The Development of a Measure of Irrational/Rational Beliefs

This article describes the development of the ABS-2 and the original research on its psychometric propert ies. The scale has three factors that represent 24 different cells in a 4 × 2 × 3 factorial model. The first factor, Cognitive Processes, reflects Ellis’ concepts of Demandingness, Awfulizing, Frustration Intolerance, and Self-Downing. The second factor covers irrationally worded items versu s rationally worded items. The rationally worded items were written to counter the irrational beliefs. The third factor includes content or life themes about which the person could be concerned, and includes Achievement, Affiliation, and Comfort. The ABS-2 generates a Total Score, a Total Irrational ity Score, a Total Rationality score, and Scales scores representing each of the four Cognitive Processes domains and each of the three Content domains. The ABS-2 scores demonstrate adequate to excellent internal consistency, and correlate significantly with measures of depression, anxiety, life sat isfaction, selfcontrol, well-being, and measures of internalizing personality disorders. The ABS-2 did not correlate significantly with measures of anger, externalizing personality disorders, mania, and somatoform disorder. An exploratory factor analysis provided weak support for the factor structur e of the scale. The ABS-2 scores distinguish between normal and clinical samples. Rationally worded items discriminated between clinical and nonclinical groups much better than did the irrat...
Source: Journal of Rational-Emotive and Cognitive-Behavior Therapy - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research