VALIDATING SCALES FOR THE ASSESSMENT OF MOOD LEVEL AND VARIABILITY BY LATENT STATE-TRAIT ANALYSES

Results concerning the validity of the mood survey, a questionnaire assessing two enduring aspects of mood level and mood reactivity - are reported. The analyses show that both subscales are suitable for the assessment of relatively stable aspects of mood: situational and/or interactional effects only determine 3-11 % of the variances of the scale scores, whereas 77-89% are due to true individual differences (not determined by situational and/or interactional effects). Furthermore, in order to examine to which degree the mood level scale assesses the mood level of a person averaged across several occasions, the correlation between the latent trait variable underlying the mood level scale and a latent trait variable defined as the expectation of repeatedly measured mood states was estimated. The correlation between these latent trait variables of r = 0.78 indicates that the mood level scale is useful for the assessment of the average mood level. Finally, to validate the reactivity scale, subgroups differing with regard to the scores on the reactivity scale were analysed to examine the degree to which their actual mood is influenced by situational and/or interactional effects. The results show that the actual mood of people with high mood reactivity scores is influenced to a much higher degree by situational and/or interactional effects that the momentary mood of people with low mood reactivity scores.