Translation and Validation of the Redemption and Contamination Research Form (RCRF) in Germany

Abstract: Narrative identity has been traditionally assessed by collecting and coding autobiographical key scenes. To complement this approach, Dunlop and colleagues (2020) developed the Redemption and Contamination Research Form (RCRF), a self-report measure containing 19 items in English. Instead of examining autobiographical reports, the RCRF focuses on capturing participants’ explicit mindsets. No similar assessment tool is currently available in German. We describe the development of a German version of the RCRF and offer a replication of the original validation study in a German sample, including the translation of the items into German, an examination of the factor structure of the resulting measure, and an inspection of its psychometric properties. We report correlational and confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs). Results from the original study were partially replicated, but the fit of the preregistered models for the CFAs was not always satisfactory. Therefore, we investigated exploratory models, which achieved an acceptable fit. Although the revised version is appropriate for research, further studies investigating the construct in Germany are encouraged.