reporting on their mothers, and its psychometric properties were found to be principally equal across child’s sex (i.e. respondent’s sex measurement invariance). The PCDS also displayed good reliability indexes, including the first evidence of the scale’s test–retest reliability. Finally, the PCDS was tested for convergent validity against conceptually corresponding parenting scales, which reinforced the scale’s validity as a measure of maladaptive parenting construct.

KEYWORDS:

• Psychological control
• parenting
• adolescent
• measurement invariance
• test–retest

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yosi Yaffe

Yosi Yaffe (Ph.D.) holds a senior lecturer position in the departments of special education and educational psychology at Tel-Hai Academic College. His area of expertise lies in family measurement, with a particular interest of parent-child relationships in various contexts of emotional well-being and educational performance of adolescents and emerging adults with and without special needs.