Ruch Willibald, Platt Tracey, Bruntsch Richard, Ďurka Róbert
Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland.
Department of Psychology, University of Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton, United Kingdom.
Front Psychol. 2017 Nov 21;8:2043. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02043. eCollection 2017.
This study examines whether coding open answers in a picture-based test, as to the extent they reflect the fear of being laughed at (i.e., gelotophobia), demonstrates sufficient validity to construct a semi-projective test for the assessment of gelotophobia. Previous findings indicate that cartoon stimuli depicting laughter situations (i.e., in the pilot version of the Picture-Geloph; Ruch et al., 2009) on average elicit fear-typical responses in gelotophobes stronger than in non-gelotophobes. The present study aims to (a) develop a standardized scoring procedure based on a coding scheme, and (b) examine the properties of the pilot version of the Picture-Geloph in order to select the most acceptable items for a standard form of the test. For Study 1, a sample of = 126 adults, with scores evenly distributed across the gelotophobia spectrum, completed the pilot version of the Picture-Geloph by noting down what they assumed the protagonist in each of 20 cartoons would say or think. Furthermore, participants answered the GELOPH<15> (Ruch and Proyer, 2008), the established questionnaire for the subjective assessment of the fear of being laughed at. Agreement between two independent raters indicated that the developed coding scheme allows for objective and reliable scoring of the Picture-Geloph (mean of intraclass correlations = 0.66). Nine items met the criteria employed to identify the psychometrically most reliable and valid items. These items were unidimensional and internally consistent (Cronbach's alpha = 0.78). The total score of this selection (i.e., the Picture-Geloph<9>) discriminated significantly between non-fearful, slightly, markedly, and extremely fearful individuals; furthermore, it correlated sufficiently high ( = 0.66; = 0.79 when corrected for reliability of both measures) with the GELOPH<15>. Cronbach's alpha (0.73) was largely comparable whereas the estimate of convergent validity was found to be lower in one ( = 0.50; = 0.61; = 103) of the two samples in Study 2. Combining all three samples ( = 313) yielded a linear relationship between the self-report and the Picture-Geloph. With the Picture-Geloph<9> and the developed coding scheme, an unobtrusive and valid alternative instrument for the assessment of gelotophobia is provided. Possible applications are discussed.
本研究考察了在一项基于图片的测试中，对开放式答案进行编码，以反映其对被嘲笑的恐惧程度（即恐笑症），是否能证明构建一个用于评估恐笑症的半投射测试具有足够的效度。先前的研究结果表明，描绘笑声情境的卡通刺激（即图片-恐笑症测试的试点版本；鲁赫等人，2009年）平均而言，在恐笑症患者中引发的恐惧典型反应比非恐笑症患者更强。本研究旨在：（a）基于编码方案开发一种标准化评分程序；（b）检验图片-恐笑症测试试点版本的特性，以便为测试的标准形式选择最可接受的项目。在研究1中，126名成年人组成的样本，其在恐笑症谱系上的得分均匀分布，通过记录他们对20幅卡通画中每一幅的主人公会说或会想的内容，完成了图片-恐笑症测试的试点版本。此外，参与者回答了GELOPH<15>（鲁赫和普罗耶，2008年），这是用于主观评估被嘲笑恐惧的既定问卷。两位独立评分者之间的一致性表明，所开发的编码方案允许对图片-恐笑症测试进行客观可靠的评分（组内相关系数均值 = 0.66）。九个项目符合用于识别心理测量学上最可靠和有效的项目的标准。这些项目是单维的且内部一致（克朗巴哈系数 = 0.78）。这个精选版本（即图片-恐笑症测试<9>）的总分在无恐惧、轻微恐惧、明显恐惧和极度恐惧的个体之间有显著差异；此外，它与GELOPH<15>的相关性足够高（相关系数 = 0.66；在对两种测量的可靠性进行校正后为0.79）。克朗巴哈系数（0.73）在很大程度上相当，而在研究2的两个样本中的一个样本（样本量 = 103）中，收敛效度估计较低（相关系数 = ；校正后 = 0.61；样本量 = 103）。合并所有三个样本（样本量 = 313）得出了自我报告与图片-恐笑症测试之间的线性关系。通过图片-恐笑症测试<9>和所开发的编码方案，提供了一种用于评估恐笑症的不引人注意且有效的替代工具。讨论了可能的应用。
