The Reflective Functioning Questionnaire (RFQ) is an 8-item self-report measure of reflective functioning that is presumed to capture individual differences in hypo-and hypermentalizing. Despite its broad acceptance by the field, we argue that the validity of the measure is not well-established. The current research elaborates on problems of the RFQ related to its item content, scoring procedure, dimensionality, and associations with psychopathology. We tested these considerations across three large clinical and non-clinical samples from Germany and the US (total N = 2289). In a first study, we found that the RFQ may assess a single latent dimension related to hypomentalizing but is rather unlikely to capture maladaptive forms of hypermentalizing. Moreover, the RFQ exhibited very strong associations with measures of personality pathology, while associations with measures of symptom distress were less strong. In a second preregistered study focused on convergent and discriminant validity, however, a commonality analysis indicated that associations with indicators of personality pathology are inflated because some of the RFQ items tap into emotional lability and impulsivity rather than mentalizing. Our findings demonstrate limitations of the RFQ. We discuss key challenges in assessing mentalizing via self-report.

ZusammenfassungDas Mentalisierungskonzept ist sowohl in der Praxis als auch der Wissenschaft breit rezipiert worden, u. a. wegen seiner hohen klinisch-therapeutischen Relevanz. Um dieses Konzept der empirisch-quantifizierenden Forschung zugänglich zu machen ist u. a. der Reflective Functioning Questionnaire mit 8 Items (RFQ-8) entwickelt worden, der 2 Skalen (Unsicherheit über mentale Zustände bzw. Hypomentalisieren und Gewissheit über mentale Zustände respektive Hypermentalisieren) umfasst. Während erste, methodisch jedoch kritisch zu bewertende teststatistische Untersuchungen dieses Selbstbeurteilungsverfahren weitgehend positiv beurteilen, stehen Analysen zur deutschen Version aus. In dieser Studie wurde die deutsche Version des RFQ-8 erstmals an einer großen Allgemeinbevölkerungsstichprobe (n=2477) psychometrisch evaluiert. Diverse konfirmatorische und explorative Faktorenanalysen zeigten, dass die ursprünglich vorgeschlagene 2-Faktoren-Lösung fehlspezifiziert ist; vielmehr ist davon auszugehen, dass der RFQ-8 ein eindimensionales Konstrukt abbildet. Nach Ausschluss von 2 teststatistisch ungenügenden Items zeigte die Skala mit 6 Items (RFQ-6) eine hohe interne Konsistenz (McDonald’s ω=0,88) sowie substantielle Rangkorrelationen mit Depressivität, Ängstlichkeit und körperlichen Beschwerden. Wir diskutieren, warum der Einsatz des RFQ-8 in Klinik und Forschung angesichts der teststatistischen Mängel sehr kritisch zu sehen ist, insbesondere was die Erfassung von Hypermentalisieren angeht.

Researchers are increasingly interested in the affect dynamics of individuals for describing and explaining personality and psychopathology. Recently, the incremental validity of more complex indicators of affect dynamics (IADs; e.g. autoregression) has been called into question (Dejonckheere et al., 2019), with evidence accumulating that these might convey little unique information beyond mean level and general variability of emotions. Our study extends the evidence for the construct validity of IADs by investigating their redundancy and uniqueness, split-half reliability based on indices from odd-numbered and even-numbered days, and association with big five personality traits. We used three diverse samples that assessed daily and momentary emotions, including community participants, individuals with personality pathology, and their significant others (total N = 1192, total number of occasions = 51 278). Mean and variability of affects had high reliability and distinct nomological patterns to big five personality traits. In contrast, more complex IADs exhibited substantial redundancies with mean level and general variability of emotions. When partialing out these redundancies by using residual variables, some of the more complex IADs had acceptable reliability, but only a few of these showed incremental associations with big five personality traits, indicating that IADs have limited validity using the current assessment practices.

The Certainty About Mental States Questionnaire (CAMSQ) is a self-report measure of the perceived capacity to understand mental states of the self and others (i.e., mentalizing). In two studies (total N = 1828), we developed the CAMSQ in both English and German as a two-dimensional measure of Self- and Other-Certainty, investigated associations with other measures of mentalizing, and explored relationships to personality functioning and mental health. The CAMSQ performed well in terms of convergent and discriminant validity, internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and measurement invariance across the United States and Germany. The present research indicates that the CAMSQ assesses maladaptive forms of having too little or too much certainty about mental states (consistent with hypomentalizing and hypermentalizing). A psychologically adaptive profile of perceived mentalizing capacity appears to be characterized by high Self-Certainty that exceeds Other-Certainty, suggesting that imbalances between Self-Certainty and Other-Certainty (Other-Self-Discrepancy) play an important role within personality pathology.

Interpersonal problems are key transdiagnostic constructs in psychopathology. In the past, investigators have neglected the importance of operationalizing interpersonal problems according to their latent structure by using divergent representations of the construct: (a) computing scores for severity, agency, and communion (“dimensional approach”), (b) classifying persons into subgroups with respect to their interpersonal profile (“categorical approach”). This hinders cumulative research on interpersonal problems, because findings cannot be integrated both from a conceptual and a statistical point of view. We provide a comprehensive evaluation of interpersonal problems by enlisting several large samples (Ns = 5,400, 491, 656, and 712) to estimate a set of latent variable candidate models, covering the spectrum of purely dimensional (i.e., confirmatory factor analysis using Gaussian and nonnormal latent t-distributions), hybrid (i.e., semiparametric factor analysis), and purely categorical approaches (latent class analysis). Statistical models were compared with regard to their structural validity, as evaluated by model fit (corrected Akaike’s information criterion and the Bayesian information criterion), and their concurrent validity, as defined by the models’ ability to predict relevant external variables. Across samples, the fully dimensional model performed best in terms of model fit, prediction, robustness, and parsimony. We found scant evidence that categorical and hybrid models provide incremental value for understanding interpersonal problems. Our results indicate that the latent structure of interpersonal problems is best represented by continuous dimensions, especially when one allows for nonnormal latent distributions.