FACTORIAL VALIDITY OF THE SOCIAL PHYSIQUE ANXIETY SCALE FOR FEMALES

The purpose of this investigation was to address the need to clarify t he factorial measurement properties of the Social Physique Anxiety Sca le (SPAS). Data collected from 760 female participants (who, on averag e, were young adults) were randomly placed into one of two samples to facilitate double cross-validation analyses. Calibration confirmatory factor analyses of three plausible models identified in research repor ts were conducted using structural equation modeling procedures. Subse quent cross-validation revealed a model with two first-order factors s ubordinate to one second-order factor to be unambiguously the most ade quate among competing models. This model also exhibited a good fit bot h in calibration and in cross-validation with all incremental fit inde xes exceeding the desirable .90 criterion. These results challenge ini tial validation study contentions that the SPAS is unidimensional.