Elsevier

Behavior Therapy

Volume 26, Issue 3, Summer 1995, Pages 409-432
Behavior Therapy

Conceptual and methodological issues in social problem-solving assessment

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0005-7894(05)80091-7Get rights and content

Several promising instruments are currently available to researchers and clinicians who require a reliable and valid measure of social problem-solving abilities. However, all of these measures have shortcomings and none has definitive, unequivocal support for its construct validity at the present time. The conceptual and methodological issues that are most directly related to the validity of social problem-solving measures were discussed. The strengths and weaknesses of the major current instruments were examined with respect to these issues. Empirical evidence related to convergent and discriminant validity was also reviewed. Recommendations were made for the improvement of these measures as well as the future development of new and better measures of social problem-solving processes and outcomes.

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      An inventory is a broad survey of problem-solving attitudes, strategies, and techniques. Most problem-solving inventories are pencil and paper questionnaires that use Likert-type items (D’Zurilla & Maydeu-Olivares, 1995). Inventories have been developed to assess: social problem solving (e.g., Social Problem-Solving Inventory-Revised; D’Zurilla et al., 1996; Social Problem Solving Inventory for Adolescents (SPSI-A); Frauenknecht & Black, 1995), personal problem solving (e.g., Personal Problem-Solving Inventory; Heppner & Petersen, 1982), and interpersonal problem solving (e.g., Interpersonal Problem-Solving Inventory (IPSI); Çam & Tümkaya, 2008).

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