Agrippa, Safia
(2025)
Measuring psychological flexibility across the lifespan: validation of the Adult and Adolescent Psychological FlexibiliTy Scale (ADAPTS).
DClinPsy thesis, University of Nottingham.
Abstract
Psychological flexibility is regarded as a key component of mental wellbeing. It
is the proposed mechanism of change underpinning Acceptance and
Commitment Therapy (ACT) and is thought to be composed of six core
processes: acceptance, present moment awareness, defusion, self-as-context,
values, and committed action. These are further grouped to form the triflex
processes of openness to experience, behavioural awareness, and valued
action. Psychological inflexibility is the inverse of psychological flexibility
involving experiential avoidance and cognitive fusion and has been found to
have associations with poor mental health outcomes. Accurate measurement of
constructs thought to underpin mental wellbeing, such as psychological
flexibility, is key to the evaluation of interventions and development of
recommendations regarding treatment for mental health difficulties.
The AAQ-II is a widely used measure of psychological flexibility in ACT
research. However, it has been noted to not provide a comprehensive measure
of the six proposed core processes and demonstrates multicollinearity with
anxiety scores. The AFQ-Y is a youth measure of psychological flexibility
developed from the AAQ-II. The Adult and Adolescent Psychological FlexibiliTy
Scale (ADAPTS) has been developed in order to address some of the issues
found with existing measures and provides a comprehensive measure of
psychological flexibility across youth and adult populations. The ADAPTS uses
plain English making it appropriate for those who could benefit from accessible
language.
Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used to understand the structure of the
ADAPTS in youth and adult samples. The ADAPTS was also compared to
existing measures to assess concurrent, convergent, and discriminant validity.
EFA indicated a three-factor structure (Openness to experience (5 items),
behavioural awareness (5 items), and valued action (8 items)) across 18 items
for the ADAPTS in both populations. The ADAPTS demonstrated good
concurrent, convergent, and discriminant validity across both populations.
Subscale validity for the three factors is provided and further project data,
analysis, and materials are provided in the extended paper.
This project supports the ADAPTS as an accessible, reliable, and valid measure
of psychological flexibility for use across the lifespan in both clinical and
research settings.
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