The Vengeance Scale: Turkish adaptation study

Abstract

Objective: Vengeance, which can be defined as taking revenge by displaying a desire or behavior of revenge for a pain of a harm on a person who has done the harm, is a primitive, destructive and illogical personality trait accompanying many of the personality traits. The aim of the study is to adapt the Vengeance Scale (VS) to Turkish, which was developed to measure the traits of individuals who assume that they have been humiliated in such a situation and tend to desires or behaviors of taking revenge. Methods: This research is composed of the findings of two separate studies. The first study was performed with 332 participants (157 female and 175 male) attending Sakarya University. The second study consisted of 335 participants (199 female and 156 male) attending Anadolu University. In the first study, language equivalency, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, and reliability of the scale were investigated. In the second study, criterion-related validity and gender-related discriminant validity of the scale, which was translated into Turkish, were investigated. Findings: As a result of the exploratory factor analysis, it was determined that the Turkish version of the scale explained 37% of the total variance and that it had a one-dimensional structure as in the original scale. Confirmatory factor analysis results indicate that the one-dimensional structure of the scale provides a good fit (chi(2)=341,chi(2)/df=2.23, NFI=0.95, CFI=0.97, IFI=0.97, RFI=0.94, GFI=0.91, RMSEA=0.061, and SRMR=0.050). It was also determined that the Cronbach's alpha internal consistency coefficient of the scale was 0.91, while test-retest correlation coefficient was 0.87. It was determined that there were negative correlations between VS and forgiveness within the scope of criterion-related validity, whereas there were positive correlations between VS and anger rumination. Moreover, males (68.61 +/- 23.36) were found to have significantly higher VS scores than females (63.14 +/- 20.12). Conclusion: The results obtained from this study indicate that psychometric properties of the Turkish version of the Vengeance Scale are adequate. As a result, it was concluded that the Vengeance Scale is a scale to measure in a valid and reliable way the individuals' level of vengeance against any injustice they have.