ArticlePsychological assessment2026
How often is "often"? Improving assessment of the externalizing spectrum using absolute frequency.
Article in Psychological assessment, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- How often is "often"? Improving assessment of the externalizing spectrum using absolute frequency.Psychological assessment · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Nearly all questionnaires of externalizing problems use vague quantifiers of relative frequency (e.g., rarely/sometimes/often) or true/false statements. Vague quantifiers have many problems, including imprecision and low interpretability. An alternative is numeric quantifiers that quantify, in absolute frequency, how many times the person engaged in the behavior during a given time frame. This study evaluates whether absolute frequency provides utility for assessing the externalizing spectrum. Participants included adults recruited online and college students, for a combined sample of 1,237 adults (290 males; 947 females) spanning 18-92 years of age. A subset of items was adapted from the Externalizing Spectrum Inventory to assess absolute frequency, supplemented with additional items to ensure broad coverage. Using a 30-day reference period, participants indicated how many times they engaged in each behavior per day, per week, in the past month, or in the prior year. Externalizing problems showed age-related decreases from early to later adulthood. On average, men showed greater externalizing problems than women in early and older adulthood; women showed greater externalizing problems than men in middle adulthood. Latent scores derived from absolute frequency items demonstrated convergent validity with a widely used measure of externalizing problems (Adult Self-Report), discriminant validity with respect to internalizing problems, and criterion and incremental validity in relation to functional impairment and inhibitory control. Count data led to greater precision-less uncertainty in the estimate of each person's level of externalizing problems-than dichotomized versions of the items. Findings suggest there is key utility in assessing absolute frequency of externalizing behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.