Semantic analysis of mood adjectives in relation to positive and negative affect: evidence for combining similarly valenced mood subscales in quantitative reviews.
Meta-analysis has been criticized for combining studies with different independent and dependent variables--the alleged "apples and oranges" problem. This study provides evidence for the inclusion of similarly valenced subscales from self-report mood scales in meta-analysis. Undergraduates (N=214) were randomly assigned to a "positive" or "negative" group to complete a checklist containing words from 12 different scales. Cluster analyses indicated that mood subscales formed a two-cluster positive and negative solution. All participants were assigned to the correct cluster. Discriminant analyses correctly classified more than 95% of participants for each mood scale. Results indicate that subscales from commonly used mood inventories can be combined in meta-analyses having positive or negative affect as the dependent variable.
Reed
Justy
J
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA. j-reed1@csu.edu
Serfass
Robert
R
D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011897:Random Allocation; D012660:Semantics; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014825:Vocabulary