DOMAINS OF THE IMPULSIVITY CONSTRUCT - A FACTOR-ANALYTIC INVESTIGATION

The impulsivity scale from the Personality Research Form (PRF), the control/impulsiveness scale from the Multidimensional Personality questionnaire (MPQ), and the restraint scale from the Guilford-Zimmerman Temperament Survey (GZTS) were each subjected to exploratory factor analysis in a sample of 252 normal adults. The replicability of the derived factor structure for each scale was tested in a sample of 230 undergraduates using confirmatory factor analysis. The relationships among impulsivity dimensions were also examined by subjecting the extracted factors from the three scales to a second order factor analysis. Although developed as unidimensional measures of the impulsivity construct, the MPQ and GZTS scales were found to have a similar multidimensional structure: a cautious versus spontaneous dimension, and a methodical versus disorganized dimension. This multidimensional model is compared with some recently proposed models for the impulsivity construct. The PRF scale was found to be a unidimensional measure that taps only a cautious/spontaneous facet of the impulsivity construct.