The Personality Deviance Scales (PDS): cross-validation, item analyses and scale development

The Personality Deviance Scales (PDS; Bedford, A. & Foulds, G.A., 1978a) have been widely used in clinical settings and the diverse research applications were reviewed by Deary, Bedford and Fowkes (1995) and Bedford (2000). However, no large-scale item-level factor analysis involving clinical subjects has been reported. Hence, with 670 adult psychiatric patients and normal subjects, a principal axis factor analysis was carried out on the PDS 36 items. This resulted in six oblique factor-scales that replicated closely the a priori scales of the original test. A hierarchical factor analysis of these factor scores produced two orthogonal higher order factors identifiable as personal inadequacy (deferential submissiveness, interpersonal dependency and low confidence-capability) and general hostility (expressed hostility, hostile thoughts and distrust-cynicism). Finally, the 17 items of the Personality Deviance Scales-Revised (PDS-R; Deary et al., 1995) were subjected to a principal axis factor analysis with varimax rotation to a two factor solution and were found to replicate substantially the finding of orthogonal scales of hostility and diffidence. These findings further enhance the value and relevance of the PDS primary and secondary scales, and of the PDS-R variables, for use in studies involving their important personality concepts.