Validation of the Young Schema Questionnaire-Short Form in a Flemish Community Sample

The Young Schema Questionnaire (YSQ, Young, 1994) was developed to assess Early Maladaptive Schemas (EMS), which account for the dysfunctional beliefs in individuals with personality disorders or maladaptive personality traits. This study aims to investigate the factor structure, the reliability and the validity of the original YSQ – Short Form (Young & Brown, 1998; YSQ-SF, 15 EMS) as well as an extension including 16 EMS, based on the 16 factor structure of the YSQL2 (Young & Brown, 1998) in a community sample. The sample consisted of 672 participants (51% females; M(age-total) = 44.34; SD(age-total) = 16.24). Results show evidence for both the 15 and 16 factor solution of the YSQ-SF with good internal consistency coefficients for the different scales. Significant gender differences were observed for Self-Sacrifice (females higher) and Entitlement (men higher), along with different patterns of correlations between age and Insufficient Self-Control (r = –.19), Enmeshment (r = –0.16) and Self-Sacrifice (r = .13). Furthermore, Big Five personality traits were significantly associated with several schema scales. In sum, we can conclude that both the YSQ-SF15 and 16 are valid instruments to assess EMS among a Flemish community sample. However, given the unique additive value of the 16(th) EMS (Social Undesirability) in predicting lower scores on Extraversion and Openness, the use of the YSQ-SF16 could be favored.