Automatic Thoughts in Social Situations Scale for Adolescents: Factor structure and psychometric properties

Given the importance and difficulty of assessing automatic thoughts in social situations, and the scarcity of instruments in this area for adolescents, the aim of the present study was to explore the factor structure and psychometric properties of the newly developed Automatic Thoughts in Social Situations Scale for Adolescents. A sample of 1,095 adolescents (14-18 years old) obtained in 17 schools from the centre of Portugal participated in the study. Several self-report questionnaires were used. An initial exploratory factor analysis suggested a three-factor structure, responsible for 56.40% of the total variance. This structure was corroborated in the confirmatory factor analysis, and the model was invariant across genders. Acceptable to high internal consistencies for the factors and total, high temporal stability, and good convergent and discriminant validities were obtained. There were no significant differences in the distribution of the variables according to gender.