Avances en Salud Mental Relacional / Advances in relational mental health
Vol.4, núm.3 - Noviembre 2005
Órgano Oficial de expresión de la Fundación OMIE
Revista Internacional On-line / An International On-line Journal
PRELIMINARY VALIDATION IN SPANISH OF THE
TEST OF SELF-CONSCIOUS AFFECT (TOSCA)
Las Hayas, Carlota, Lda; Guillén2, Virginia, Dr; González Pinto2, Asunción, Dr; ,
Gotzone, Zameza, Lda 2; Guimón3, José, Dr.
1
Unidad de Investigación, Hospital de Galdácano, Vizcaya
2
Departamento de Psicología y Psiquiatría, Universidad del País Vasco
3
Departamento de Neurociencias. Psiquiatría. Facultad de Medicina y odontología.
Universidad del País Vasco.
Correspondencia en relación a este artículo ha de dirigirse a:
Dr. José Guimón Ugartechea,
Catedrático de Psiquiatría.
Departamento de Neurociencias. Psiquiatría.
Facultad de Medicina y Odontología. Universidad del País Vasco.
C/ Barrio de Sarriena, s/n.
E-48940
Lejona
(Vizcaya)
Resumen
Sentirse a disgusto con uno mismo es una de las emociones negativa que es
básica en la vergüenza. Diversas investigaciones han encontrado correlaciones
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Avances en Salud Mental Relacional / Advances in relational mental health
Vol.4, núm.3 - Noviembre 2005
Órgano Oficial de expresión de la Fundación OMIE
Revista Internacional On-line / An International On-line Journal
significativas entre el sentimiento de vergüenza y la presencia de psicopatologías
como depresión y trastornos de la alimentación.
El presente estudio se centra en adaptar al castellano y validar de forma
preliminar el cuestionario Test del Afecto Auto-consciente (siendo sus siglas inglesas
TOSCA, Test Of Self-Conscious Affect). El TOSCA consta de 15 preguntas en forma
de escenarios con 5 categorías de respuesta.
La versión traducida del TOSCA fue aplicada a una muestra de 172 personas, de
las cuales 93 eran estudiantes universitarios y 79 pacientes atendiendo consulta
psiquiátrica. Se realizaron análisis de validez concurrente y discriminante. Además se
calculó la consistencia interna mediante el Alpha de Cronbach para cada una de las
subescalas. Los resultados preliminares fueron satisfactorios y alentadores.
Palabras clave
Vergüenza. Desvergüenza. Psicopatología. Validación. Fiabilidad.
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Avances en Salud Mental Relacional / Advances in relational mental health
Vol.4, núm.3 - Noviembre 2005
Órgano Oficial de expresión de la Fundación OMIE
Revista Internacional On-line / An International On-line Journal
Abstract
Feeling disgust towards oneself is a negative emotion, which is a core feeling in the
shame experience. Various studies have found significant correlations between feelings
of shame and psychopathologies, as depression or eating disorders.
The present study aims to translate and perform the cultural adaptation of the
Test of Self-Conscious Affect (TOSCA). The TOSCA consists of 15 questions in
scenario form with 5 response categories.
The translated version of the TOSCA was applied to a sample of 172
individuals, from which 93 were university students and 79 were patients attending
psychiatric counseling. Analises of concurrent and discriminant validity were
performed. Besides, the internal consistency using the Cronbach Alpha coefficient was
calculated for each of the subscales. The preliminar results were satisfactory and
encouraging.
Keywords
Shame. Shamelessness. Psychopathology. Validity. Reliability.
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Avances en Salud Mental Relacional / Advances in relational mental health
Vol.4, núm.3 - Noviembre 2005
Órgano Oficial de expresión de la Fundación OMIE
Revista Internacional On-line / An International On-line Journal
INTRODUCTION AND AIMS OF THE STUDY:
The TOSCA is one of the instruments currently recognized as the most promising
measures of guilt-and/or shame-proneness in the literature (Tangney, 1996). It was
developed by Tangney, Wagner and Gramzow in 1989 at the George Mason University
(Virginia, EEUU). It is a scenario-based measure of guilt-and shame proneness, in
which participants rate on a series of 5 point likert scales their likelihood of responding
to 15 situations in ways that have been pre-coded to reflect guilt, shame, externalization
of blame, detachment/unconcern, pride in self and pride in behavior. It may be applied
to any type of population and of any age. After a thorough search in the literature using
scientific databases as OVID and MEDLINE and the internet search engine 'Google' we
did not find any instrument in Spanish language that measured these domains.
Therefore, we decided to proceed with its validation to Spanish.
METHOD
Participants:
For the present study and bearing in mind future research interests we decided to
apply the TOSCA to a sample of university students, patients attending psychiatric
treatment and a sample of recently graduated art school subjects, whom we will name
the 'artists' subgroup. In order to complete the questionnaire patients had to give their
voluntary consent to participate in the investigation.
Translation process:
Firstly two bilingual spanish-english speakers translated separately the
questionnaire from English to Spanish. After their translations were accomplished, they
met and compared both translations, and made the needed adjustments until obtaining
an agreed version.
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Avances en Salud Mental Relacional / Advances in relational mental health
Vol.4, núm.3 - Noviembre 2005
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Validity Examination:
In order to examine the construct validity of the questionnaire, the research team
developed some previous hypothesis according to the theory of shame and guilt. Firstly,
as has been evidenced by the literature shame proneness is associated with a variety of
indices of psychopathology (Ferguson and Crowley, 1997). Specifically depressive
subjects show high scores in shame-proneness. Therefore, for our study, patients
diagnosed with depression should score higher in the shame proneness domain than the
rest of the diagnostic groups. Also, psychotic patients, since they lack of a deep selfconsciousness, should score the lowest in shame proneness. On the other hand, guilt
proneness, as measured by the TOSCA, is seen as an adaptive emotion. Therefore, in
our study, control subjects and artists should score higher in guilt proneness than
psychiatric patients. Regarding the concurrent validity, we used the Sensitivity to
Punishment and Sensitivity to Reward Questionnaire (SPSRQ) (Torrubia, Ávila, Moltó
y Caseras, 2001) as criterion measure. In their study, the authors of the SPSRQ point
out that sensitivity to punishment (SP) is positively related to neuroticism. Therefore we
hypothesized that SP would relate positively to shame-proneness. Discriminant validity
was evaluated examining the correlations of Shame proneness with Sensibility to
Reward. We did not expect any a priori correlation between these constructs.
Reliability examination:
Cronbach alpha analyses were performed for each of the 6 subscales of the
TOSCA. Past studies had obtained Cronbach alpha of 0.75 for the guilt scale and 0.82
for the shame scale.
Statistical procedures
To examine differences among groups ANOVA analyses will be performed
setting the p value at <0.05. Descriptive analysis will consists mainly in means and
standard deviations. To analyze the reliability, the Cronbach Alpha coefficient will be
used. The SPSS 11.0 statistical program was used to perform all the analyses.
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Vol.4, núm.3 - Noviembre 2005
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RESULTS
Participants
A total of 194 persons were recruited. Specifically, 93 (47.9%) were university
students, 79 (40.7%) were psychiatric patients and 22 (11.3%) were artists.
The distribution of diagnostics among the patients were as follows: 20 (25.3%)
had a depressive disorder, 12 (15.2%) had a bipolar disorder, 15 (19%) had an anxiety
disorder, 15 (19%) had a psychotic disorder and 17 (21.5%) had a personality disorder
mainly borderline or antisocial.
Validity Examination
Construct Validity
We will present the results obtained following the hypothesis developed to
assess the construct validity of the instrument. Firstly, shame scores showed a
difference statistically significant in the means among the diagnostics' groups. As
shown in Table 1 depressive subjects showed statistically significantly higher scores in
shame than the rest of the diagnostics. Also, psychotic patients scored lower than the
other diagnostics in the shame proneness domain. Table 2 shows the different means
and standard deviations obtained in the TOSCA among patients (which were divided
according to the level of severity of their condition into severe or mild disorder),
controls (students) and artists. As hypothesized control subjects and artists scored
higher in guilt proneness than psychiatric patients, although mean differences were not
statistically significant.
Concurrent validity
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Vol.4, núm.3 - Noviembre 2005
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Pearson correlations between shame proneness and the sensibility to punishment
scale resulted statistically significant, being r = 0.37 (p < 0.001).
Discriminant validity
Pearson correlation between shame proneness domain and sensibility to reward
did not show statistical significance, being r = 0.07.
Reliability study
Table 1 also gathers information about the Cronbach alpha obtained in each domain.
They ranged from 0.41 in the Beta Pride domain to 0.71 in the Shame domain.
DISCUSSION
The present study aimed to examine preliminarily the psychometric properties of
the TOSCA in a spanish population. This translation and cultural adaptation was carried
out bearing in mind a future study about shame proneness of main concern for us.
Therefore, our main focus was to examine and validate the domain of shame proneness
to use it in a future research. The analysis performed consisted in examining the
construct validity through the confirmation of previous hypothesis. These hypothesis
were created based in the theory and scientific evidence about the constructs of the
TOSCA. In our study, the relation between depression and shame proneness was
statistically significant, as has been evidenced in past studies (Tangney, 1989; Tangney
et al., 1995). Concurrent validity was also supported by a statistically significant
correlation between the shame proneness domain and the sensibility to punishment
domain of the SRSPQ. Discriminant validity was based since the shame domain did not
correlate with the sensibility to reward domain of the SRSPQ. Reliability was
considered low for some subscales as alpha and beta pride, and moderate to good for the
remaining domains. Therefore, these results seem encouraging to continuing research
into the validation of the TOSCA into Spanish, and providing some basis to use the
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Avances en Salud Mental Relacional / Advances in relational mental health
Vol.4, núm.3 - Noviembre 2005
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Revista Internacional On-line / An International On-line Journal
TOSCA
in
the
future
in
a
Spanish
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sample.
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Avances en Salud Mental Relacional / Advances in relational mental health
Vol.4, núm.3 - Noviembre 2005
Órgano Oficial de expresión de la Fundación OMIE
Revista Internacional On-line / An International On-line Journal
Table 1. Means, standard deviations, comparison of means (ANOVA) among the
different diagnostic groups of patients and Cronbach Alpha for each domain.
Cronb
ach
Alpha
TOSCA
SHAME *
0.71
N
tno. Depresivoa
tno bipolarb
Score range: 15-75
tno ansiedadc
Psicosis
d
tno
borderline
y
(consumo de drogas)e
Total
DETACHMENT
0.63
Score range: 10-50
tno. depresivo
tno bipolar
tno ansiedad
psicosis
tno
borderline
y
(consumo de drogas)
Total
GUILT
0.69
Score range: 15-75
tno. depresivo
tno bipolar
tno ansiedad
psicosis
tno
borderline
y
(consumo de drogas)
Total
EXTERNALIZATION
OF BLAME
Score range: 15-75
0.61
tno. depresivo
tno bipolar
2
0
1
2
1
5
1
5
antisocial 1
7
7
9
2
0
1
2
1
5
1
5
antisocial 1
7
7
9
2
0
1
2
1
5
1
5
antisocial 1
7
7
9
2
0
1
2
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Desviac
ión
típica
Media
46.3500 11.1510
b,d
0
36.7500
8.80212
a
41.0667
8.18942
a
36.3333 6.10230
39.5882 9.89355
40.5316 9.72287
43.1000 7.31905
39.4167 5.23030
38.3333 5.98411
38.4000 7.27815
40.0588 5.81454
40.0886 6.58123
60.3500 6.13253
56.9167 7.25457
55.6000 8.61726
56.2667 8.86781
56.0000 6.48074
57.2152 7.49473
41.5500 7.89053
35.7500 5.25919
9
Avances en Salud Mental Relacional / Advances in relational mental health
Vol.4, núm.3 - Noviembre 2005
Órgano Oficial de expresión de la Fundación OMIE
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tno ansiedad
1
36.9333
5
psicosis
1
35.3333
5
tno
borderline
y
antisocial 1
36.0000
(consumo de drogas)
7
Total
7
37.4177
9
ALPHA PRIDE
0.44
tno. depresivo
2
17.2500
0
Score range: 5-25
tno bipolar
1
15.5000
2
tno ansiedad
1
18.6000
5
psicosis
1
17.3333
5
tno
borderline
y
antisocial 1
16.8824
(consumo de drogas)
7
Total
7
17.1772
9
BETA PRIDE
0.41
tno. depresivo
2
18.0500
0
Score range: 5-25
tno bipolar
1
17.0000
2
tno ansiedad
1
19.8000
5
psicosis
1
18.1333
5
tno
borderline
y
antisocial 1
18.7647
(consumo de drogas)
7
Total
7
18.3924
9
* ANOVA showed significant differences in means between groups, at p<0.05.
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8.50602
7.01699
8.52936
7.87011
4.19116
3.96576
3.86929
4.46681
5.06066
4.34346
3.94001
4.36931
3.46822
2.99682
3.99264
3.77718
Avances en Salud Mental Relacional / Advances in relational mental health
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Table 2. Means, Standard deviations (SD) and means comparisons between groups
(ANOVA) in the domains of the TOSCA.
N
TOSCA
SHAME *
Mild severity patientsa
22
(0,1,2)
Score range: 15- Controlb
93
75
Artistsc
21
d
High severity patients
35
(4,5,6)
Total
171
a
DETACHED
Mild severity patients
22
(0,1,2)
b
Score range: 10- Control
93
50
Artistsc
22
High severity patientsd
35
(4,5,6)
Total
172
GUILT
Mild severity patientsa
22
(0,1,2)
Score range: 15- Controlb
93
75
Artistsc
22
d
High severity patients
35
(4,5,6)
Total
172
EXTERNALIZAT Mild severity patientsa
22
ION
(0,1,2)
Score range: 15- Controlb
93
75
Artistsc
21
d
High severity patients
35
(4,5,6)
Total
171
ALPHA PRIDE
Mild severity patientsa
22
(0,1,2)
Score range: 5-25 Controlb
93
Artistsc
21
d
High severity patients
35
(4,5,6)
Total
171
a
BETA PRIDE
Mild severity patients
22
(0,1,2)
Score range: 5-25 Controlb
93
c
Artists
22
Mean
SD
40.3636 7.20149
43.4409
d
8.74949
39.3810 7.15874
38.5714
9.87655
b
41.5497 8.82721
41.2273 5.03258
39.4086 5.57408
41.6818 7.60568
38.9429 6.94492
39.8372 6.12131
55.6818 5.92321
57.0108 6.84533
57.4545 9.01178
56.6857 8.50180
56.8314 7.35567
37.8182 6.04457
36.4516 6.58146
38.5238 7.70467
36.9143 8.63771
36.9766 7.09926
17.3182 3.34360
17.7097 3.36084
17.8571 2.43487
16.6857 4.75748
17.4678 3.59131
19.3636 3.53951
18.7097 3.06658
17.0000 3.02372
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High severity patientsd
35 18.0000 3.88057
(4,5,6)
Total
172 18.4302 3.34224
* ANOVA showed significant differences in means between groups, at p < 0.05.
(0,1,2) = Clinicians rated the severity of the patient in the Clinical Global Index as 0, 1
or 2.
(4,5,6) = Clinicians rated the severity of the patient in the Clinical Global Index as 4, 5
or 6.
References
Ferguson, T.J., and Crowley, S.L. (1997). Measure for measure: A multitraitMultimethod analysis of guilt and shame. Journal of personality assessment, 69
(2), 425-441.
Tangney, J.P., Wagner, P. & Granzow, R. (1989). The test of self-conscious affect.
Fairfax, VA: George Mason University.
Tangney, J.P., and Fischer, K.W. (Eds). (1995). Self-consciouss emotions: the
psychology of shame, guilt, embarrassment, and pride. New York: Guildford.
Tangney, J.P. (1996). Conceptual and methodological issues in the assessment of shame
and guilt. Behaviour, Research and Therapy, 34, 741-754.
Torrubia, R., Ávila, C., Moltó,. and Caseras, X. (2001). The Sensitivity to punishment
and Sensitivity to reward questionnaire (SPSRQ) as a measure of Gray's anxiety
and impulsivity dimensions. Personality and Individual Differences, 31 , 837862.
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