Brief Measure of Affective Lability Among Portuguese Community and Justice Samples: Psychometrics and Measurement Invariance

Abstract

Affective lability is a central feature of several emotional disturbances and is linked to aggressive and risky behaviors. This study aimed to analyze the psychometric properties of the Affective Lability Scale-18 (ALS-18) among a community sample and a sample of justice-involved adults. We also aimed to test the measurement invariance between sex and sample type. Results revealed good to excellent values of internal consistency. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the original three-factor structure of the ALS-18 obtained good fits. The ALS-18 demonstrated measurement invariance across sex and sample type. The results support that ALS-18 is a valuable brief and useful measure of affective lability among male and female individuals for use in community and justice samples.

Adverse Childhood Experiences: Relationship with Empathy and Alexithymia

“…In the present study, relevant results for Psychology are found since we identified a relationship between the studied variables, allowing us to expand the knowledge about human behavior and the factors that can influence it at the emotional and behavioral levels. Some recent studies identify the negative impact of childhood experiences across lifelong (e.g., Almeida et al, 2023a , b ; Pires & Almeida, 2023 ), and other ones identify some protective factors to develop a healthy life in adulthood (e.g., Almeida et al, 2023b ; Letourneau et al, 2020 ). Discovering potential risk and protective factors is essential to create intervention programs that can be implemented, for example, in the National Justice System, with victims and offenders.…”