Confirmation of a four-factor structure of the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire among undergraduate students

Although several exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses have supported the initially proposed factor structure of the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ) in which its nine subscales are grouped into cognitive-perceptual, interpersonal, and disorganized domains, others have revealed different latent structures. This study determined the best-fitting factor structure from among five models that have been proposed in the literature, as well as five additional hierarchically related models.

Undergraduate college students (n=825) completed the SPQ as well as the Perceptual Aberration Scale (PAS) and the Revised Social Anhedonia Scale (SAS). Confirmatory factor analyses involving the nine SPQ subscales were conducted using the Linear Structural Relations Program (LISREL 8.72).

The best fitting model was a previously described 4-factor model including cognitive-perceptual, paranoid, negative, and disorganized domains. Correlations between the derived SPQ domains and the PAS score ranged r=.26-.39, and correlations between the SPQ domains and the SAS ranged r=.07-.41.

The present findings support a 4-factor model over the standard 3-factor model that is typically used to derive SPQ subscale scores. The four derived domains are minimally to moderately correlated with other measures of psychosis-proneness.