Adaptation and validation of the Social Reward Questionnaire for the Brazilian context

• Grant number: 21/00739-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: July 01, 2021
• End date: December 31, 2021
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Fundamentals and Assessments in Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Carlos Eduardo Neves Girardi
• Grantee: Maria Luiza Vieira Nunes
• Host Institution: Escola Paulista de Medicina (EPM). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus São Paulo. São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The identification of the rewarding aspect inherent to some social stimuli and the understanding of individual differences in the processing of these stimuli are important topics for understanding typical and dysfunctional social behaviors, since some clinical disorders such as depression, personality disorders, and autism present with changes in the rewarding values of social interactions. In this context, the Social Reward Questionnaire (SRQ) was created, targeting the English population. This instrument, with its twenty-three items, allows evaluating individual differences in the processing of the six main types of social rewards: admiration, negative social potency, passivity, prosocial interactions, sexual relations, and sociability. Thus, the present study proposes the adaptation and validation of the SRQ for the Brazilian population, in view of the absence of such instruments in Brazil. To this end, the steps recommended by the International Test Commission Guideline (ITC) will be carried out, namely: (1) translation of the instrument from the source language to the target language, (2) synthesis of the translated versions, (3) evaluation of the synthesis by a committee of experts, (4) evaluation of the instrument by the target audience, (5) reverse translation and (6) pilot study. For stages 4 and 6, volunteers of both sexes, aged 18 to 70 years, literate, without the use of antidepressants, anxiolytics or antipsychotics will be recruited, based on the dissemination on social media. The data collected in step 4 will serve as a basis for better adequacy of the questionnaire and the answers obtained in step 6 will provide evidence for the validity of the Portuguese version of the SRQ through exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and analysis by Cronbach's alpha, whose expected results will provide evidence for the validation of the factorial structure and reliability of the instrument produced. Considering that the responses obtained with this instrument may be relevant for assimilation of dysfunctional processing profiles, the adaptation of this instrument may have a relevant clinical and scientific value and may be applied in future Brazilian studies for the association between the rewarding aspects of social relations with several factors, such as those of genetic origin, neuroanatomy functional and pharmacological, even allowing analyzes of therapeutic efficacy in clinical studies.(AU)