The Looming Maladaptive Style Questionnaire: Measurement invariance and relations to anxiety and depression across 10 countries

Abstract

The Looming Maladaptive Style Questionnaire (LMSQ) is a self-report measure designed to assess the looming cognitive style, a tendency to interpret threats as rapidly approaching and increasing in magnitude. To date, no systematic evaluation on the psychometric properties of the LMSQ across diverse cultural contexts has been done. In the present research, the measurement invariance of the LMSQ test scores was examined in 10 countries (N=4000). Confirmatory factor analysis suggested that a two-factor model (i.e., physical looming and social looming) fitted the data well across countries. Partial measurement invariance was established for the LMSQ scores across the countries whereas full measurement invariance was achieved across gender. Meta-analytic structural equation modeling was applied to examine the unique contributions of the two looming factors to anxiety and depression symptoms. Results indicated that the test scores underlying two looming factors were crucial and valid predictors of symptoms. The LMSQ shows promise as a measure with cross-cultural generalizability and opens new avenues for its use in diverse cultural settings.

Cross-Cultural and Gender Invariance of Transdiagnostic Processes in the United States and Singapore

“…The high degree of construct compatibility is likely to be due to the highly Westernized aspect of the Singapore society that adopted many European American cultural ethos and values into its institutions while still embracing traditional Asian collectivistic principles (Luo, Hogan, & Paris, 2011). Moreover, our findings are aligned with research across the United States and Singapore in the past decade (e.g., Hong et al, 2017).…”

“…We first tested for configural invariance (i.e., same factor structure without placing between-group constraints on any parameter estimates) by conducting CFAs in each country and gender separately (Muthén & Muthén, 2013). To test gender invariance, data were pooled across the United States and Singapore, following others (Hong et al, 2017; Taylor et al, 2007; Whisman et al, 2020). Similarly, when testing cross-cultural equivalence, data from the United States and Singapore were pooled.…”

“…First, we explored the degree of cross-cultural equivalence in terms of the two-factor RRQ (Trapnell & Campbell, 1999), six-factor PCQ (Szkodny & Newman, 2019), two-factor IUS (Buhr & Dugas, 2002), three-factor ASI-3 (Taylor et al, 2007), and two-factor CBPQ (Patel et al, 2015). Across the United States and Singapore, other psychopathology-linked measures of stress over academic expectations (Ang et al, 2009), self-efficacy (Klassen et al, 2009), negative affect (Scollon, Koh, & Au, 2011), anxiety (Lowe & Ang, 2016), and cognitive looming vulnerability style (Hong et al, 2017) have illustrated at least strong measurement invariance. As these tools have some overlap with instruments in the current study, and given the highly Westernized nature of the English-fluent Singaporean society (Suyi, Meredith, & Khan, 2017; W.…”

Cross-Cultural and Gender Invariance of Five Common Symptom and Cognitive Vulnerability Measures in the United States and Singapore

“…Moreover, emphasis on hierarchical power structures has been shown to be higher in SG than the U.S. (Wasti et al, 2007). Also, because SG has adopted some European American cultural values and is a Southeast Asian country that uses English as the common language, research has shown a high degree of measurement invariance for various psychiatric assessments (e.g., Hong, Riskind, et al, 2017;Lowe & Ang, 2016). Collectively, cross-cultural and gender measurement invariance studies facilitate adaptation of assessment and treatment to specific groups by accounting for observed similarities and differences.…”

Psychometric Properties of the Turkish version of Looming Maladaptive Style Questionnaire (LMSQ) (Turkish)

“…ciddi bir saðlýk problemi yaþama olasýlýðý) gerçekleþme ihtimalini ve hýzýný abartýlý bir þekilde algýlama eðilimi olarak tanýmlanabilir. Bu iki alt ölçek her ne kadar kendi aralarýnda yüksek korelasyona sahip olsalar da yapýlan çalýþmalar farklý mekanizmalar ve farklý kaygý bozukluklarýyla iliþkili olabileceklerine iþaret etmektedir (5,11,12). Örneðin, alanda yapýlan deneysel çalýþmalar fiziksel abartma boyutunun iþitsel uyaranlarý olduklarýndan daha yakýnda algýlamaya yol açabileceðini, aksi þekilde sosyal abartmanýn ise uyaraný daha uzak algýlama eði-limiyle iliþkili olduðunu ortaya koymuþtur (11).…”