Seattle Personality Questionnaire

Abstract

The Seattle Personality Questionnaire (SPQ) is a widely utilized self-report instrument designed to assess psychological symptomatology in elementary school children. Developed primarily by Michael T. Greenberg and Carole A. Kusche, the scale consists of 45 items that measure four distinct domains of internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Respondents indicate the extent to which each statement reflects their current feelings or behaviors.

The SPQ is particularly valued for its focus on identifying early indicators of distress across critical areas, including anxiety, conduct problems, somatization, and depression. The original structure of the SPQ was later expanded and modified by Aber, Brown, Jones, and Samples in 1995 to enhance its utility in a self-report format, ensuring applicability across various research and clinical settings involving younger populations.

Keywords

Seattle Personality Questionnaire, SPQ, psychological symptomatology, child assessment, anxiety, conduct problems, somatization, depression, self-report measure, elementary school children.

Authors

Michael T. Greenberg, Carole A. Kusche, Aber, Brown, Jones, Samples (for modifications).

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Purpose

The primary purpose of the Seattle Personality Questionnaire is to quantify and evaluate the severity of self-reported psychological symptomatology in young children. It serves as an early screening tool to identify youths who may be experiencing emotional, behavioral, or somatic distress that requires further clinical attention or intervention.

The instrument is designed to provide scores across four specific subscales, allowing researchers and clinicians to gain a differentiated understanding of the child’s distress profile rather than relying solely on a single global score. This structure supports targeted interventions for issues such as hyperactivity, withdrawal, and somatic complaints within the urban elementary school population.

Construct

The SPQ measures a broad construct of psychological symptomatology, which is operationalized through four core dimensions commonly observed in childhood psychopathology. These dimensions cover both internalizing problems (emotional distress) and externalizing problems (behavioral issues). The measurement relies on the child’s self-perception of their feelings and behaviors.

The four fundamental constructs measured by the SPQ are:

• Anxiety: Measures fears, worries about social judgment, and reluctance to engage in new activities.
• Conduct Problems: Assesses antisocial behaviors, difficulty following rules, aggression, and deceitfulness.
• Somatization: Reflects physical complaints (e.g., headaches, stomach aches, nausea, sleep difficulties) that are often associated with underlying emotional stress.
• Depression: Measures indicators of low mood, sadness, self-pity, lack of enjoyment, and feelings of unhappiness.

Validity

Specific detailed validity studies (e.g., convergent, discriminant, or criterion validity coefficients) are typically found within the primary unpublished manuals associated with the scale. While these coefficients are not provided in the source material, the scale’s item content demonstrates strong content validity, as the items directly map onto established diagnostic criteria for childhood internalizing and externalizing disorders.

The modifications made by Aber, Brown, Jones, and Samples (1995), which involved adding or modifying several items, suggest ongoing efforts to refine the instrument’s validity, particularly in adapting it for reliable self-report administration among young elementary school populations, which often presents unique challenges in comprehension and response consistency.

Reliability

Specific reliability coefficients (such as Cronbach’s Alpha or test-retest reliability) are not explicitly stated in the source text. However, the established use of the SPQ in academic research, including its inclusion in comprehensive compendiums of assessment tools for youth violence prevention, suggests that the scale possesses acceptable levels of internal consistency and stability necessary for research applications.

Reliability of the four subscales—Anxiety, Conduct Problems, Somatization, and Depression—would typically be assessed independently to ensure each dimension provides a consistent measure of its respective construct, thereby increasing the confidence in the resulting symptom profiles.

Factor Analysis

The structure of the Seattle Personality Questionnaire is fundamentally based on a factor structure that isolates four primary dimensions of psychological distress: Anxiety, Conduct Problems, Somatization, and Depression. This multi-dimensional framework is indicative of an underlying exploratory or confirmatory factor analysis conducted by the developers (Greenberg & Kusche, 1990) or subsequent researchers.

The clear grouping of 45 items into these four distinct subscales confirms that the scale is designed to measure these constructs, supporting the interpretation of distinct personality or symptom profiles in the children assessed. The items loading onto the subscales are utilized to calculate average scores for each domain.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-report psychological screening instrument.

Format: 45-item questionnaire utilizing a categorical response format.

Language Available: English (based on the provided items).

Population Group: Children and Youth.

Age Group: Elementary school age (Grades 1-6).

Population Details: Urban elementary school children, grades 1-6.

Test Methodology: Respondents select one of three categorical responses. Point values are assigned as follows: No = 1, Yes = 2, Don’t know = 3. Subscale scores are derived by averaging the item scores within each dimension. A high number indicates a high level of personality disorder or symptomatology.

The item allocation for the subscales is as follows:

• Anxiety: Items 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 26, 29.
• Conduct Problems: Items 1, 10, 18, 21, 22, 27, 30.
• Somatization: Items 6, 13, 14, 17, 23.
• Depression: Items 31, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 41, 42, 43, 45.

Keywords

Child psychopathology, internalizing behaviors, externalizing behaviors, emotional distress, pediatric assessment, conduct disorder, screening tool, MT Greenberg, CA Kusche.

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Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Information not available in source content.

Affiliation Email addresses: Information not available in source content.

Correspondence Address: Correspondence is typically handled through the Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, where the original manuals were produced.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Seattle Personality Questionnaire (SPQ) was initially developed in 1990, with the revised inventory, the Seattle Personality Inventory-Revised, following in 1994. Given that the primary source documents are unpublished university manuals, permissions for clinical or large-scale research use should be directed to the primary authors or the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington.

Fee information is not available in the public source. The instrument has been included in public health compendiums, suggesting potential non-commercial availability for research purposes, although formal licensing may be required for clinical application.

Reference’s

The following references document the scale’s development and application:

• Greenberg MT, Kusche CA. Manual for the Seattle Personality Questionnaire. Seattle, WA: Department of Psychology, University of Washington, 1990. (Unpublished)
• Greenberg MT. Manual for the Seattle Personality Inventory-Revised: a self-report measure of child symptomatology. Seattle, WA: Department of Psychology, University of Washington, 1994. (Unpublished)
• Aber, Brown, Jones & Samples (1995). Modified several items (4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32, 36, 40, 44) for enhanced self-report administration.
• The instrument is referenced in public health documentation. The original PDF compendium linking to the scale is available here: http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/YV_Compendium.pdf.
• An additional academic reference PDF can be found here: http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED486261.pdf.

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Items of the Seattle Personality Questionnaire

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

1. Do you talk in class a lot when you are not supposed to?
2. Do you feel afraid a lot of the time?
3. Do you worry about what other kids might be saying about you?
4. Is it easy for you to express your feelings?
5. Are you afraid to try new things?
6. Do you get a lot of pains in your body?
7. Do you worry a lot that other people might not like you?
8. Is it easy for you to solve problems with friends on your own?
9. Do you like everyone you know?
10. Do you often take things that aren’t yours?
11. Would it be hard for you to ask kids you didn’t know to join them in a game?
12. Is it easy for you to understand other people’s feelings?
13. Do you have a lot of scary dreams or nightmares?
14. Do you get a lot of headaches?
15. Are you always good?
16. Do you worry what others think about how you behave?
17. Do you get a lot of tummy aches?
18. Do you get into a lot of fights?
19. Do you ever feel mad?
20. Do you work well with other kids?
21. Is it hard for you to listen and follow directions?
22. Do you tell a lot of lies?
23. Do you feel like throwing up a lot?
24. Is it easy for you to share with others?
25. Do you argue a lot with other people?
26. Do you worry about what other people think of you?
27. Do you often tease or make fun of other kids?
28. Do you like working together with your friends?
29. Do you worry about being teased?
30. Do you sometimes break things on purpose?
31. Do you feel unhappy a lot of the time?
32. Are you helpful to others?
33. Do you feel like crying a lot of the time?
34. Do you feel upset about things?
35. Do you have trouble paying attention in class?
36. Do you listen to what other people think?
37. Do you feel that you do things wrong a lot?
38. Do you feel that most things are not that much fun?
39. Do you feel sorry for yourself?
40. Can you tell other people what you think without being bossy?
41. Do you have trouble falling or staying asleep?
42. Do you feel tired a lot of the time?
43. Do you often feel like not eating even though it is meal time?
44. Are you friendly towards others?
45. Do you want to be by yourself a lot?