The reverse of social anxiety is not always the opposite: the reverse-scored items of the social interaction anxiety scale do not belong.
Although well-used and empirically supported, the Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS) has a questionable factor structure and includes reverse-scored items with questionable utility. Here, using samples of undergraduates and a sample of clients with social anxiety disorder, we extend previous work that opened the question of whether the reverse-scored items belong on the scale. First, we successfully confirmed the factor structure obtained in previous samples. Second, we found the reverse-scored items to show consistently weaker relationships with a variety of comparison measures. Third, we demonstrated that removing the reverse-scored questions generally helps rather than hinders the psychometric performance of the SIAS total score. Fourth, we found that the reverse-scored items show a strong relationship with the normal personality characteristic of extraversion, suggesting that the reverse-scored items may primarily assess extraversion. Given the above results, we suggest investigators consider performing data analyses using only the straightforwardly worded items of the SIAS.
Rodebaugh
Thomas L
TL
Washington University in Saint Louis, USA. rodebaugh@wustl.edu
Woods
Carol M
CM
Heimberg
Richard G
RG
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety / Q000175:diagnosis*; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D010556:Personality Tests; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012647:Self-Assessment; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires