Therapeutic reactance in adolescents: the psychometrics of the Therapeutic Reactance Scale in adolescents

Background: The Therapeutic Reactance Scale (TRS) is a classic measure of psychological reactance, yet only two studies have evaluated its factorial structure. Both proposed different multidimensional structures based on exploratory analyses. Not only is the factorial structure of the TRS unclear, but the scale has yet to be validated in adolescents.

Objective: This study aimed to test the factorial structure of the TRS in adolescents.

Methods: The authors conducted exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, and analyses of reliability and validity, with a sample of 1,344 adolescents.

Results: A four-factor model fits well to the data. Three of the four TRS dimensions (not susceptibility to influence, SI) were correlated with the Hong Psychological Reactance Scale (HPRS). These three dimensions were also correlated with novelty seeking, cooperativeness and persistence components of personality (Cloninger’s psychobiological model of personality), while SI showed a different pattern.

Conclusions: Overall, this study demonstrates that the TRS is a suitable and potentially useful tool for measuring reactance in adolescents, but the authors propose that practitioners may wish to consider excluding items pertaining to the SI dimension.