Is the Polythetic Approach Efficient in Identifying Potentially Addicted to Work Individuals? Comparison of the Polythetic Approach With the Item Response Theory Framework

Abstract

This study included investigation of efficiency of the threshold used to classify symptoms as present, investigation of efficiency of the cut-off point used to identify potential work addicts, investigation of magnitude of the problem of class overlap, and investigation of effects of dichotomization of polytomous items on the estimates of the latent trait level. The sample comprised 16,426 working Norwegians (M age = 37.31; SD = 11.36) who filled out the Bergen Work Addiction Scale (BWAS). The results showed that the difficulty/third threshold parameters corresponding to the threshold used to classify symptoms as present were lower than 1.5 for the items corresponding to tolerance and conflict and higher than or equal to 1.5 for the items corresponding to salience, mood modification, relapse, withdrawal, and problems. The cut-off point used to identify individuals as potentially addicted to work identified 411 individuals (this constitutes 31.9% of all individuals classified by the polythetic approach as potentially addicted to work) whose estimates of the latent trait level were lower than 1.5 as potentially addicted work. The problem of class overlap (being classified by the polythetic approach into different class despite almost the same level of the latent trait) affected 4,686 individuals (28.5% of the whole sample). The dichotomization of polytomous items had a substantial effect on the estimates of the latent trait level. The findings show that the polythetic approach is not efficient in identifying potential work addicts and that the prevalence rates of work addiction based on the polythetic approach are not trustworthy.

Network Approach to Work Addiction: A Cross-Cultural Study

“…It has implications for monitoring and studying work addiction, suggesting that observer ratings could be particularly useful in measuring it in family settings, as well as in the workplace (see . However, it is uncertain whether Relapse 4 This interpretation is congruent with a previous study showing that the current wording of Mood modification (3) may poorly differentiate between pathological and non-pathological self-regulation (Bereznowski & Konarski, 2020). Additionally, the strong edge between Mood modification (3)-Withdrawal (5), which was measured as a response to a question of whether an individual becomes stressed if he/she has been prohibited from working, might indicate that it may be theoretically and psychometrically impossible to decide whether an item such as "I am stressed when I do not work" measures Mood modification (3) or Withdrawal (5; Atroszko, 2015Atroszko, , 2019a.…”

“…Firstly, when work addiction is analyzed at a symptom level the wordings of all items are remarkably important. Network analysis requires the development of measures with precise operational definitions and particular thoroughness during the formulation of the wording of Running head: NETWORK APPROACH TO WORK ADDICTION 17 items measuring symptoms (Fried, 2017; see also Bereznowski & Konarski, 2020). Secondly, this study showed that the meaning of symptoms centrality and predictability in cross-sectional networks requires more conceptual clarification.…”

“…Previous studies showed that there are some non-trivial relationships between the symptoms of work addiction, which could not be explained by a single latent variable of work addiction (Atroszko, Pallesen, Griffiths, & Andreassen, 2017;Bereznowski & Konarski, 2020;Lichtenstein, Malkenes, Sibbersen, & Hinze, 2019;Orosz, Dombi, Andreassen, Griffiths, & Demetrovics, 2016;cf. Andreassen et al, 2012).…”

“…Moreover, recent insights showed that work addiction might substantially differ from other widely studied behavioral addictions such as gaming addiction in terms of diagnostic properties of symptoms (Bereznowski & Konarski, 2020). Based on these premises, we have decided that this study should be rather exploratory in terms of the exact topology of a network of work addiction.…”

“…The results highlight the need to pay more attention to the measurement of addiction symptoms through proper wordings of items. We argue that some items measuring the symptoms of work addiction need rewording and that the rewording should be accompanied by careful theoretical and psychometric considerations (see also Bereznowski & Konarski, 2020). For example, a more unambiguous wording could more clearly measure Relapse (4), and its role in the network of symptoms (e.g., "You quickly went back to performing an excessive amount of work after trying to reduce your involvement in work for a while").…”