Distress and self-restraint as measures of adjustment across the life span: Confirmatory factor analyses in clinical and nonclinical samples.

Abstract

The Weinberger Adjustment Inventory (WAI; D. Weinberger & G. Schwartz, 1990) was designed as a hierarchical self-report measure of general social-emotional adjustment in older children and adults. The superordinate constructs of distress (i.e., anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and low well-being) and self-restraint (i.e., impulse control, suppression of aggression, consideration of others, and responsibility) are each operationalized as a composite of 4 subscales. Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted using 6 samples (ns = 153-392; N = 1,486). The factor structure was highly comparable with a mean comparative fit index (CFI) of.968 for youth (ages 10-17), young adults (ages 18-30), and adults (ages 31-65) within both clinical outpatient and nonclinical populations. The results suggest that there may be little justification for the routine practice of using different measures of general adjustment when investigating older children vs. adults.