Psychometric Properties of the Hong Psychological Reactance Scale

The Hong Psychological Reactance Scale (HPRS; Hong & Felda, 1996) was developed to measure the individual difference in reactance proneness, that is, a person's trait propensity to experience psychological reactance. We performed confirmatory factor analyses to test the dimensionality of the 11-item version of the HPRS. Three message outcome variables (i.e., perceived threat to freedom, attitude, and intention) served as reference variables to test the construct validity of the HPRS. Data from 3 studies (Ns = 188, 200, and 233) of reactions to persuasive health messages confirmed the existence of 4 first-order factors but also provided evidence that the HPRS can be treated as unidimensional at the second order. The relationships between the second-order factor and the message outcome variables provided evidence of the validity of the scale.

[1]  J. Dillard,et al.  On the Nature of Reactance and its Role in Persuasive Health Communication , 2005 .

[2]  G. Stemmler,et al.  Separating emotion and motivational direction in fear and anger: effects on frontal asymmetry. , 2003, Emotion.

[3]  J. Hoeksma,et al.  The structure of oppositionality: response dispositions and situational aspects. , 2002, Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines.

[4]  Michael Burgoon,et al.  Revisiting the Theory of Psychological Reactance: Communicating Threats to Attitudinal Freedom , 2002 .

[5]  Walter C. Buboltz,et al.  Psychological Reactance: Factor Structure and Internal Consistency of the Questionnaire for the Measurement of Psychological Reactance , 2001, The Journal of social psychology.

[6]  Walter C. Buboltz,et al.  The Hong Psychological Reactance Scale: A Confirmatory Factor Analysis , 2001 .

[7]  D. Lister-Sharp,et al.  Alcohol misuse prevention for young people: a systematic review reveals methodological concerns and lack of reliable evidence of effectiveness. , 1997, Addiction.

[8]  R. MacCallum,et al.  Power analysis and determination of sample size for covariance structure modeling. , 1996 .

[9]  Sung-Mook Hong,et al.  Refinement of the Hong Psychological Reactance Scale , 1996 .

[10]  A. Raftery.  Bayesian Model Selection in Social Research , 1995 .

[11]  E. Giannakopoulos,et al.  Psychological reactance: effects of age and gender. , 1994, The Journal of social psychology.

[12]  Ingrid M. Martin,et al.  Intended and Unintended Consequences of Warning Messages: A Review and Synthesis of Empirical Research , 1994 .

[13]  G J Wilde,et al.  Effects of mass media communications on health and safety habits: an overview of issues and evidence. , 1993, Addiction.

[14]  M. Browne,et al.  Alternative Ways of Assessing Model Fit , 1992 .

[15]  Sung-Mook Hong.  Hong's Psychological Reactance Scale: A Further Factor Analytic Validation , 1992 .

[16]  S. Wise,et al.  The Therapeutic Reactance Scale: A Measure of Psychological Reactance , 1991 .

[17]  L. Bensley,et al.  The Role of Psychological Reactance in Drinking Following Alcohol Prevention Messages1 , 1991 .

[18]  Karl G. Jöreskog,et al.  Lisrel 8: User's Reference Guide , 1997 .

[19]  R. Ostini,et al.  Further Evaluation of Merz's Psychological Reactance Scale , 1989 .

[20]  Sung-Mook Hong,et al.  A Psychological Reactance Scale: Development, Factor Structure and Reliability , 1989 .

[21]  S. Mulaik,et al.  EVALUATION OF GOODNESS-OF-FIT INDICES FOR STRUCTURAL EQUATION MODELS , 1989 .

[22]  Peggy Yuhas Byers,et al.  Factorial Validity of Merz's Psychological Reactance Scale , 1987 .

[23]  C Loehlin John,et al.  Latent variable models: an introduction to factor, path, and structural analysis , 1986 .

[24]  J. Brehm.  A theory of psychological reactance. , 1981 .

[25]  J. Brehm,et al.  Psychological Reactance: A Theory of Freedom and Control , 1981 .

[26]  L. Wallack,et al.  Mass Media Campaigns: The Odds Against Finding Behavior Change , 1981, Health education quarterly.

[27]  R. A. Wicklund.  Freedom and reactance , 1974 .