THE ABSORPTION SCALE - BASIC CONCEPT, PSY CHOMETRIC PROPERTIES, AND DIMENSIONS OF A GERMAN ADAPTATION

The concept of absorption and the corresponding questionnaire, the Tel legen Absorption Scale (TABS;Tellegen and Atkinson, 1974), are introdu ced here. Absorption was originally defined as a personality dimension related to hypnotic susceptibility, which promotes attentional states characterized by deep involvement in the perception of internal and e xternal reality. Results are reported of an investigation in which the experimental German version of the TABS was administered to a sample of students (N=252) in order to determine its psychometric properties and dimensionality. The factor analyses of the German TABS items suppo rt the assumption that the phenomenal sphere assessed by the scale is unidimensional.