Development of New Comparable Measures of Negative and Positive Social Exchanges

Jason T. Newsom, David L. Morgan, Masami Nishishiba,

Institute on Aging

Portland State University

and Karen S. Rook

Department of Psychology and Social Behavior

University of California—Irvine

Presented at the 53rd Annual Scientific Meeting of the Gerontological Society of America,

Washington, D.C., November, 2000. Assistance from Julie Guenette-Howard with a portion of the data collection is gratefully acknowledged. This research was supported by a grant from the

National Institute on Aging, R01 AG14130. Overview Negative social interactions with family and friends have detrimental effects on the well-being of older adults. Several authors have hypothesized that negative social exchanges are even more powerful in their effects than the well-known benefits of positive supportive exchanges. A major methodological impediment to testing this hypothesis fairly, however, is that existing measures of social support and negative interactions are neither comparable in their content nor their measurement reliability. This presentation reports on several years of the development of new measures whose comparability will allow for a more stringent test of the relative importance and roles of negative and positive social exchanges for the mental health of older adults. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used in developing the measures. Item wording and construct domains of positive and negative social exchanges were developed using focus groups and card sorting. Confirmatory factor analyses on a survey of 274 older adults were then used to test the comparability of the factor structure and reliability and of the new measures. The resulting measures consist of two 20-item, 5-factor measures that assess a broad range of concepts related to traditional social support and negative social interactions. Confirmatory factor analyses indicated an excellent fit to the data with strong standardized factor loadings (ranging from .75 to .93) with highly comparable reliability for both measures. Findings also demonstrate convergent validity with established social support measures and predictive validity with affect and depression measures. The new measures are comparable in reliability and content, making it possible for accurate comparisons of the effects of negative and positive social exchanges on the health and psychological well-being of older adults.

Methods and Results Focus Groups

 4 focus groups with 6 participants each were held.

 The focus groups generated lists of how people make their life “easier” and “harder”.

 Each participant chose 5 items perceived to cover the entire domain. Focus groups then voted on the entire set.

 Based on consensus, 38 positive and 37 negative items were chosen. Card Sorting: List Reduction

 Items from existing measures in the social support and negative interactions literature were selected.

 90 positive and 90 negative items were compiled from the literature and earlier focus groups.

 3 social support researchers and 3 older adult students performed a card sorting task.

 Cards containing items were sorted into three piles according to degree of importance .

 40 of the most important positive and negative items were selected. Card Sorting: Cluster Analysis

 12 senior adult students sorted the 40 positive and 40 negative cards into piles of items “belonging together.”

 Two 40 X 40 co-occurrence matrices of the number of times each pair of items were sorted together were created.

 Cluster analyses using within and between hierarchical clustering methods produced similar results.

 Figures 1 and 2 present tree diagrams with cluster results. Similar items appear together, with shorter branches indicating greater similarity.

 Five primary clusters emerged, with 35 positive and 35 negative items. Survey

 Participants were 277 older adult students (> age 65).

 The response rate was 69%.

 The mail survey included 35 positive and 35 negative exchange items based on the above cluster analysis.

 Included were measures of social support and negative interactions (Krause, 1995), affect (Dienner & Emmons, 1984), and depression (CESD: Radloff, 1977). Confirmatory Factor Analysis

 Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted using Lisrel 8.3 testing separate 5-factor models

 Items with low loadings and cross loadings were eliminated, resulting in two 20-item measures.

 Results are presented in Tables 1 and 2. Multitrait Multimethod Matrix

 A confirmatory factor model was conducted using Mplus 1.4, examining the correlations between our social exchanges measure and Krause’s measure of social support and negative interactions (Krause, 1995).

 Only items pertaining to three factors common to the two measures were analyzed: emotional, tangible, informational, hostile, bad advice, and demands.

 A multitrait-multimethod matrix of correlations between the latent variables is presented in Table 3. Retest

 A randomly selected subset were sent a survey approximately 6 weeks later (average return was 92 days).

 154 responded (77%).

 Test retest data are presented in Tables 4 and 5. Discussion The primary purpose of the present research is to develop comparable measures of positive and negative social exchanges. The results presented here represent several years of work of scale development, combining qualitative and quantitative methods. Qualitative methods, including literature review, focus groups, and card sorting, were used for item generation and item selection. Quantitative methods, including cluster analysis and confirmatory factor analysis, were used to test the factor structure of the measures, resulting in two twenty-item measures with five factors each. Three of the five positive exchange factors represent traditional social support domains of emotional, tangible, and informational support. However, two other domains, concerning social activities and trust, also emerged from these studies. Five negative exchange domains, parallel to the positive domains, were also supported: hostility/criticalness, demands, bad advice, ignoring, and distrust. Test-retest results, confirmatory factor analyses, and multitrait-multimethod correlations suggest high reliability and validity of the measures. Table 1 Positive Exchanges Factor Loadings

Items Emotional Help Advice Social Trust

1. Act warm or affectionate toward you. .845 2. Act kind or compassionate toward you .863 3. Do things that are thoughtful and considerate toward .848 you? 4. Praise or compliment you? .786 5. Give you help when you needed it? .883 6. Provide aid or assistance when you needed it? .798 7. Do favors and other little things for you? .834 8. Help you out with things you cannot do on your own? .709 9. Give you useful advice or helpful suggestions? .892 10. Help you solve problems? .938 11. Help you make important decisions? .898 12. Make helpful suggestions? .907 13. Do social or recreational activities with you? .916 14. Include you in things they were doing? .935 15. Provide good company and companionship? .921 16. Invite you to do things or go places with you? .895 17. Show that you can rely or depend on them? .859 18. Show loyalty toward you? .903 19. Keep promises they make to you? .873 20. Show that they are trustworthy? .871

N = 223, 2 (160) = 475.497, p <.001; TLI = .921, IFI = .934, SRMR = .0456 Table 2 Negative Exchanges Factor Loadings

Items Hostility Demands Bad Ignore Cannot /critical advice trust

1. Act angry or hostile towards you? .706 2. Behave insensitively or unsympathetically toward .878 you? 3. Do things that are thoughtless and inconsiderate .836 toward you? 4. Do or say things that make you feel inferior? .715 5. Not give you help when you wished they would? .761 6. Take advantage of you to get things they want? .626 7. Make demands for favors and other little things .512 from you? 8. Ask you for more help than you can give? .615 9. Give you bad advice or unhelpful suggestions? .733 10. Interfere or meddle in your problems? .768 11. Question or doubt your decisions? .822 12. Give you unwanted advice? .812 13. Leave you out of things that you would enjoy .672 doing? 14. Act distant or cool toward you? .829 15. Forget or neglect you? .773 16. Ignore you? .829 17. Prove to be unreliable or undependable? .791 18. Say things to you that are insincere or untruthful? .830 19. Break promises they make to you? .816 20. Show that you cannot trust them? .755

Note: correlated errors were allowed on items 19 and 20. (Although fit was also acceptable without them). N =246, 2 (159) = 326.440, p <.001; TLI = .934, IFI = .945, SRMR = .0456 Table 3 Multitrait-Multimethod Matrix of Latent Variables

Social Exchange Krause

Traits Emotional Tangible Informat- Hostile Bad Demands Emotional Tangible Informat- Hostile Bad ional advice ional advice

Social Exchange1

Emotional Tangible .790*** .692*** Informational .734*** .828*** .654*** .221* Hostile -.578*** -.226*** -.372*** -.383*** -.248** -.097 Bad advice -.360*** -.186* -.200* .770*** -.206* .005 .025 .576*** Demands -.526*** -.431*** -.368*** .862*** .790*** -.310** -.156 -.009 .479*** .336***

Krause2

Emotional .800*** Tangible .260** .362*** .335*** Informational .469*** .552*** .678*** .654*** .179* Hostile -.295*** -.435*** -.214** .606*** -.125 -.021 .049 Bad advice -.211** -.092 -.133 .382*** .568*** -.080 .078 .056 .525*** Demands -.239** -.269** -.191** .704*** .636*** .789*** -.070 -.109 .174 .586*** .573***

* p < .05, ** p < .01, ***p<.001. 1Newsom, Morgan, Nishishiba, & Rook (2000), 2Krause (1995). Validity coefficients appear in boldface type, correlations between different traits measured by the same method are in italics, an correlations between different traits measured with different methods appear in normal typeface. Table 4 Positive Exchanges Test-Retest Correlation

Test-Retest time interval: Mean: 92 days

Factor name Test-Retest Questionnaire items Correlation

Total scale .696

Emotional .690 1. Act warm or affectionate toward you. 2. Act kind or compassionate toward you. 3. Do things that are thoughtful and considerate toward you. 4. Praise or compliment you. Help .596 5. Give you help when you needed it 6. Provide aid or assistance when you needed it 7. Do favors and other little things for you. 8. Help you out with things you cannot do on your own. Advice .589 9. Give you useful advice or helpful suggestions. 10. Help you solve problems. 11. Help you make important decisions. 12. Make helpful suggestions. Social .655 13. Do social or recreational activities with you. 14. Include you in things they were doing. 15. Provide good company and companionship. 16. Spend time together with you. Trust .520 17. Show that you can rely or depend on them. 18. Show loyalty toward you. 19. Keep promises they make to you. 20. Show that they are trustworthy.

Note: All correlations are significant at .01 level. Table 5 Negative Exchanges Test-Retest Correlation

Test-Retest time interval: Mean: 92 days

Factor name Test-Retest Questionnaire items Correlation

Total Scale .645

Hostility/ .626 1. Act angry or hostile towards you. critical 2. Behave insensitively or unsympathetically toward you. 3. Do things that are thoughtless and inconsiderate toward you. 4. Do or say things that make you feel inferior. Demands .620 5. Not give you help when you wished they would. 6. Take advantage of you to get things they want. 7. Make demands for favors and other little things from you. 8. Ask you for more help than you can give. Bad advice .603 9. Give you bad advice or unhelpful suggestions. 10. Interfere or meddle in your problem. 11. Question or doubt your decisions. 12. Give you unwanted advice. Ignore .552 13. Leave you out of things that you would enjoy doing? 14. Act distant or cool toward you. 15. Forget or neglect you. 16. Spend less time with you than you would like. Cannot trust .507 17. Prove to be unreliable or undependable. 18. Say things to you that are insincere or untruthful. 19. Break promises they make to you. 20. Show that you cannot trust them. Note: All correlations are significant at .01 level.