A brief assessment of irrational thinking: The shortened general attitude and belief scale

Three studies were undertaken to develop and validate a shortened measure o f irrational thinking based on Bernard's version of the General Attitude an d Belief Scale (GABS). In experiment 1 the responses of 356 participants we re analyzed to derive 26 items from the 55 items of the GABS to form the sh ortened General Attitude and Belief Scale (SGABS). Experiment 2 established that correlations between the subscales of the GABS and the SGABS (complet ed 3 days apart by 90 participants) ranged from .60 to .77. In experiment 3 , moderately significant test-retest correlations (.65 to .87) were found b etween subscale scores obtained from the SGABS, administered 3 days apart t o 36 participants. Although a moderate but significant correlation (r = .41 ) was found between the SGABS and the Beck Depression Inventory, a signific antly higher correlation (r = .77) was found between the SGABS and the irra tional Belief Scale. It was concluded that the SGABS provided a brief metho d of assessing multidimensional aspects of irrational thinking with substan tial rest-retest reliability and construct validity.