Background: Self-regulation refers to a person’s ability to manage their cognitive, emotional, and behavioral processes to achieve long-term goals. Most prior research has examined self-regulation at the individual level; however, individual-level assessments do not allow the examination of dynamic patterns of intraindividual variability in self-regulation and thus cannot aid in understanding potential malleable processes of self-regulation that may occur in response to the daily environment. Objective: This study aims to develop a brief, psychometrically sound momentary self-regulation scale that can be practically administered through participants’ mobile devices at a momentary level. Methods: This study was conducted in 2 phases. In the first phase, in a sample of 522 adults collected as part of a larger self-regulation project, we examined 23 previously validated assessments of self-regulation containing 594 items in total to evaluate the underlying structure of self-regulation via exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. We then selected 20 trait-level items to be carried forward to the second phase. In the second phase, we converted each item into a momentary question and piloted the momentary items in a sample of 53 adults over 14 days. Using the results from the momentary pilot study, we explored the psychometric properties of the items and assessed their underlying structure. We then proposed a set of subscale and total score calculations. Results: In the first phase, the selected individual-level items appeared to measure 4 factors of self-regulation. The factors identified were perseverance, sensation seeking, emotion regulation, and mindfulness. In the second phase of the ecological momentary assessment pilot, the selected items demonstrated strong construct validity as well as predictive validity for health risk behaviors. Conclusions: Our findings provide preliminary evidence for a 12-item momentary self-regulation scale comprising 4 subscales designed to capture self-regulatory dynamics at the momentary level.

中文翻译：

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瞬时自我调节：量表开发和初步验证

背景：自我调节是指一个人管理其认知、情绪和行为过程以实现长期目标的能力。大多数先前的研究都考察了个人层面的自我调节；然而，个人层面的评估不允许检查自我调节中个体内可变性的动态模式，因此无助于理解在应对日常环境时可能发生的自我调节的潜在可塑过程。目标：本研究旨在开发一个简短的、心理测量学上合理的瞬时自我调节量表，该量表可以通过参与者的移动设备在瞬时水平上进行实际管理。方法：这项研究分两个阶段进行。在第一阶段，在作为更大的自我调节项目的一部分收集的 522 名成年人的样本中，我们检查了 23 个先前经过验证的自我调节评估，总共包含 594 个项目，以通过探索性和验证性评估自我调节的基本结构因素分析。然后我们选择了 20 个特征级别的项目进行第二阶段。在第二阶段，我们将每个项目转换为一个瞬时问题，并在 14 天内对 53 名成年人的样本进​​行了瞬时项目试点。使用瞬时试验研究的结果，我们探索了项目的心理测量特性并评估了它们的基本结构。然后我们提出了一组子量表和总分计算。结果：在第一阶段，所选择的个人层面的项目似乎可以衡量自我调节的 4 个因素。确定的因素是毅力、感觉寻求、情绪调节和正念。在生态瞬时评估试点的第二阶段，所选项目显示出很强的结构效度以及对健康风险行为的预测效度。结论：我们的研究结果为 12 项瞬时自我调节量表提供了初步证据，该量表包含 4 个分量表，旨在捕捉瞬时水平的自我调节动态。