A Preliminary Validation of the Youth Over- and Under-Control (YOU-C) Screening Measure with a Community Sample

Counselling practice has been supported by the development and use of interventions that are situated around overcontrol (OC) and under-control (UC) personality characteristics. Although related measures are currently available for young children (Gilbert et al., 2020a ) and adults (Seretis, 2017 ), the advancement of counselling practice and related research across international samples can be enhanced through the development and validation of a measure suitable for use with older children and adolescents. We implemented a cross-sectional psychometric validation with 438 young people ( M age = 13.96, SD = 1.59) in south-east London which resulted in preliminary evidence for the Youth Over- and Under-Control (YOU-C) measure, 2-factor solution represented by Overcontrol (14 items) and Under-Control (11 items) subscales that accounted for 33.01% of variance among scores. Reliability estimates indicted suitability for basic research purposes, but not clinical decision-making activities. No statistically significant differences were identified based on gender or age.