An Autonomic Nervous System Response Inventory (ANSRI): scaling, reliability, and cross-validation

Area of Science:

• Psychophysiology
• Affective Science
• Psychometrics

Background:

• Understanding autonomic nervous system (ANS) responses to emotions is crucial for psychological and physiological research.
• Self-report measures can provide valuable insights into subjective experiences of physiological changes.
• Existing tools may not fully capture the nuanced peripheral physiological responses across different emotional states.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and psychometrically evaluate the Autonomic Nervous System Response Inventory (ANSRI).
• To assess individuals' self-reported peripheral physiological responses to various emotion-provoking stimuli.
• To establish the reliability and replicability of the ANSRI scales for future validity studies.

Main Methods:

• Development of 51 items reflecting peripheral physiological responses to prototypical emotional situations (fear, anger, sadness, joy) and physical activity.
• Rating of item presence and intensity (1-5) during imagined emotional experiences.
• Creation of P scales (physiological coherence) and F scales (factor analytic clusters).
• Psychometric evaluation including test-retest reliability, internal consistency, factor analysis, and cross-validation.

Main Results:

• The ANSRI was developed with scales assessing different physiological response systems.
• Reliability data (test-retest and internal consistency) were obtained from original and cross-validation samples.
• Factor analyses supported the underlying structure of the scales.
• Results indicate sufficient reliability and replicability for the ANSRI and most of its scales.

Conclusions:

• The Autonomic Nervous System Response Inventory (ANSRI) is a reliable and replicable self-report measure.
• The ANSRI is suitable for research investigating peripheral physiological responses to emotional stimuli.
• Further validity research is warranted to fully establish the ANSRI's utility in psychophysiological and affective science.