Abstract
Distress intolerance has been studied as a transdiagnostic mechanism implicated in a variety of forms of psychopathology and psychological treatments. Although past research has largely supported the separability of distress intolerance from related constructs, some evidence indicates that it overlaps to a meaningful degree with demoralization and negative emotionality, two affect-laden psychopathology-vulnerability factors. The goal of the current study was to clarify the position of the distress intolerance construct in a nomological network that includes demoralization and negative emotionality. Using a sample of 402 undergraduate students, we performed confirmatory factor analyses to examine the underlying structure of distress intolerance, demoralization, and negative emotionality. We also conducted zero-order correlational and hierarchical regression analyses to examine whether distress intolerance predicts unique variance in theoretically relevant psychological constructs above and beyond demoralization and negative emotionality. Results indicated that, although distress intolerance, demoralization, and negative emotionality demonstrate similar patterns of associations with external criteria, the constructs are structurally distinct and distress intolerance accounts for unique variance in psychological outcomes. Overall, our findings support the construct validity of distress intolerance as empirically separable from both demoralization and negative emotionality. Clinical implications, limitations, and future directions are discussed.
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Notes
The Schedule of Compulsions, Obsession, and Pathological Impulses (SCOPI) and Computerized Adaptive Test of Personality Disorder-Static Form (CAT-PD-SF) were added to the battery of criterion measures after the initiation of data collection. This resulted in reduced sample sizes for all analyses involving these instruments (n = 154) as compared to analyses with remaining criterion measures (ns = 377–387; see Tables 1 and 4).
Factor loadings for alternative one- and two-factor solutions are available from the corresponding author upon request.
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Andrew J. Kremyar declares that he has no conflict of interest. Anthony M. Tarescavage receives research funding from the MMPI-2-RF publisher, the University of Minnesota Press. Yossef S. Ben-Porath is a paid consultant to the MMPI-2-RF publisher, the University of Minnesota Press, and distributor, Pearson Assessments. He receives royalties on sales of MMPI-2-RF materials and research grants from the MMPI-2-RF publisher.
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Kremyar, A.J., Tarescavage, A.M. & Ben-Porath, Y.S. The Construct Validity of Distress Intolerance: Is it Distinct from Demoralization and Negative Emotionality?. J Psychopathol Behav Assess 42, 340–353 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-019-09764-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-019-09764-9