Weinberger Adjustment Inventory (WAI) - Subject Baseline

This measure appears in the following time-points: Baseline.

Related Construct

Psychological Development

Description of Measure

The Weinberger Adjustment Inventory (WAI; Weinberger & Schwartz, 1990) is an assessment of an individual's social-emotional adjustment within the context of external constraints. There are 4 subscales: Impulse control (e.g., "I say the first thing that comes into my mind without thinking enough about it".), suppression of aggression (e.g. "People who get me angry better watch out".), consideration of others ( e.g., "Doing things to help other people is more important to me than almost anything else".) and temperance. The measure asks participants to rank how much (1= False to 5= True) their behavior in the past six months matches a series of statements. Higher scores on each of the subscales delineated below indicate more positive behavior (i.e. more impulse control, greater temperance and greater consideration for others).

There are a total of 23 items in the WAI, however, only 22 are considered in the scores below. Item 6 ( s0wai6 "I can do things as well as other people can") is not used because factor analysis suggested that it did not fit with the other items in the scale. Confirmatory factor analysis produces the following values for the three subscales:

Impulse control alpha: .76; NFI: .95; NNFI: .93; CFI: .95; RMSEA: .07
Suppression of aggression alpha: .78; NFI: .96; NNFI: .96; CFI: .97; RMSEA: .055
Consideration of others alpha: .73; NFI: .98; NNFI: .98; CFI: .99; RMSEA: .04
The temperance dimension, was fit using a second-order CFA model, where temperance was the second-order factor and impulse control and suppression of aggression were the first-order factors. The model showed acceptable fit (alpha: .843; NFI .91; NNFI: .91; CFI: .93; RMSEA: .06) even though the CFI is a bit short of the recommended .95 cut-off.

Additionally, the Chronbach's alphas for Mexican American youth (N=334) at baseline only are as follows: impulse control .79; suppression of aggression .83; consideration of others .73; temperance .87.

Four computed scores are available:

Impulse control [s0impuls]; the mean of 8 items which comprise the scale. Seven of the eight items are reverse coded. Data must be contained in six of the eight items in order to receive a computed score.
Suppression of aggression [s0supagg]; is the mean of 7 items which comprise the score. Each item is reverse scored. Data in five of the seven items is required.
Consideration of others [s0consid]; is the mean of 7 items which comprise the score. Data in four of the seven items is required.
Temperance [s0temper]; calculated by combining the 15 items from the impulse control and suppression of aggression subscales. The score represents the mean of these 15 items. Data in 12 of the 15 items is required.

In addition to the subscale score above, instructions for computing a summary score that combines scores from the PSMI, FOI, WAI and Resistance to Peer Influence is available. This summary score is called maturity of judgment (MOJ). A separate codebook section describes step-by-step instructions for computing the MOJ score.

References

Weinberger, D.A., and Schwartz, G.E. (1990). Distress and restraint as superordinate dimensions of self-reported adjustment: a typological perspective. Journal of Personality, 58(2), 381-417.
Weinberger, D. A., Feldman, S. S., Ford, M. E., & Chastain, R. L. (1987). (1989). Construct validity of the Weinberger Adjustment Inventory. Unpublished manuscript. Other Reference(s): Farrell, A. D., Danish, S. J., & Howard, C. W. (1992). Risk factors for drug use in urban adolescents: Identification and cross-validation. American Journal of Community Psychology, 20 (3), 263-286.
Feldman, S. S., & Weinberger, D. A. (1994). Self-restraint as a mediator of family influences on boys' delinquent behavior: A longitudinal study. Child Development, 65 (1), 195-211.