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Negative Mood Dysregulation Loads Strongly Onto Common Factors With Many Forms of Psychopathology: Considerations for Assessing Nonspecific Symptoms


Abstract There have been proposals to expand definitions for categorical disorders and dimensionally conceptualized syndromes (e.g., psychopathy) to include negative mood lability and dysregulation (NMD). Factor analytic results are often presented in support of these proposals, and we provide factor analytic demonstrations across clinically oriented samples showing that NMD indicators load strongly onto factors with a range of psychopathology. This is unsurprising from a transdiagnostic perspective but shows that factor analysis could potentially be used to justify expanding definitions for specific constructs even though NMD indicators show strong, nonspecific loadings on psychopathology factors ranging widely in nature. Expanding construct definitions and assessment approaches to emphasize NMD also may negatively impact discriminant validity. We agree that targeting NMD is essential for comprehensive assessment, but our demonstrative analyses highlight a need for using factor analysis and other statistical methods in a careful, theoretically driven manner when evaluating psychopathology structure and developing measures.
Authors Kasey Stanton University of WyomingORCID , Kennedy M. Balzen ORCID , Christine Marie DeFluri , Peyton Brock , Holly F. Levinā€Aspenson ORCID , Mark Zimmerman ORCID
Journal Info SAGE Publishing | Assessment , pages: 107319112311744 - 107319112311744
Publication Date 5/26/2023
ISSN 1073-1911
TypeKeyword Image article
Open Access closed Closed Access
DOI https://doi.org/10.1177/10731911231174471
KeywordsKeyword Image Emotion Dysregulation (Score: 0.558399) , Psychometric Models (Score: 0.506272) , Diagnostic Classification (Score: 0.503645) , Psychopathology (Score: 0.500775)