Development and Validation of the Current Experiences of Warmth and Safeness Scale in Community and Residential Care Ado
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Development and Validation of the Current Experiences of Warmth and Safeness Scale in Community and Residential Care Adolescents Laura Santos1 · Rúben Sousa1 · Maria do Rosário Pinheiro1 · Daniel Rijo1 Accepted: 22 October 2020 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Interpersonal experiences of warmth and safeness have a key role on emotion regulation and social development during childhood and adolescence. This paper presents a new and brief scale designed to assess the adolescents’ perception of current experiences of warmth and safeness (CEWSS-A). Its dimensionality and psychometric properties were investigated using a Portuguese sample of 453 adolescents from the community and 319 adolescents from residential care facilities. A confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the 12-item scale has a one-factor measurement model. The CEWSS-A showed adequate internal consistency in the different samples (α > .92) and construct validity in relation to external variables. The CEWSS-A proved to be group invariant. Community adolescents reported a higher frequency of current experiences of warmth and safeness in comparison with residential care participants, and boys showed significantly higher scores than girls, within both samples. The CEWSS-A is an appropriate self-report measure for clinical and research purposes. Keywords Warmth and safeness experiences · Psychometrics · Measurement Invariance · Adolescence · Residential care
Introduction According to an evolutionary perspective, humans are a social species [1]. In order to survive, the human warmth system evolved in the context of supporting and nurturing social relationships [2]. Being affiliated with others is considered crucial to an individual’s healthy development and psychological well-being across the life span [1]. It has been proposed that different types of psychosocial vulnerabilities can be understood taking into consideration the development, functioning, and interaction of three main affect regulation systems, specifically oriented toward threats, resources and affiliation, which are sensitive/ responsive to different types of stimuli [3]. While the threat system alerts individuals and activates defensive strategies, the drive system is related to the availability of resources and rewards, activating seeking-engagement strategies; by its turn, the soothing system gives rise to positive affect, * Laura Santos [email protected] 1
Center for Research in Neuropsychology and Cognitive and Behavioral Intervention, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
such as calmness, contentedness and reassurance, helping to regulate negative affect and behaviour (e.g., aggression, isolation) associated with the activation of the threat system [4]. The soothing system evolved in parallel with the attachment system, being shaped by the quality of the child-parent/ caregiver relationship [5]. On the one hand, if the parents/ caregivers nurture, reass
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