On the Negative Valence Items in Self-Report Measures

The assumption that semantic negative and positive items measure the same construct in Likert-type scales was tested on a sample of 501 eighth- and ninth-grade students. Four item sets of the types “I feel happy,” “I do not feel happy,” “I feel sad,” “I do not feel sad,” were administered to four groups of students stratified on the basis of gender and urbanization. The effects of including negative and positive valence items on the homogeneity index of the scale and the validity of conclusions based on such tests were investigated. Correlational and variance analyses results did not support the summated score hypothesis. The findings of this study question the common practice of using both negative and positive valence items in a scale and making decisions on the basis of the students' total score on such items.