Development and evaluation of the psychometric properties of the short Defense Style Questionnaire (DSQ-26)

IF2017 : 1.15 (Q3); International audience; The purpose of the present study was to develop and evaluate a measure of defense mechanisms that is useable in sports research: the short Defense Style Questionnaire (DSQ-26). A total of 296 competitive athletes completed the DSQ-26 and other self-report questionnaires both before and after a sport competition. Results of Principal Component Analyses (PCA) on the pre-competitive data showed evidence for a 2-factor model that included adaptive (e.g., humor, anticipation, self-assertion, altruism, self-observation) and maladaptive defenses (e.g., help rejecting complaining, splitting other, projection, dissociation, intellectualization, devaluation…