The Rorschach is one of the most widely used tests to assess personality functioning. Among the various categories, determinants play a fundamental role, yet sometimes their coding leaves room for subjective judgment and therefore ambiguities. This study investigates prototypicality and color diagnosticity within the Rorschach Performance Assessment System (R-PAS), focusing on how color-object associations influence test's administration. In fact, prototypicality (the degree to which an object's feature aligns with its conventional representation) interacts with color diagnosticity (the extent to which an object is associated with specific colors). We administered a questionnaire to 587 nonclinical participants, and examined common color-object associations by asking them to (a) describe the visual characteristics they considered most representative of a given object, (b) read a series of colors and list three to five items commonly associated with a specific color, and (c) read a series of object names and select the color they thought most people would use to color those objects. Responses were analyzed via hierarchical cluster analysis. Results showed that certain objects exhibit high prototypicality in association to specific colors, whereas other items showed more ambiguous associations. Discussion emphasizes the importance of appropriate administration training, as well as more standardized guidelines to mitigate subjective biases in coding.

This study aimed to establish benchmarks for clinically significant change for the Moral Injury Outcome Scale (MIOS) using national data from Veterans treated in U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) behavioral health settings. We analyzed archival electronic health record data from 2,521 Veterans administered the MIOS between July 2022 and March 2025. A subset of 361 Veterans who completed at least two MIOS administrations within 4 months constituted the episode-of-care cohort. Reliable change indices (RCIs) and functional recovery thresholds were calculated using the Jacobson and Truax method. A change score of 13 points on the MIOS indicated clinically significant improvement and the critical value suggesting functional recovery for endpoint scores was ≤9. Most Veterans were unchanged (81%), with 11.9% showing reliable improvement, 4.2% probable recovery, and 2.8% deterioration. In the larger cohort, nearly half met the criterion for probable moral injury. MIOS administration was most common in general mental health and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) specialty care clinics. These initial findings provide the first clinically significant change benchmarks for the MIOS, supporting its integration into measurement-based care and routine outcome monitoring for moral injury in Veterans.

The aim of this study was to explore if turn duration and the performance of step parameters during segments of the Timed Up and Go (TUG) test with and without cognitive dual-tasking (TUGdt) can discriminate between individuals with different cognitive ability. Participants were divided into groups (dementia = 57, mild cognitive impairment = 126, subjective cognitive impairment = 71, and controls = 50) and performed TUG and TUGdt (naming animals and reciting months in reverse order, respectively). Turn duration and forward and return walk (step parameters) were compared between adjacent groups for all conditions. Results were analyzed with logistic regression models, presented with standardized odds ratios, and generally showed longer turn duration during TUGdt for groups with lower levels of cognitive ability, whereas a small tendency was observed for step length/body height. While these results need to be confirmed, they may indicate the potential of assessing TUG segments, particularly turn duration, to identify risk of cognitive impairment.Trial registration numberNCT05893524.

Moral disengagement (MD), or the cognitive strategies used to avoid feelings of guilt in contexts of moral transgression, has been an established cognitive risk factor for engagement in antisocial and criminal behaviors. In justice-involved samples, MD is most frequently measured using the 32-item Mechanisms of Moral Disengagement Scale (MMD). The current study aims to develop a short-form version of the MMD with strong psychometric properties and predictive utility. Using data from a longitudinal study of justice-involved youth, we generated theoretically and data-driven short-form versions of the MMD. We then validated and compared the short-form versions to the full MMD in a different sample of justice-involved youth. Results indicate that a data-driven 11-item short form consistently performed well across both samples. Recommendations are made for future researchers interested in exploring MD, and implications in risk assessment are discussed.

The present study aimed to develop and validate a multimodal self-esteem recognition method based on a self-introduction task, with the goal of achieving automated self-esteem evaluation. We recruited two independent samples of undergraduate students (N = 211 and N = 63) and collected 40-second self-introduction videos along with Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) scores. Features were extracted from three modalities-visual, audio, and text-and three-class models were trained using the dataset of 211 participants. Results indicated that the late-fusion multimodal model achieved the highest performance (Accuracy, ACC = 0.447 ± 0.019; Macro-averaged F1, Macro-F1 = 0.438 ± 0.020) and further demonstrated cross-sample generalizability when validated on the independent sample of 63 participants (ACC = 0.381, Macro-F1 = 0.379). Reliability testing showed good interrater consistency (Fleiss' κ = 0.723, Intraclass Correlation Coefficient, ICC = 0.745). Criterion-related validity analyses indicated that the proposed method was significantly correlated with life satisfaction, subjective happiness, positive and negative affect, depression, anxiety, stress, relational self-esteem, and collective self-esteem. Moreover, incremental validity analyses indicated that the multimodal model provided additional predictive value for positive affect beyond the RSES. Taken together, these findings provide preliminary evidence that multimodal behavioral features can assist in achieving automated self-esteem evaluation, offering a feasible, low-burden complement to traditional self-report.

The Mental Help Seeking Attitudes Scale (MHSAS) is commonly used in psychological research. This nine-item unidimensional scale was designed to measure how favorable or unfavorable respondents' attitudes are toward seeking help from a mental health professional and was originally validated using a primarily White sample. To address the potential limitations of using this scale cross-culturally, we recruited participants who identified as Asian American (n = 161), Black American (n = 259), and Latine American (n = 259) to take the MHSAS, and then we ran confirmatory factor analyses. Our samples also all consisted of individuals with chronic pain. The original measure validation demonstrated excellent overall model fit; however, all three of our non-White samples had only adequate overall model fit and factor loading values. An exploratory bifactor analysis still confirmed the unidimensional structure of the scale. These findings suggest that the MHSAS should be used cautiously in cross-cultural contexts with racially minoritized groups experiencing chronic pain.

Psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism, the "Dark Triad" (DT), share a common core of personality facets from the (dis)agreeableness domain (e.g., callousness, deceitfulness). Most DT scales neglect facet-level measurement, instead, adopting broad multidimensional scales that undermine precision and clarity. In contrast, the Elemental Psychopathy Assessment, Five-Factor Machiavellianism Inventory, and Five-Factor Narcissism Inventory used the basic trait approach (i.e., combining relevant Five-Factor Model [FFM] facets) to avoid these issues and provide numerous innovations. However, because they were developed separately, simultaneous use is problematic due to length and three forms of redundancy: (1) identical facets are used in multiple scales, (2) near-identical facets with different labels are used in multiple scales, and (3) numerous ostensibly different facets, derived from the same FFM facet, were developed. The unintended consequence being construct proliferation and jingle-jangle fallacies. This article describes a multi-study integration of these measures to develop a single set of unique facets to assess the DT at facet (e.g., Straightforwardness), domain (e.g., Antagonism), and construct (e.g., Psychopathy) level: the Faceted Dark Triad (FDT) Scale. The FDT, in long, short, and super-short form, provides efficient and theoretically coherent assessment of the DT, with superior psychometric properties and criterion prediction, compared with the original measures and Short Dark Tetrad (SD4).

Automated cognitive assessments tailored to specific clinical scenarios have the potential to revolutionize health care and clinical research. Stroke survivors experience significant burden from underdiagnosed cognitive deficits. To address this, we developed a digital cognitive battery (IC3 [the Imperial Comprehensive Cognitive Assessment in Cerebrovascular Disease]) highly optimized for stroke survivors, and specifically designed for unsupervised administration in patients with mild to moderate stroke, thus enabling detailed remote diagnosis and monitoring of a variety post-stroke cognitive impairments. In a study involving 90 stroke survivors and over 6,000 age-matched healthy adults, the battery demonstrated high concordance with the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), a commonly used supervised clinical neuropsychological assessment (r = .58, p < .001) and close correlation with patients' quality of life (r = .51, p < .001). In patients deemed to be cognitively unimpaired based on the standard MoCA cut-off (≥26/30, education-corrected), IC3 detected prevalence of impairment as high as 54% in a subset of tasks (M = 30.2%, range = 4%-54%). Importantly, performance on the IC3 remained consistent in both supervised and unsupervised settings in the controls, with minimal learning effects over time. This work provides the first evidence of the robustness and clinical potential of this technology for remote application in stroke, and potentially other neurological settings.

Emotion regulation (ER) in parenting is crucial for parental well-being and children's mental health. However, ER in parenting is often studied as a general construct, overlooking the unique challenges of caregiving, particularly for sexual and gender minority (SGM) parents. This study examines the psychometric properties of the Regulating Emotions in Parenting Scale (REPS) in parents across SGM status. Specifically, we leverage cross-sectional survey data from two national samples of ethno-racially diverse parents (n = 1,958, 32.3% sexual minority, 11.2% gender minority) to evaluate measurement invariance, reliability, and predictive validity of the REPS. Model fit indices suggest that the REPS has a consistent structure, item loadings, and intercepts across groups. In terms of validity, results indicate that adaptive strategies predicted lower child psychopathology, while suppression and rumination were more strongly associated with emotional and behavioral issues. Importantly, parent SGM status did not significantly moderate the associations between REPS and child psychopathology, suggesting that these associations are consistent across diverse family structures. By validating the REPS as a robust tool for assessing parenting-specific ER across diverse parent populations, this work addresses critical gaps in parenting research and promotes more inclusive and equitable approaches to understanding parenting and child development.

Sexual violence includes a wide variety of behaviors, ranging from harassment to coercion, to rape, to sexual homicide. Although the criminal justice system distinguishes these forms of sexual violence, several studies have suggested that they represent different degrees of severity of an underlying continuum, named the Agonistic Continuum. Such model proposes that sub-categories of sexual violence share a core, unifying construct. The aim of the present study was to develop and test the psychometric properties of a new Agonistic scale. Classical test theory, exploratory factor analyses, taxometric analyses, and two-parameter item response theory analyses were conducted on a combined sample of MTurk workers and university students. Analyses revealed that the new 30-item Agonistic scale is psychometrically sound. These results have several implications, ranging from moving away from the arbitrary categorization of sexual violence to encompassing the last decade of research on harassment and coercion following the #MeToo movement.