A Cross-Cultural Validation of the Revised Transliminality Scale in Brazil

• Published in: Psychology of consciousness (Washington, D.C.) D.C.), 2018-12, Vol.5 (4), p.414-424
• Main Authors: Lange, Rense, Maraldi, Everton de Oliveira, Zangari, Wellington, Corredato, Vanessa, Machado, Fatima Regina, Alvarado, Carlos S.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Consciousness States; Cross Cultural Psychology; Female; Foreign Language Translation; Human; Item Analysis (Test); Male; Parapsychology; Test Construction; Test Validity
• ISSN: 2326-5523; 2326-5531
• DOI: 10.1037/cns0000161

We tested the cross-cultural validity of the transliminality construct by administering a Portuguese version of the Revised Transliminality Scale (RTS) to an online snowball (convenience) sample (n = 341) starting with university students at the Institute of Psychology of the University of São Paulo, Brazil. Rasch scaling revealed acceptable model fit, and we found medium correlations of the translated items' "difficulty" parameters with those obtained in earlier research. This form of the RTS is mainly stable in this cross-cultural context as the Rasch person measures produced by the Brazilian version (i.e., its "scores") correlated nearly perfectly with the estimates as derived from earlier research. Some item shifts (differential item functioning) related to age and sex were obtained, although they did not appreciably affect the estimates of respondents' trait levels. This research supports the robustness of the transliminality construct, while serving as a guide to study the concept and its correlates across other languages and cultures.