Item-phrasing in Antonovsky's sense of coherence scale related to negative and positive affectivity

Pergamon PII:

Pnwn. in&id. LX/f: Vol. 24. No. 5. pp. 669-675. I998 7; 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain 0191-8869/98 $19.00+0.00 S0191-8869(97)0020143

ITEM-PHRASING IN ANTONOVSKY’S SENSE OF COHERENCE SCALE RELATED TO NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE AFFECTIVITY D. J. W. Striimpfer,*’ M. R. Viviers’ and J. F. Gouws3 ’ University of Cape Town, South Africa, ’ Margaret Viviers and Associates, Sandton, South Africa and ‘S.A. Eagle Insurance Co., Randburg, South Africa (Receiaed 5 April 1997)

Summary-There is concern that, rather than being a measure of resiliency, the Sense of Coherence (SOC) scale inadvertently measures negative affectivity. A contributing factor could be its number of negatively phrased items. At the suggestion of its author, the 12 negatively phrased and 15 neutrally phrased items were treated as subscales. Three samples: nursing students, managerial and administrative personnel and life insurance consultants, completed the SOC scale and various negative and positive affectivity scales. Correlational results do not support the likelihood that the negatively phrased items could, by their negative phrasing, lead to the scale’s high correlations with measures of negative affectivity. The patterns of correlation of the two subscales with the full scale and with the trait scales were all so similar that they probably do not contribute differently to the total score. Stepwise multiple regression analyses showed that between 39-50% of variance in the two subscales could not be explained in terms of variance in common with the negative and positive affectivity measures used, even after allowing for error variance. 0 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Key- Words:

Antonovsky, CES-D, hope, PANAS, negative affectivity, positive affectivity, sense of coherence.

In an attempt to explain how people stay well, notwithstanding high stressor loads, Antonovsky (1979, 1987) introduced the concept of “sense of coherence” (SOC). He suggested that the SOC is a cognitive and emotional appraisal style which is associated with effective coping, health-enhancing behaviours and better social adjustment. The 1987 work contained his SOC scale. Antonovsky’s (1993) review and subsequent publications attested that the construct has stimulated considerable research interest. There has, however, been concern in the literature that, rather than being a measure of resiliency, the SOC scale inadvertently measures negative affectivity (NA; Clark & Watson, 1991). High negative correlations between the SOC scale and measures of anxiety or neuroticism (both NA) have been reported repeatedly. Striimpfer, Gouws & Viviers (submitted) reviewed these findings and reported that the sample-size-weighted average correlation in 16 samples was -0.69. Positive affectivity (PA; Clark & Watson, 1991) should also be considered in this context. In a factor analysis of mental health measures, Compton, Smith, Cornish and Qualls (1996), found that the SOC scale showed the third highest loading among nine PA and satisfaction-with-life variables which defined a large first factor of subjective well-being. Mlonzi & Striimpfer (submitted) also found that the SOC scale correlated significantly and at virtually the same level, with both the anxiety (NA) and extraversion (PA) second-order factors of the 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire. Funk (1992) discussed the relationship between Hardiness scales (Ouellette, 1993) and NA measures and commented on their heavy reliance on negatively keyed items. In view of the SOC scale’s high correlations with NA measures, similar concerns could be raised. Such reasoning lead Antonovsky (1994) to classify his scale’s items in terms of their being phrased negatively, neutrally and positively; he suggested that researchers investigate the relationships of these subscales to NA measures, as well as in terms of their reliabilities and means. In response to his suggestion, the

*To whom all correspondence should be addressed: D. J. W. StrtImpfer, 15 Mount Pleasant Road, 770@-Rondebosch, South Africa. E-mail: DEOSTR&CIS.CO.ZA 669

670

D. J. W. Strtimpfer et al.

present paper reports evidence from three samples in two studies on the two main subscales of the SOC scale. (Since there are only two positively worded items, resulting in coefficients c( of 0.37,0.48 and 0.62, they were not investigated.) Relations to both NA and PA measures were examined. Additionally, the question was explored of how much variance was left in the SOC scales after variance in common with NA and PA measures had been explained.

PROCEDURE Respondents Sample I consisted of 118 students (2 males) at a military nursing college; it included 52 second-, 35 third- and 31 fourth-year students, which was the full class in each case. All had 12 years of school education. Nine had English as their home language and 109 Afrikaans; the teaching medium was basically Afrikaans, hence scales were administered in Afrikaans, in which all were proficient. Their mean age was 21.01 years (SD = 2.41). Sample 2 consisted of 88 employees (50 female) in the property investments division of a life insurance firm. A response rate of only 44% was achieved, probably since at the time of data collection the company was experiencing a drastic change in management and working procedures, which left employees feeling insecure. There were 68 English-speakers and 20 Afrikaans; questionnaire booklets contained both English and Afrikaans versions. Of the respondents 18 were managers, 24 professionals, 44 clerical staff and two messengers. Their mean age was 33.19 years (SD = 8.57). Sample 3 consisted of 92 male life insurance consultants (a different company from Sample 2), representing a return rate of 39%; this population is known to be notoriously reluctant to complete surveys of any kind. English was the home language of 66, 23 had an African language and three other; the questionnaire was in English. The mean age of the sample was 38.59 years (SD = 6.91); their mean educational accomplishment was 12.84 years (SD = 1.55); and their mean number of years working as insurance consultant 7.86 years (SD = 6.02). Additional information on procedures is available in Striimpfer et al. (submitted). Measures The SOC scale was administered to all three samples. It consists of 29 items and measures three components of the construct: comprehensibility (e.g. “Do you have very mixed-up feelings and ideas?“), manageability (e.g. “Do you have the feeling that you’re being treated unfairly?“) and meaningfulness (e.g. “How often do you have the feeling that there’s little meaning in the things you do in your daily life?“). Following Antonovsky (1994) the following subscales were scored: negatively phrased (SOCNEG), Items 1, 4, 5, 6, 9, 12, 19, 21, 24, 25, 28 and 29; and neutrally phrased (SOCNEU), Items 2, 3, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 1418, 22, 26 and 27. In order to make them comparable, scores were obtained by dividing each respondent’s raw score by the number of items in the scale concerned, i.e. SOC/29, SOCNEG/12 and SOCNEU/lS. Study 1. The questionnaires contained the same scales for Samples 1 and 2. In the hope of reducing response sets, response formats were varied among the scales. The first pair of measures was the PA and NA scales of the Positive and Negative Affectivity Schedule (PANAS; Watson, Clark & Tellegen, 1988). Each contains IO adjectives, e.g. “enthusiastic” and “determined” (PA) and “upset” and “ashamed” (NA). The respondent has to rate each adjective on a 5-point scale, from “Very slightly or not at all” to “Extremely”, with respect to the extent to “which you generally feel this way, that is, how you feel on average” (long-term instructions to obtain trait measures, p. 1070). The PANAS data were subjected to a principal components analysis, followed by Varimax rotation, with two factors specified; in both samples all the items were retained. A second pair of scales came from McCrae and Costa (I 985, 1987). Two sets of seven items each, labeled MCN (neuroticism) and MCE (extraversion), were selected from their lists, viz. those which showed the highest loadings on only the one or the other factor in both analyses. Items are bipolar adjective pairs, e.g. for MCN: “calm-worrying” and “secure-insecure”; for MCE: “soberfun-loving” and “loner-joiner”; responses were on 7-point semantic differentials. A principal components analysis was done on the interspersed items, with two factors specified. In Sample 2 an

Item-phrasing in Antonovsky’s sense of coherence scale

671

Extraversion item was deleted due to a low loading but the 7-item scales were used in the rest of the analyses. study 2. For Sample 3, two measures of NA were administered. For the first, J. T. Spence (pers. comm., 14 September 1995) identified 10 items of the Taylor (1953) Manifest Anxiety Scale (SMAS) “that describe anxiety and worry and make no reference to psychosomatic symptoms” (Robbins, Spence & Clark, 1991). Instructions were added: “. . . how you generally feel”, so as to avoid sensitivity to mood fluctuations (Watson et al., 1988). Example items are: “At times I lose sleep over worry” and “I am usually calm and not easily upset”. Responses are “True/False”. Nine of the items were retained after factor analysis. The second NA scale derived from the Center for Epidemiologic Studies’ Depression Scale (CESD; Radloff, 1977); four items were selected, which loaded highly on a Depressed Affect factor in ten factor analyses (Pretorius, 1997; Radloff, 1977; Roberts, 1980; Ross & Mirowsky, 1984). A respondent has to indicate how many days during the past week she or he has felt as described in an item, e.g. “I felt depressed” and “I felt lonely”. (The short-term frame of reference means that this is a mood, rather than trait, measure.) The factor analysis produced one factor on which the four items all loaded highly. Two measures of PA were administered. The first was Warr, Barter and Brownbridge’s (1983) 9item Positive Affect scale, with instructions changed from “past/last few weeks” to “past/last year”, in order to assure a trait frame of reference (Watson et al., 1988). Example items are, “In the last year, have you ever:. . . felt that things were going your way?” and “. . . been full of energy?“; responses are “Yes/No”. Six items that loaded above 0.61 on the first of three factors were retained as a scale. Secondly, the g-item Hope scale by Snyder (1995). Example items are: “I meet the goals I set for myself’ and “There are lots of ways around any problem”, answered on a 4-point scale from “definitely false” to “definitely true”. All items loaded significantly on a first factor.

RESULTS

AND DISCUSSION

Table 1 presents descriptive statistics and coefficients a for the various SOC measures. In all three samples SOCNEU showed significantly higher means than SOCNEG. For the three comparisons the statistics were, respectively: t = 8.17, P < 0.001; t = 2.27, P < 0.05; t = 6,13, P -c 0.0001. On the other hand, SOCNEG showed significantly larger standard deviations. The statistics for these comparisons were, respectively: F = 1.73, P < 0.01; F = 1.43, P < 0.05; F = 1.53, P < 0.05. Since the effect of the difference in the number of items in the two subscales has been eliminated in the scoring, the consistency of these three findings across samples is notable, particularly in view of the differences between the samples with respect to occupations, ages, gender compositions and languages in which the questionnaires were administered. Explanations could possibly be found in differences between the two groups of items. Conceivably, negatively worded items could be more difficult to comprehend than neutrally phrased ones; two SOCNEG items are even formulated as double negatives (12 and 21). Another difference is that all 12 of the SOCNEG items are phrased as questions, whereas only five of the 15 SOCNEU items are questions, the rest being declarative statements. However, the latter all take the form of a stem and two relatively complex alternatives

Table I. Descriptive Sample

statistics and coefficients CIof sense of coherence scales

1

Sample 2

Sample 3

Variable

M

SD

r

M

SD

u

M

SD

z

sot SOCNEG SOCNEU

4.80 4.45 4.99

0.81 I .oo 0.76

0.91 0.86 0.83

5.03 4.90 5.04

0.78 0.92 0.77

0.90 0.85 0.79

5.30 5.02 5.48

0.76 0.94 0.76

0.89 0.82 0.83

Ahbreciarions:

SOC

= Sense

of Coherence

scale; SOCNEG

= negatively

phrased SOC items; SOCNEU

= neutrally

phrased SOC items.

612

D. J. W.

Strilmpfer et al.

anchoring a semantic differential, e.g. “Your life in future will probably be: l-full of changes without your knowing what will happen next.. .7--completely consistent and clear”.* All of the coefficients c1of SOCNEG and SOCNEU were acceptably high. They were not further below those of the full SOC than would be expected in terms of the numbers of items; when Spearman-Brown corrections were made in terms of the differences in length, four of the six corrected coefficients were in fact higher than those of the full-length scale and the other two were minutely lower. SOCNEG had a small edge in coefficients u over SOCNEU. In Sample 1 the full SOC showed part-whole correlations of 0.94 with both SOCNEG and SOCNEU; in Sample 2 these were 0.93 and 0.94; in Sample 3, 0.91 and 0.90. Thus, it cannot be concluded that either the negatively or the neutrally phrased items contributed more to the total score than the other one. SOCNEG and SOCNEU correlated 0.78 and 0.77 in Samples 1 and 2, respectively and 0.66 in Sample 3. These correlations reflect from 4461% of common variance and it cannot be concluded that the two scales really measure independent aspects of the SOC. Table 2 shows the correlations between the SOC scales and the various NA and PA scores in Samples 1 and 2. The picture of correlations with the trait measures is quite similar for the two subscales and the total SOC, as could be expected from the large overlaps in items. In the case of SOCNEG, all the correlations were highly significant. Those with NA were higher than those with PA, as could be anticipated from the negative phrasings, but in neither Sample 1 nor Sample 2 did any of the differences in correlation of SOCNEG with NA and PA reach significance by a r-test for the significance of differences between dependent correlation coefficients, for four comparisons (Cohen & Cohen, 1983). The same applied to SOCNEU, where the correlations were all highly significant too; the differences in correlation with NA and PA were in opposite directions in Samples 1 and 2, but none reached significance. MCE correlated much lower with the SOC subscales than did the PA scale, a finding that calls for cross-validation with other measures of positive affectivity. As a consequence, in both studies the differences in correlation between SOCNEG and the two McCrae-Costa scales, as well as those between SOCNEU and these scales, were all significant by Dunn’s r-test. Potentially of greater importance are the differences in patterns of correlation between the two subscales. However, none of the differences in correlation of SOCNEG and SOCNEU with the four trait measures was significant in either study, not even by ordinary r-tests. Stepwise multiple regression analyses were performed to determine the relative contributions of

Table 2. Correlations between sense of coherencescalesand measuresof negativeand positive affectivity in Samples I and 2 Sample I Variable

sot

SOCNEG SOCNEU

NA

PA

MCN

-0.53 -0.56 -0.46

0.53 0.45 0.53

-0.51 -0.51 -0.44

Sample 2 MCE

NA

PA

MCN

MCE

0.24** 0.22’ 0.21*

-0.59 -0.61 -0.53

0.45 0.37 0.45

- 0.65 -0.64 -0.61

0.36** 0.35** 0.31*

*P < 0.05; **P i 0.01. All remaining P < 0.0001. Abbreviarions: SOC = Sense of Coherencescale; SOCNEG = negatively phrased SOC items: SOCNEU = neutrally phrased SOC items; NA = PANAS Negative Affectivity; PA = PANAS Positive Atkctivity: MCN = McCraeCosta Neuroticism; MCE = McCrae-Costa Extraversion.

* In a provisional

attempt to determine the readability of the two subscales. the items of the English version were printed without the response numbers and each subtest was grouped as a single paragraph. In the SOCNEG, anchors were added to the questions with “or” between them, in front of the question mark. In the SOCNEU statements illustrated above, the stem and the first response anchor were run together, followed by “or” and the second anchor. The readability programme of Microsoft Word (1994) was then run on both paragraphs. Words per sentence were 21.7 for SOCNEG and 25.1 for SOCNEU. The Flesch (1951) Reading Ease score (based on mean number of syllables/word and mean number of words/sentence) of SOCNEG was 69.9 and of SOCNEU 61.2; these scores range from 0 = “very difficult”, to 100 = “very easy”, and the two scores fall near the ends of the “standard” range. The equivalent Flesch-Kinkaid grade levels were 6.2 and 10.9. As a matter of interest, these indices for the full SOC scale were 68.6 and 7.9.

Item-phrasing Table

3. Stepwise

multiple

regression

analyses

in Antonovsky’s

for Samples

I

and 2. regressing

coherence DV: step

Scale

Sample

I

I.

NA

2.

PA

3.

MCN

Sample

2

I.

-0.399

AR’

R’

PA

Scale

0.0001

0.310

19.14

0.0001

0.408

0.098

PA

-0.161

1.86

0.1755

0.418

0.010

MCN

positive

affectivity

variables

on two

sense of

MCN

MCN

-0.406

54.97

0.0001

0.390

NA

-0.325

14.14

0.0003

0.477

0.087

PA

3.

MCE

3.48

0.0656

0.498

0.021

NA

SOCNEU

F

/I

NA

2.

0. I52

and

DV:

52.10

0.326

negative

673

scales

SOCNEG

F

/I

sense of coherence scale

-0.310

R’

P*

AR’

46.14

0.0001

34.66

0.0001

0.395

0.1 IO

-0.099

I .58

0.2109

0.403

0.008

-0.441

51.57

0.000

10.35

0.00 I8

0.443

0.068

3.12

0.0810

0.463

0.020

0.464

0.220 -0.180

0.285

I

0.375

“2-tailed. Ahhre~~iorionx Affectivity;

SOCNEG

= negatively

PA = PANAS

phrased

Positive

Sense of Coherence

Akctivity;

MCN

items; SOCNEU

= McCrae-Costa

= neutrally

Neuroticism;

MCE

phrased

SOC items; NA

= McCrae-Costa

= PANAS

Negative

Extraversion.

the NA and PA measures. Table 3 presents the statistics for Samples 1 and 2. In each of the four analyses only two trait variables entered the equations before the “F to enter” became nonsignificant, three times pairs of NA and PA scales and once two NA scales. The percentage of common variance explained in the four analyses were, respectively, 41 and 48% for SOCNEG, and 40 and 44% for SOCNEU. That means that 59 and 52% of the variance in SOCNEG and 60 and 56% in SOCNEU, remained unexplained by the trait variables. Taking the reliabilities of the SOC subscales in the two samples (Table 1) into consideration, the error variances (Aiken, 1996) expressed as percentages, were, respectively, for SOCNEG 14 and 13% and for SOCNEU 10 and 12%. Subtracting these values from the amounts of unexplained variance, still leaves, respectively, 45 and 39% of variance in SOCNEG and 50 and 40% in SOCNEU, as sense of coherence components that were not explained by the trait measures used in these samples. Table 4 contains the correlations between the SOC scales and the NA and PA measures in Sample 3 (Study 2). In this study NA and PA measures cannot be paired off as in Study 1, since they had different origins and they represent different facets of the superordinate factors. As could be anticipated on account of negative phrasing, SOCNEG’s correlation with SMAS was significantly higher than those with Positive Affect and Hope (t = 2.72 and 2.97, both P < 0.05; in all cases where significance of t is indicated here it was by Dunn’s test for 3 comparisons). However, this was not so for its correlation with Depressed Affect compared with those for the two PA scales. SOCNEG participated more heavily in anxiety than in depressive mood, showing a significantly higher correlation with SMAS than with Depressed Affect (t = 3.81, P < 0.01). SOCNEG’s correlations with Positive Affect and Hope did not differ significantly. SOCNEU also correlated significantly higher with SMAS than with Positive Affect (t = 2.45, P c 0.05). However, the SOCNEU correlations with SMAS and Hope were not significantly different. Its correlation with Depressed Affect was also not significantly different from those with the two PA scales. It, too, correlated more significantly with SMAS than with Depressed Affect (t = 2.71, P -c0.05). No other comparisons concerning SOCNEU were significant. The general similarity

Table

4. Correlations

between

negative

sense of coherence

and positive

affectivity

scales and

in Sample

Variable

SMAS

sot

-0.67

-0.38

0.36

0.53

SOCNEG

-0.64

-0.33**

0.37

0.43

SGCNEU

-0.57

-0.31**

0.31”

0.50

** P < 0.01. All remaining ence NEU

scale;

phrased

= Depressed

tive AtTect scale.

PosA

P < 0.000l.Ahbrerirrri~~ns:

SOCNEG

= neutrally

scale; DEPR

DEPR

measures

= negatively SOC Affect

items; SMAS wale:

SOC

phrased PosA

of

3 Hope

= Sense ofcoher-

SOC

items;

SOC-

= Short

Manifest

= Warr

er al. (1983)

Anxiety Posi-

D. J. W. Strtimpfer et

614

al.

Table 5. Stepwise multiple regression analyses for Sample 3. regressing negative and positive affectivity scales DV: SOCNEG

variables

on two senSe of coherence

DV: SOCNEU

Step

Scale

B

F

PA

R’

AR’

Scale

P

F

P’

RI

AR’

I.

SMAS Hope PosA

-0.545 0.181 0.147

62.92 5.91 3.25

0.0001 0.0171 0.0751

0.412 0.448 0.468

0.036 0.020

SMAS Hope PosA

-0.464 0.367 0.099

40.75 19.58 I.12

0.000 I 0.0001 0.2938

0.312 0.436 0.443

0.124 0.007

2. 3.

* 2-tailed.Abbrer,iarions: SOCNEG = negatively phrased Sense of Coherence items; SOCNEU Manifest Anxiety scale; PosA = Warr et al. (1983) Positive Affect scale.

= neutrally phrased SOC items; SMAS = Short

between the patterns of correlation showed by SOCNEG and SOCNEU does not indicate a great difference between what the two could conceivably represent. Table 5 presents the results of stepwise multiple regression analyses performed on the data of Sample 3. For both SOC subscales, SMAS and Hope entered into the equations, explaining respectively, 45 and 44% of variance in common with the dependent variable, leaving 55 and 56% of variance in the respective SOC subscales not explained by these trait scales. In terms of the coefficients c(of the SOC subscales (Table l), their error variances (expressed as percentages) explain a further 6 and lo%, but subtraction still leaves 49 and 46% of, basically, “sense of coherence” variance. That Depressed Affect did not enter either equation, could mean that depressive mood (or perhaps depression)is unrelated to the SOC subscales. CONCLUSION In terms of Antonovsky’s (1994) question, the results in none of the three samples support the likelihood that the 12 negatively phrased items in the full SOC scale could, merely by being phrased negatively, lead to the high correlations with measures of negative affectivity which have been reported for the SOC scale. The internal consistencies of SOCNEG and SOCNEU, their part-whole correlations with the full scale, and their patterns of correlation with the trait scales were all so similar that they probably do not contribute differently to the total score. Their correlations with each other also underscore the point. SOCNEG showed significantly smaller means, significantly larger standard deviations and, on average, slightly higher coefficients CL than SOCNEU- differences which could result from differences in item format other than negative or neutral phrasing. Stepwise multiple regression analyses indicated that between 39 and 49% of variance in SOCNEG, and between 40 and 50% of variance in SOCNEU, could not be explained in terms of variance in common with the present NA and PA measures-even after allowance had been made for error variances. Further cross-validation, using other affectivity measures, may be advisable. However, the relative consistency of the present three sets of results, from rather different samples and using various trait measures, argue against a conclusion that item phrasing could explain all variance in SOC scale, thus providing reassurance to its users. Investigating the SOC scale in terms of item response theory (Waller, Tellegen, McDonald & Lykken, 1996) may, nevertheless, assist in understanding the functioning of its items better. Acknowledgemenls-Financial assistance from the Centre for Science Development (Human Sciences Research Council. South Africa) and the Society for Industrial Psychology (Psychological Society of South Africa) to the first author towards this research is gratefully acknowledged. Opinions expressed and conclusions arrived at are, however, those of the authors and are not to be attributed to the Centre for Science Development or the Society for Industrial Psychology. We also wish to thank Mike Page, Gillian Fichilescu and Corrie Strtimpfer for statistical analyses.

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Item-phrasing

in Antonovsky’s

sense

of coherence

scale

675

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