Psychometric aspects of the Dissociative Experiences Scale-II were studied with 308 American community college students. The overall DES mean was 21.70. Item-corrected correlations ranged from .30 to .62. The scale's Cronbach Alpha was .92. There were no significant correlations between DES scores and sex or religiosity. Age was negatively and significantly correlated to DES scores (r = -.24). A factor analysis showed only a single factor. Descriptive statistics of the DES-T were also presented. We obtained a mean of 13.81 and a Cronbach Alpha of .75. The DES-T was significantly correlated to the rest of the scale (r = .79), and to the age of the participants (r = -.22). The findings show that the DES II has good inner consistency.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BernsteinE. and PutnamF., Development, Reliability, and Validity of a Dissociation Scale, Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 174, pp. 727–735, 1986.
2.
CarlsonE. B. and PutnamF., An Update on the Dissociative Experiences Scale, Dissociation, 6, pp. 16–27, 1993.
3.
Van IjzendoornM. H. and SchuengelC., The Measurement of Dissociation in Normal and Clinical Populations: Meta-Analytic Validation of the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES), Clinical Psychology Review, 16, pp. 365–382, 1996.
4.
DubesterK. A. and BraunB. G., Psychometric Properties of the Dissociative Experiences Scale, Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 183, pp. 231–235, 1995.
5.
FrischholzE. J.BraunB. G.SachsR. G.HopkinsL.SchaefferD. M.LewisJ.LeavittF.PasquottoM. A., and SchwartzD. R., The Dissociative Experiences Scale: Further Replication and Validation, Dissociation, 3, pp. 151–153, 1990.
6.
FrischholzE. J.BraunB. G.SachsR. G.SchwartzD. R.LewisJ.SchaefferD.WestegaardC., and PasquottoJ., Construct Validity of the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES): I. The Relationship between the DES and Other Self Report Measures of Dissociation, Dissociation, 4, pp. 185–188, 1991.
7.
FrischholzE. J.BraunB. G.SachsR. G., and SchwartzD. R., Construct Validity of the Dissociative Experiences Scale: II. Its Relationship to Hypnotizability, American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 35, pp. 145–152, 1992.
8.
RossC. A.NortonG. R., and AndersonG., The Dissociative Experiences Scale: A Replication Study, Dissociation, 1, pp. 21–22, 1988.
9.
BauerA. M. and PowerK. G., Dissociative Experiences and Psychopathological Symptomatology in a Scottish Sample, Dissociation, 8, pp. 209–219, 1995.
10.
EllasonJ. W.RossC. A.MayranL. W., and SaintonK., Convergent Validity of the New Form of the DES, Dissociation, 7, pp. 101–103, 1994.
11.
WallerG.QuintonS., and WatsonD., Dissociation and the Processing of Threat-Related Information, Dissociation, 8, pp. 84–90, 1995.
12.
AlvaradoC. S. and ZingroneN. L., Experiencias Disociativas y Sueños: Relación con Frecuencia de Recuerdo de Sueños, Sueños Lúcidos y Sueños Vívidos [Dissociative Experiences and Dreams: Relationship with Dream Recall Frequency, Lucid Dreams and Vivid Dreams], Ciencias de la Conducta, 12, pp. 17–43, 1998.
13.
AlvaradoC. S. and ZingroneN. L., Dissociation and Out-of-Body Experiences, submitted for publication.
14.
TellegenA. and AtkinsonG., Openness to Absorbing and Self-Altering Experiences (“Absorption”), a Trait Related to Hypnotic Susceptibility, Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 83, pp. 268–277, 1974.
15.
WallerN. G.PutnamF. W., and CarlsonE. B., Types of Dissociation and Dissociative Types: A Taxometric Analysis of Dissociative Experiences, Psychological Methods, 1, pp. 300–321, 1996.
16.
RossC. A.JoshiS., and CurrieR., Dissociative Experiences in the General Population: A Factor Analysis, Hospital and Community Psychiatry, 42, pp. 297–301, 1991.
17.
TabachnickB. G. and FidellL. S., Using Multivariate Statistics (3rd Edition), HarperCollins, New York, 1996.
18.
RossC. A.JoshiS., and CurrieR., Dissociative Experiences in the General Population, American Journal of Psychiatry, 147, pp. 1547–1552, 1990.
19.
FischerD. G. and ElnitskyS., A Factor Analytic Study of Two Scales Measuring Dissociation, American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 32, pp. 201–207, 1990.
20.
HoltgravesT. and StockdaleG., The Assessment of Dissociative Experiences in a Non-Clinical Population: Reliability, Validity, and Factor Structure of the Dissociative Experiences Scale, Personality and Individual Differences, 22, pp. 699–706, 1997.
21.
MarmarC. R.WeissD. S.SchlengerW. E.FairbankJ. A.JordanB. K.KulkaR. A., and HoughR. L., Peritraumatic Dissociation and Posttraumatic Stress in Male Vietnam Theater Veterans, American Journal of Psychiatry, 151, pp. 902–907, 1994.
22.
Martínez TaboasA., Experiencias de Trauma y de Abuso y su Relación con Psicopatología y Experiencias Disociativas en una Muestra de Estudiantes Universitarios [Trauma and Abuse Experiences and their Relationship with Psychopathology and Dissociative Experiences in a College Student Sample], Ph.D. thesis, University of Puerto Rico, 1997.
23.
WolfradtU. and KretzschmarK., Untersuchungen mit deutschsprachigen Versionen zweier Skalen zur Erfassung dissoziativer Erfahrungen [A Study of German Versions of Two Scales for Assessment of Dissociative Experiences], Diagnostica, 43, pp. 370–376, 1997.
