Italian version of the defense style questionnaire

Abstract

The Defense Style Questionnaire (DSQ) assesses defensive behavior by empirically evaluating conscious derivatives of defense and coping mechanisms in everyday life. It was developed on the assumption that defenses can be ordered along a maturity-immaturity continuum and tend to group into clusters, or defensive styles. The original factor analytical study, by Bond et al. (1983) identified four styles, called maladaptive, image-distorting, self-sacrifice, and adaptive styles. Successive studies only partially confirmed this factor structure. We present the factor structure and the main psychometric features of the Italian version of the questionnaire. The DSQ was translated into Italian by the back-translation method and administered to a sample of 294 men (mean age, 33.33 years) and 333 women (mean age, 32.38 years). An exploratory factor analysis identified three factors largely corresponding to Bond's maladaptive, image-distorting, and adaptive defensive styles and to analogous factors identified by other authors. Accordingly, three defense style scales were constructed, containing respectively 37, 17, and 12 items. These scales showed intercorrelations compatible with the hierarchical model of defensive functioning at the base of the questionnaire, acceptable, though ameliorable, test-retest reliabilities (r's = .79, .63, and .81, respectively) and, with the exception of the Adaptive Style scale, sufficient internal consistencies (alphas: .85, .72, .57). However, only the Maladaptive Style scale, probably due to its greater length, showed values of reliability and internal consistency high enough to warrant clinical use in its present form. Further investigation is required to find new items that may improve the reliability of the Image-Distorting and the Adaptive Style scales.