The Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire – Child (SPQ-C): Psychometric properties and relations to behavioral problems with multi-informant ratings

Abstract

The Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ) is one of the most widely used screening tool for schizotypy in adults. The Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire-Child version (SPQ-C) was recently developed to assess schizotypy in children and has a similar three-factor structure to the adult SPQ (i.e., Cognitive-Perceptual, Interpersonal-Affective, and Disorganization). However, few studies to date have reported on the psychometric properties and the usefulness of the SPQ-C in Eastern populations, including Mainland China. This study presents the first psychometric assessment of the Chinese SPQ-C in Mainland China. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were used to assess the factor structure of the SPQ-C in 1,668 children (M = 12.10, SD = 0.60 years) from the China Jintan Child Cohort Study. Our findings document a three-factor structure and partial measurement invariance across residential location and gender, replicating the psychometric properties of the SPQ-C in English. The Chinese SPQ-C further correlates with standard behavioral problems (i.e., Child Behavior Checklist, Youth Self-Report and Teacher Report Form), demonstrating construct validity and utility as a child psychopathology assessment tool. Our findings provide the first robust psychometric evidence for a three-factor structure of the Chinese SPQ-C in a large Mainland Chinese sample, and suggest

A three-wave network analysis of COVID-19's impact on schizotypal traits, paranoia and mental health through loneliness

“…Since most published findings focus primarily on internalizing problems and not externalizing problems -a key gap addressed in this study -the finding that paranoia/schizotypy are uniquely related to aggression highlights the importance of assessing comorbid psychopathology (Wong, Francesconi, & Flouri, 2021). The schizotypy-aggression relationship observed in this study is consistent with prior pre-pandemic literature (Liu et al, 2019;, indicating that above and beyond the included mental health variables in the network, schizotypal traits are associated with more aggressive behaviors, specifically reactive retaliatory aggression and not proactive, instrumental aggression. This suggests that individuals with high schizotypal traits are unlikely to be individuals who are aggressive toward others, report retaliatory aggression as a result of social interactions with others, and thus more likely to perhaps avoid social situations, engage in reclusive behaviors and report higher feelings of loneliness, despite easing of lockdown that help reduce feelings of loneliness for the majority.…”

Peer Problems and Low Self-esteem Mediate the Suspicious and Non-suspicious Schizotypy–Reactive Aggression Relationship in Children and Adolescents

“…The Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire–Child (SPQC) is a 22-item yes/no child-appropriate self-report measure of schizotypal personality (Liu et al 2019; Raine et al 2011). To provide a measure of non-suspicious schizotypy, the author of the original SPQC agreed to exclude the four items assessing suspiciousness (i.e., 7, 9, 14, 17) and summed the remaining 18 items to measure non-suspicious schizotypy so as to measure the distinct contributions of non-suspicious schizotypy features with aggression.…”

Internalizing and externalizing problems across childhood and psychotic-like experiences in young-adulthood: The role of developmental period

“…Although PLEs may be difficult to assess properly in early development, they have been found to co-occur with childhood psychopathology (Lancefield et al, 2016), commonly indexed by internalizing problem behaviors like anxiety and externalizing problem behaviors like hyperactivity and conduct problems. While limited research has explored the early childhood psychopathology/later PLEs relationship, the prospective and cross-sectional studies that do exist have found internalizing and externalizing problems in both younger children and adolescents in the community to predict later PLEs (Bird et al, 2017;Gin et al, 2020;Liu et al, 2019;Wong et al, 2014;Wong and Raine, 2019;. However, whether it is internalizing and externalizing problems in childhood or adolescence or both that may be related to later PLEs and whether any relationships found are not confounded have yet to be addressed.…”