Unpublished Work
The Spontaneity Assessment Inventory (SAI) and the Spontaneity Deficit Inventory (SDI): Factor Analyses
David A. Kipper and Wayne A. Jones'
School of Psychology
Roosevelt University
The study investigated the factors underlying two original inventories: the Spontaneity Assessment Inventory (SAI) and the Spontaneity Deficit Inventory (SDI). Previous studies with the two inventories showed satisfactory split half, odd-even, and test-retest reliability and concurrent validity with measures of well-being, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive, and temporal orientation. In the present study, the responses of 210 participants, drawn from two previous studies and new ones, were subjected to factor analyses. The analysis of the SAI found five factors accounting to 67% of the explained variance: energy and power, flow, hedonism/pleasure, freedom/risk taking, and creativity. The analysis of the SDI also found five factors accounting to 54% of the explained variance: anxiety, emotional distancing, lack of focus, stress, and disorganization. The possible meanings of the findings as well as the problems with the SDI are discussed.
Keywords: spontaneity, assessment, inventory, factor-analysis
The Spontaneity Assessment Inventory (SAI) and the Spontaneity Deficit Inventory (SDI):
The place of spontaneity in the theory and practice of clinical psychology has been quite limited. Although spontaneity is the opposite of anxiety, inhibition, and repression, these last three psychological attributes rather than the former found prominent places in the theoretical thinking and practice of clinical psychology. The reasons for this uneven scrutiny are not entirely clear, and one may only offer some educated speculations. It is possible that the traditional emphasis in clinical psychology on psychopathology drew attention away from concepts implying health and well-being, such as, spontaneity. Another possibility is that the appeal of spontaneity to clinical psychologists was marred by the fact that, on the surface, it appears to be a problematic concept. It conveys a conflicting connotation implying both desirable and undesirable qualities. On the desirable side, it subsumes positive attributes, such as free will, lack of inhibition, and the absence of boundaries. Yet ironically, these same qualities also make spontaneity undesirable because they imply a lack of control and an absence of appropriateness. Thus, for some theorists, spontaneity was an attribute both admired and feared, and that complexity made it a theoretically unattractive concept. Lastly, it is also possible, that although many people claim to understand spontaneity intuitively, operationally it has been difficult to define (Kipper, 1967, 1986, 2000; Moreno, 1968). The challenge to define it empirically does not seem to have had a compelling appeal.
The first to introduce spontaneity as a major concept in a psychological theory was Moreno (1923, 1941, 1953, 1964). Both the theory and the practical application of psychodrama are based on the hypothesis that spontaneity leads to creativity and is the key to mental health. Originally, Moreno depicted spontaneity as energy that propelled a person toward certain responses (Fox, 1987). Later, he altered the definition, moving the focus of spontaneity from being the drive that produced certain responses to being the responses themselves (**reference**). Our approach, however, is consistent with Moreno’s original conceptualization. To us, spontaneity is a psychological energy, a state of mind reflecting a state of readiness that prepares the individual to respond in an open-minded manner. Furthermore, it is the readiness to respond to internal and external stimulations appropriately and without premeditation. This emphasis on the appropriateness of the response eliminates for theorists that uneasy feeling that spontaneity implies a lack of control.
Collins, Kumar, Treadwell & Leach (1997 reported the first attempt to design a standardized paper and pencil measure of spontaneity. Their original scale, the Personal Attitude Scale: PAS, was later revised (Kellar, Treadwell, Kumar, & Leach, 2002) and titled PAS-II. In this second version, the measure contains 88 items. To compose the items, the authors derived them from various statements about spontaneity made in the psychological literature. Although the pioneering effort of these authors is highly commendable, the large number of items in the PAS-II presents a practical drawback in the administration of the measure.
Recently, Kipper and Hundal (in review) offered a much shorter paper and pencil inventory for measuring spontaneity. The Spontaneity Assessment Inventory (SAI) contains 20 items: adjectives that describe spontaneity as a state of mind. In addition, the method of selecting these items differed from that used by Collins et al., (1997) and Kellar, et al, (2002) (see the Measures section). In fact, Kipper and Hundal (in review) offered two inventories: the SAI, designed to assess spontaneity, and the Spontaneity Deficit Inventory (SDI), which contains 17 items derived by the same method as those in the SAI. Psychometric data regarding reliability support the use of these two inventories (Kipper & Hundal, in review; Christoforu & Kipper, in review). The initial analyses of these inventories (Kipper & Hundal, in review; Christoforu & Kipper, in review) showed that the SAI correlated significantly, in the predicted direction with a measure of well-being (Friedman, 1989: FWBS), a measure of state anxiety and trait anxiety (Spielberger, Gorsuch, Lushene, Vagg, & Jacobs, 1983: STAXI), a measure of obsessive-compulsive disorder (Foa, Huppert, Leiberg, Langer, Kichie, Hajcak, & Salkovskis, 2002: OCI-R), and the present time orientation (Jones, Banicky, Pomare, & Lasani, 2004: TOS). As expected, the SDI data showed reversed results. The SDI correlated negatively with the FWBS measure of well-being, and positively with the STAXI measure of state and trait anxiety and with the OCI-I measure of obsessive-compulsive disorder. It also correlated positively with the past temporal orientation (TOS).
The rationale for constructing two measures, one for spontaneity assessment and another for assessing spontaneity deficit, grew out of the difficulty in defining the psychological attributes subsumed by spontaneity. The development process took a two-pronged approach. On the one hand, construction of the SAI attempted to capture, directly, the attributes that played a role in spontaneity. On the other hand, construction of the SDI attempted to identify the psychological attributes that cause spontaneity deficit. We thought that, in addition to measuring spontaneity directly with the SAI, we could use the SDI to help refine the understanding of spontaneity by exploring and unraveling its deficit.
Whereas it was obvious that the meaning of spontaneity in the scientific context differed from the colloquial usage of the word, it was not entirely clear what psychological attributes were subsumed by the concept of spontaneity as measured by the SAI. Lack of clarity was even greater with regard to the concept of spontaneity deficit (or ‘non-spontaneity’). Again, the psychological characteristics subsumed by the concept of spontaneity deficit needed elucidation if it was to fulfill its role of shedding further light on the meaning of spontaneity. The present study addressed these issues by examining what factors underlie the results from each of the SAI and SDI measures.
Participants
The participants were 210 males and females and included high school students, undergraduate and graduate students at Roosevelt University, as well as randomly selected individuals in the Chicago area. Their ages ranged from 18 to 74 years (M = 29.86, SD = 10.60). Of these, 132 were females with mean age of 30.0 (SD = 10.84) and 77 males with mean age of 29.61 (SD = 10.24). One participant did not specify a gender. The vast majority of the participants were pooled from samples employed in two previous studies (Kipper & Hundal, in review; Christoforu & Kipper, in review) with the addition of a few more participants for the present investigation. All participated in the studies anonymously and voluntarily.
Measures
The Spontaneity Assessment Inventory (SAI). The SAI is a self-report, 20-item inventory designed to assess spontaneity. Respondents are asked to rate the intensity of their feelings and thoughts as described by adjectives that characterize the state of mind labeled spontaneity (Kipper & Hundal; in review). The inventory poses the question: "How strongly do you have these feelings or thoughts during a typical day?" The 20 items that follow are arranged on a 6-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = none to 6 = very strong. The total score is calculated by adding the scores of all the items. Examples of the items included in the SAI are: Happy, Uninhibited, Free to Act Even Outrageously, In the Zone, and Powerful.
The Spontaneity Deficit Inventory (SDI). The SDI is a self-report, 17-item inventory designed to assess the extent to which a respondent lacks spontaneity. Participants are asked to rate the intensity of their feelings and thoughts described by adjectives that capture the characteristics of the absence of spontaneity. The inventory poses the question: “How strongly do you have these feelings or thoughts during a typical day?” The list of the 17 items that follow the question are arranged on a 6-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = none to 6 = very strong. The total score is calculated by adding the scores of all the items. Examples of the items that appear in the SDI are: Overwhelmed, Preoccupied, Tired, Tensed, Spacey, and Tunnel-vision thinking.
Both the SAI and the SDI were constructed in the same manner. Twenty-five internationally known psychodrama specialists in the USA and Europe, each with at least 25 years of experience, were asked to provide five descriptions (adjectives) of how it feels to be in a state of spontaneity and five descriptions (adjectives) of how it feels to be non-spontaneous. Psychodrama is a group psychotherapy modality based on J. L. Moreno’s theory (Moreno, 1953, 1964) that spontaneity promotes creativity and mental health, and that therapeutic gains are predicated on one’s ability to become increasingly spontaneous. Psychodrama therapists are trained in spontaneity and, in turn, train their clients to become more spontaneous. It appeared reasonable, therefore, to rely on these experts as the source for composing a profile of psychological attributes that characterize spontaneity and its lack.
The history of constructing the present versions of the SAI and SDI was as follows. Eliminating redundancies and long descriptions from the original two lists of 125 items each left the SAI with 79 items and the SDI with 49. These forms of the inventories were then administered to 78 participants whose ages ranged from 18 to 65 years. An item analysis for each inventory further reduced the number of items, leaving 35 items in the spontaneous list and 23 in the spontaneity deficit list.
In a subsequent study by Kipper and Hundal (in review), two items from the earlier version of the SAI were dropped because their descriptions were too long; the revised version of the inventory had 33 items. In addition seven of the original items were rephrased in the negative to avoid response-set. The SDI retained the 23 items that had remained following the item-analysis. The result of another administration of both inventories to 106 participants and an additional item-analysis further reduced the number of the items on the SAI to 20 and that of the SDI to 17. The reported split-half reliability coefficients for these shorter versions of the SAI and SDI were .88 and .80, respectively.
Procedure
The SAI and SDI were administered together to individuals and to small groups. All participants were presented with the same informed consent form, which was also read to them verbally. They consented to take part in the study voluntarily and anonymously. The consent form made it clear that they were free to withdraw from the study at any time without penalty. The only demographic data recorded on each form were the participant’s age, gender, and years of education. To enable the computation of correlation coefficients between the SAI and SDI, a number was assigned to and recorded on each pair of SAI and SDI forms. Participants’ names were not recorded on test forms or verbal consent forms.
As indicated earlier, the data for the SAI and SDI were collected from two earlier studies (Kipper & Hundal, in review; Christoforu & Kipper, in review) with additional data gathered from participants specifically engaged for the present study. In the previous studies, the SAI and SDI where administered together with other psychological tests. In the case of the additional group, only the SAI and the SDI inventories were administered. In all instances, the order of administering the inventories was reversed for half of the participants.
The mean of the participants’ scores on the SAI was 79.40 (SD = 14.76). Males scored significantly higher than females (M = 81.10, SD = 13.01 vs. M = 78.23, SD = 13.01, t = 1.32, p < .05). The same picture emerged with regard to the scores on the SDI. Again, males scored significantly higher than females (M = 52.14, SD = 13.01 vs. M = 50.40, SD = 14.37, t = .85, p < .05). The split-half reliability coefficients were r = .88 for the SAI and r = .86 for the SDI. The Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient was .93 for the SAI and .91 for the SDI.
To understand the meaning of spontaneity as measured by the SAI, we conducted a factor analysis using a principal components analysis with varimax rotation and Kaiser normalization. Using the cut-off point of an eigenvalue of +.87, the analysis yielded a five-factor solution that included all 20 items (four of the five factors had eigenvalues of 1.00 or higher). Table 1 shows these five factors, the percent of variance each explains, the items included in each factor, and the factor loading of each item. Accordingly, the state of mind labeled spontaneity, as measured by the SAI, contains the presence of energy and power (factor 1), the feeling of flow (factor 2), a sense of pleasure (factor 3), a feeling of freedom and risk-taking (factor 4), and an urge to create (factor 5). These five factors explain two thirds (66.73%) of the total variance.
Spontaneity deficit emerged as a state of mind based on a different set of psychological factors. Table 2 presents the results of a factor analysis using a principal components analysis with varimax rotation and Kaiser normalization. Using the cut-off point of an eigenvalue of +.83, the analysis yielded a five-factor solution that included all 17 items (four of the five factors had eigenvalues of 1.00 or higher). Table 2 shows these five factors, the percent of the variance they explain, the items included in each factor, and the factor loading of each item. Accordingly, the state of mind labeled spontaneity deficit, as measured by the SDI, is characterized by anxiety (factor 1), emotional distancing (factor 2), the absence of focus (factor 3), stress (factor 4), and disorganization (factor 5). These five factors explain slightly more than half (53.94%) of the total variance. The possible meaning of this low accumulation of explained variance will be discussed later.
Regarding the relationship between spontaneity and spontaneity deficit, the Pearson product moment correlation coefficient between the two inventories, for the entire sample, was -0.37, p < .01. However, when the participants were divided into three equal subgroups of the top, middle, and bottom thirds based on the descending order their SAI scores, there was only one statistically significant correlation with the corresponding SDI scores, i.e., for the top 33% of SAI scorers, the correlation of their SAI and SDI scores was r = -.28, p < .05. There were no statistically significant correlations between the SAI and SDI scores of the middle or bottom thirds defined by the SAI scores.
Furthermore, the results showed that it was impossible to predict a participant’s SAI scores from their SDI scores. When the participants were divided into three equal subgroups of top, middle, and bottom according to the descending order of SDI scores, none of the subgroups’ results correlated significantly with their SAI scores (r’s = -.19, .18, and .18, for the top, middle, and bottom thirds based on SDI scores, respectively.)
| SAI Factors, Loadings, and Explained Variance | ||
|---|---|---|
| Factors/Items | Squared Loading | % of Variance |
| Factor 1: Energy and Power | ||
| Alive | .62 | 18.34% |
| Exhilarated | .67 | |
| Living fully with balance and grace | .61 | |
| Energized | .62 | |
| Fulfilled | .72 | |
| Powerful | .61 | |
| Factor 2: Flow | ||
| Things seem to flow | .72 | 14.03% |
| In the zone | .77 | |
| Successful | .44 | |
| In the groove | .83 | |
| Factor 3: Hedonism/Pleasure | ||
| Happy | .74 | 13.93% |
| Light & loving | .60 | |
| Sensing pleasure | .72 | |
| Joyful | .67 | |
| Factor 4: Freedom/Risk-taking | ||
| Uninhibited | .58 | 11.59% |
| Free to act even outrageously | .77 | |
| In control but free to do as I wish | .63 | |
| Can do what I want within limits | .66 | |
| Factor 5: Creativity | ||
| Wanting to do something creative | .78 | 8.85% |
| Feel free to invent | .69 | |
| Cumulative % = 66.73% | ||
| SDI Factors, Loadings, and Explained Variance | ||
|---|---|---|
| Factors/Items | Squared Loading | % of Variance |
| Factor 1: Anxiety | ||
| Depressed | .58 | 15.44% |
| Tired | .48 | |
| Nervous | .66 | |
| Tensed | .64 | |
| Worried | .68 | |
| Factor 2: Emotional distancing | ||
| Sense of mistrust | .74 | 12.00% |
| Irritated | .48 | |
| Suppressed anger | .70 | |
| Factor 3: Lack of focus | ||
| Mind chatter | .44 | 10.66% |
| Numb | .49 | |
| Spacey | .85 | |
| Factor 4: Stress | ||
| Overwhelmed | .66 | 10.04% |
| Preoccupied | .75 | |
| Factor 5: Disorganization | ||
| Loosely organized | .74 | 5.80% |
| Cumulative % = 53.94% | ||
Spontaneity appeared to be a psychological state characterized by an upbeat energy accompanied by the feelings of fulfillment and deep involvement (flow). It was depicted as a positive experience associated with pleasure and joy. It seemed to provide a sense of freedom to act and to take risks but not without control, along with the urge to create and be inventive. In general, the five factors underlying the SAI portrayed a state of readiness to act, a concept congruent with Moreno’s original thinking about spontaneity as energy or a force (Kipper, 1967; Moreno, 1953). The identified factors implied that, in all likelihood, spontaneity precedes the act serving as a form of intrinsic motivation. Interestingly, the psychological make-up of spontaneity included two factors that have not been discussed much in the psychodrama literature. One is the readiness to take risk, and the second is the hedonistic, pleasurable sensation accompanying this state of mind.
Our main interest in devising the two inventories principally centered on the assessment of spontaneity (the SAI). One of our purposes for developing the inventory of spontaneity deficit was to help refine the characterization of spontaneity. Our rationale was that, in addition to measuring spontaneity directly, identifying what is not spontaneity might also facilitate understanding what it is. This approach turned out to be constructive. Three of the five factors found to account for a majority of the variance in the SDI measure, i.e., anxiety, stress, and emotional distancing, are clearly incompatible with the factors underlying the results of the SAI. However, two SDI factors, lack of focus and disorganization, have no counter-representation on the SAI. These two seemed to be cognitive qualities; whereas, the factors contributing to the SAI were primarily emotional.
The five factors underlying the SDI had an accumulated explained variance of about 54%. This finding casts doubt on the usefulness of the SDI as an independent scale. Because, as noted above, the present investigation was about the SAI, not the SDI, these findings are not disappointing. A possible explanation for this low accumulation of explained variance might be that non-spontaneity is not a unitary concept. One could reasonably argue that spontaneity deficit is a phenomenon found in a wide spectrum of behaviors ranging from normal (e.g., having habits and being cautious) to pathological (e. g., being obsessive-compulsive). Furthermore, as a deficit, the lack of spontaneity may express itself in a variety of psychological dysfunctions, and in numerous manners, for example, in regression, depression, aggression, and dissociation.
The difficulty with the SDI was also manifest in the results concerning the relationship between the two inventories. While, on the whole there was a statistically significant negative correlation between the SAI and the SDI, there was no significant relationship between the middle and low SAI scorers and their SDI scores. Furthermore, when the participants were divided into three equal subgroups (high, medium, and low) based on the descending order of their SDI scores, it was impossible to predict their SAI scores. The foregoing led to the conclusion that the SDI did not merely reflect the opposite of spontaneity. Rather, some of the attributes underlying the SDI, e.g., anxiety, and stress, appeared to represent the opposites of the SAI attributes of energy and power, and pleasure/hedonism. Other SDI attributes, e, g., emotional distancing, lack of focus, and disorganization, though incompatible with spontaneity, were not the exact opposites of the attributes that characterized the SAI.
Except for its help in understanding spontaneity, it is hard to see in what ways can the SDI be of further use. This, however, is not the case with the SAI. From both clinical and research perspectives the present measure of spontaneity assessment opens a new window of opportunities with a special interest in the predictive value of the SAI. This is a challenge that future research might undertake.
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Correspondence to: David A Kipper
Subject: Spontaneity
David A. Kipper, PhD, is Research Professor of Psychology at the School of Psychology, Roosevelt University, Chicago IL.
Wayne A. Jones, Ph.D., is an adjunct faculty member at the School of Psychology, Roosevelt University, Chicago, IL, and is also enrolled there in the Clinical Professional Psychology Master’s program.