Evaluation of significant autobiographical memories scale: design and structural validation at an exploratory level

Abstract

Personal memories are multimodal cognitive representations. Nowadays, psychometric instruments which aim to assess significant memories phenomenological features are scarce. Consequently, the Evaluation of Significant Autobiographical Memories Scale was constructed and structural validated at an exploratory level. A total of 404 individuals from Buenos Aires city (Argentina) participated in the research. Initially, an expert judgment and a pilot study administration were carried out. Next, a homogeneity and a principal components analysis were implemented. To assess the scale reliability, Cronbach’s alphas coefficients were analyzed. The final version has 30 Likert response items gathered in 8 dimensions. Satisfactory psychometric proprieties were obtained – internal consistency of .892 and a total explained variance of 65.78%. The scale provides two main scores regarding the total quantity and intensity of the phenomenological components as well as a partial score per each dimension. It is stated that the test will prove to be useful in the research field as well as in the clinical area.