Construct validity of a test to identify emotion in adult and child faces and adult postures, the Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy 2 (DANVA2), in Italian elementary school age children

The purpose of the present study was to offer construct validity evidence for the Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy (DANVA2), a test of the ability to identify emotion in adult and child faces and adult postures, in a population of 956 Italian school children using a multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) approach. Support was found for (1) an underlying factor structure consistent with the DANVA2’s three separate tests (child faces, adult faces and postures) that measure four separate basic emotions (happy, sad, angry and fear), (2) acceptable internal consistency within each independent test and emotion and (3) convergent validity as shown by an association with an established measure of adult faces (the Brief Affect Recognition Test, BART, Ekman & Friesen, 1976). Results suggest that the DANVA2’s adult and child faces and, to a lesser extent, adult postures, possess a viable underlying structure as well as internal consistency and construct validity that generalize across culture and age.