THE POSITIVE AUTOMATIC THOUGHTS QUESTIONNAIRE (ATQ-P) AND THE AUTOMATIC THOUGHTS QUESTIONNAIRE - REVISED (ATQ-RP) - EQUIVALENT MEASURES OF POSITIVE THINKING

We examined two recently developed measures of positive automatic thought the Positive Automatic Thoughts questionnaire (ATQ-P) and the Automatic Thoughts questionnaire-Revised (ATQ-RP). internal consistency concurrent validity, and convergent and discriminant validity were addressed. Two hundred one undergraduates completed self-report measures of positive automatic thoughts, negative automatic thoughts, depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms and positive affectivity. The ATQ-P and ATQ-RP both showed high internal consistency, strong negative associations with depressive symptoms, specificity to depressive symptoms rather than anxiety symptoms, an average state-of-mind (SOM) ratio in the positive dialogue range, and a stronger relation with each other than with a measure of positive affectivity. The only notable difference between the measures was a significantly lower mean score (correcting for number of items) on the ATQ-RP.