The PICTS Fear-of-Change Scale

• Author: Glenn D. Walters,Matthew D. Geyer
• Published date: 01 June 2007
• DOI: 10.1177/0032885507303749
• Date: 01 June 2007
• Subject Matter: Articles

The PICTS Fear-of-Change

Scale

Construct and Predictive Validity

Glenn D. Walters

Federal Correctional Institution, Schuylkill, PA

Matthew D. Geyer

U.S. Penitentiary, Lee, VA

The construct validity of the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking

Styles’s Fear-of-Change scale (FOC) was evaluated by correlating it with scales

from the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI). As expected, the FOC dis-

played a positive association with the PAI Anxiety (ANX) scale and negative

associations with the PAI Positive Impression Management and Treatment

Rejection scales among 136 male inmates. The FOC also forged a stronger rela-

tionship with the ANX’s Cognitive subscale than with the Affective or

Physiological subscales. It was further surmised that a subgroup of 54 partici-

pants retested after 3 months of program participation witnessed significant FOC

gains. An independent sample of 239 medium-security male inmates participated

in a second study in which significant FOC accretions were found in offenders

who discontinued programming but not in offenders who continued or graduated.

A third study conducted on 46 nonprogram participants effectively ruled out the

alternative hypothesis that FOC scores rise in nonprogram offenders.

Keywords: PICTS; Fear-of-Change scale; construct validity; predictive validity

Clinicians who understand how difficult it is to stimulate change in

clients and clients, for their part, know all too well how hard it is to

maintain these changes once they have been initiated. The key to change

facilitation is identifying and eliminating factors that prevent people from

The Prison Journal

Volume 87 Number 2

June 2007 211-226

© 2007 Sage Publications

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211

Authors’ Note: The assertions and opinions contained herein are the private views of the

authors and should not be construed as official or as reflecting the views of the Federal Bureau

of Prisons or the U.S. Department of Justice. Correspondence concerning this article should

be addressed to Glenn D. Walters, Psychology Services, FCI–Schuylkill, P.O. Box 700,

Minersville, PA 17954-0700; e-mail: gwalters@bop.gov.

examining the belief systems that buttress and support negative conduct.

These factors include enabling behavior from others and defensiveness,

thinking errors, self-labeling, psychological inertia, and fear of change on

the part of the individual. Fear of change is a particularly powerful barrier

to change and is defined for the purpose of this article as the apprehension

associated with the prospect of abandoning familiar patterns. Revision of

the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles (PICTS; Walters,

1995) validity scales left 8 items on the 80-item PICTS unassigned to any

scale. These eight “dead” items were subsequently removed from the inven-

tory and replaced by eight items written to reflect fear of change. Walters

(2001) discerned that the PICTS Fear-of-Change scale (FOC) registered

moderate internal consistency, moderately high test–retest reliability, and

significant correlations with a measure of existential fear in groups of male

medium- and female minimum-security inmates. The question that the pre-

sent series of investigations was designed to answer is whether the FOC

possesses validity beyond these preliminary findings.

The Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI; Morey, 1991) is a multiscale

inventory that seems well suited to the task of validating the FOC. With scales

and subscales that reflect attributes theoretically similar and dissimilar to fear

of change, the PAI provides a means by which the construct validity of the

FOC can be assessed. As a case in point, the PAI Anxiety (ANX) scale was

devised to measure the clinical features of fear and anxiety and, as such,

should positively correlate with the FOC. Furthermore, because fear of

change is conceptualized as cognitive in nature, with roots in existential fear

(Walters, 2001), the FOC should correlate higher with the cognitive subscale

of the ANX (ANX-C) than with either the affective (ANX-A) or physiological

(ANX-P) subscales. By contrast, inverse correlations are proposed for the

relationships between FOC and the PAI Treatment Rejection (RXR) and

Positive Impression Management (PIM) scales. At first glance,it would seem

intuitive that the RXR scale should positively correlate with the FOC, but its

negative association with problem admission (Morey, 1991) insinuates that

the RXR is appraising issues central to Prochaska and DiClemente’s (1986)

precontemplation stage of change in which the individual has no intention of

changing. The FOC, by comparison, is designed to detect contemplation- and

preparation-stage issues, seeing as high scores on this scale express anxiety

over the prospect of making a significant change in behavior. To the extent

that the PIM measures defensiveness, it should also negatively correlate with

the FOC.

Prior research conducted in prison settings has documented more severe

criminal histories (Hiller, Knight, & Simpson, 1999) and increased levels of

212 The Prison Journal