Analysis and Purpose of the Questionnaire

The Defense Style Questionnaire [DSQ-40] originates from an earlier version with 88 items, which was first re-evaluated by Andrews et al. in 1989, who assessed the validity of this version. The DSQ-40 is now the most widely used self-report measure for defensive mechanisms. The creation of this questionnaire aims to examine various psychometric properties such as internal consistency, factor structure, and discriminations.

Item Scoring

The [DSQ-40] contains 40 questions in a 9-point Likert scale format. The 40 items generate scores for 20 defensive mechanisms, with two items for each mechanism. These are generally referred to as immature, neurotic, and mature styles. The score for each defense mechanism and defense style is calculated by averaging the ratings for related items.

Statistical Analysis

The Defense Style Questionnaire produces an overall score, which is the mean of the items. The 20 DSQ-40 scales are scored by averaging the two items for each scale. The coefficient scores are the mean of the scale scores for scales 1-4 (mature), scales 5-8 (neurotic), and scales 9-20 (immature defenses).

Validity and Reliability

Several studies have used the DSQ-40 (Andrews et al. 1993, Chabrol et al 2005, Ruutuu et al 2006, Schauenburg et al 2007) and found that many of the DSQ-40 elements have insufficient content validity (Chabrol et al 2005, Schauenburg et al. 2007). The Cronbach’s alpha values ranged from 0.57-0.75 for the different styles (Andrews et al. 1993).

References

Andrews, G., Singh, M., & Bond, M. (1993). The Defense Style Questionnaire. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 181(4), 246–256.
Chabrol, H., Rousseau, A., Rodgers, R., Callahan, S., Pirlot, G., & Sztulman, H. (2005). A Study of the Face Validity of the 40 Item Version of the Defense Style Questionnaire (DSQ-40). The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 193(11), 756–758.
Ruuttu, T., Pelkonen, M., Holi, M., Karlsson, L., Kiviruusu, O., Heilää, H., … Marttunen, M. (2006). Psychometric Properties of the Defense Style Questionnaire (DSQ-40) in Adolescents. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 194(2), 98–105.

Tags: Defense Style Questionnaire, DSQ-40, defense mechanisms, psychometrics

For the development and analysis of research data based on the above questionnaire, as well as further information, please contact the DatAnalysis team!