Measuring cognitive fusion through the Cognitive Fusion Questionnaire-7: Measurement invariance across non-clinical and clinical psychological samples

Maria Anna Donati, Carmen Berrocal, Olivia Bernini, Costanza Gori, Caterina Primi, Maria Anna Donati, Carmen Berrocal, Olivia Bernini, Costanza Gori, Caterina Primi

Abstract

Cognitive fusion (CF) occurs when people are entangled in their private experiences. Rigid patterns of CF are a risk factor for various forms of psychopathology. The most widely used self-report instrument for assessing CF is the Cognitive Fusion Questionnaire-7 (CFQ-7), a unidimensional scale with good reliability and validity. However, its psychometric properties have been studied mainly in non-clinical samples and by applying Classical Test Theory. The goal of this study was to use Item Response Theory to investigate the adequacy of the scale in a non-clinical sample and to test measurement invariance across non-clinical and clinical psychological samples. The non-clinical sample consisted of 258 undergraduate students (68.2% females, Mage = 24.3), while the clinical sample consisted of 105 undergraduate students with psychological distress (60.7% females, Mage = 23.8). The results showed that CFQ-7 assesses a wide range of CF severity among non-clinical subjects and that it is useful to discriminate different levels of CF. Moreover, the results showed the scale was sufficiently informative for a broad range of the trait. The relationships of CFQ-7 scores with theoretically related constructs provided further support to the validity of the scale. The Differential Item Functioning analysis showed that CFQ-7 is invariant across different types of population. Overall, findings in this study provide support for the adequacy of the CFQ-7 both in non-clinical and clinical contexts.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1. Test Information Function (TIF) of…
Fig 1. Test Information Function (TIF) of the Cognitive Fusion Questionnaire-7 (CFQ-7) under the Graded Response Model (GRM) in the non-clinical sample (n = 258).
Latent trait (θ) is shown on the horizontal axis, and the amount of information and the standard error yielded by the test at any trait level are shown on the vertical axis.

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