2026-10-13T15:25:05Z https://www.scidb.cn/oai

10.57760/sciencedb.psych.01141 2026-08-12T12:17:21Z

2026-08-12 Development and Validation of the Mental Internal Friction Inventory doi:10.57760/sciencedb.psych.01141 en A Mental Internal Friction Inventory (MIFI) was developed through the literature analysis, semi-structured interviews, large language models, and expert evaluation. A pilot study was conducted with 218 participants for item analysis and exploratory factor analysis. A formal study was conducted with 1410 participants for confirmatory factor analysis, scale simplification via an ant colony optimization algorithm, reliability analysis, and measurement invariance analysis. The results indicate that the MIFI had 21 items and 4 dimensions, including self-criticism, energy depletion, decision paralysis, and overthinking. The MIFI and its abbreviated versions (12-item short form and 4-item ultra-short form) were significantly positively correlated with rumination, generalized anxiety, self-depletion, neuroticism, and perfectionism, and significantly negatively correlated with life satisfaction and self-efficacy. Cronbach’s α coefficients for all versions exceeded 0.7, and test-retest reliability exceeded 0.6. The scale also met the criteria for cross-gender measurement invariance. Collectively, these psychometric properties indicate that the MIFI is a reliable tool for measuring mental internal friction. Mental Internal Friction; Mental Health; Reliability; Validity Chen Guoying Wang Yang Wei Jiahui Deng Ying Li Chun Huang Mingqi Su Qin RESTRICTED dataset Science Data Bank