Validation of the psychological control disrespect scale with emerging adults: Psychometric properties and sex measurement invariance of the PCDS

Abstract

The current study is the first to describe the validation of the Psychological Control Disrespect Scale (PCDS; Barber etal., 2012) with a large age-range of emerging adults, in an attempt to broaden the usage of the scale to late and post-adolescence population. The sample consisted of 364 participants (184 females and 179 males; 1 unknown sex), whose age ranged between 18 and 29 (M = 24.38, SD = 3.03). Subject to the exclusion of one item, the PCDS exhibited acceptable to good model-fit indices when used with emerging adults reporting on their mothers, and its psychometric properties were found to be principally equal across child’s sex (i.e. respondent’s sex measurement invariance). The PCDS also displayed good reliability indexes, including the first evidence of the scale’s test–retest reliability. Finally, the PCDS was tested for convergent validity against conceptually corresponding parenting scales, which reinforced the scale’s validity as a measure of maladaptive parenting construct.