A psychometric investigation of the Turkish version of the Children’s Response Style Scale (CRSS) using structural mediational analysis approach

Sleep and Hypnosis: A Journal of Clinical Neuroscience and Psychopathology 2017;19(3):38-53

Ali Sonkur, Murat Boysan, Muhammed Tayyib Kadak

The study investigated the psychometric properties of the Turkish version of the Children’s Response Style Scale
(CRSS). Participants were 1358 students, aged 13 - 19, and about half of the sample consisted of girls (N= 640, 47.13%).
Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted and the original two-factor structure of the CRSS was replicated among
the Turkish sample. It was demonstrated that sub-scales of the Turkish version have good internal reliability, testretest reliability and convergent validity. Rumination, meta-cognitions, pathological worry, and thought suppression
were found to be significant antecedents of depressive symptomatology in adolescents. Consistent with the
conceptualization of the response styles theory, distraction was preventive from depressive symptoms. A structural
equation model specified based on an integration of the response styles theory (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991) and the SelfRegulatory Executive Function (S-REF) model of emotional disorders (Wells, 2000; Wells & Matthews, 1996) detected
that significant linkages between depression and metacognitions were mediated by thought suppression, rumination
and worry among adolescents. Gender differences on measures of cognitive vulnerability factors were substantial that
girls revealed a greater tendency to meta-cognitive vulnerability, thought suppression, rumination and pathological
worry, while boys scored higher on distraction. Gender differences in depressive symptomatology fell short of
significance when controlling for cognitive vulnerability factors. Age was not a significant antecedent of cognitive
vulnerability factors and depressive symptoms. The results are discussed in light of theoretical and empirical evidence
in the literature.

Keywords: Juvenile depression, assessment, rumination, distraction, metacognitions, worry, thought suppression,
gender, adolescence.