THE POSITIVE AUTOMATIC THOUGHTS QUESTIONNAIRE (ATQ-P) AND THE AUTOMATIC THOUGHTS QUESTIONNAIRE - REVISED (ATQ-RP) - EQUIVALENT MEASURES OF POSITIVE THINKING

We examined two recently developed measures of positive automatic thou ght the Positive Automatic Thoughts questionnaire (ATQ-P) and the Auto matic Thoughts questionnaire-Revised (ATQ-RP). internal consistency co ncurrent validity, and convergent and discriminant validity were addre ssed. Two hundred one undergraduates completed self-report measures of positive automatic thoughts, negative automatic thoughts, depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms and positive affectivity. The ATQ-P and ATQ -RP both showed high internal consistency, strong negative association s with depressive symptoms, specificity to depressive symptoms rather than anxiety symptoms, an average state-of-mind (SOM) ratio in the pos itive dialogue range, and a stronger relation with each other than wit h a measure of positive affectivity. The only notable difference betwe en the measures was a significantly lower mean score (correcting for n umber of items) on the ATQ-RP.