Table of Contents
Abstract
The Call of the Void Scale (COVS) is a novel psychometric instrument designed to quantify a widely experienced but historically under-researched psychological phenomenon: the sudden, intrusive urge to engage in a fatal behavior, such as jumping from a high place or swerving into oncoming traffic. While previous literature primarily focused on the 'High Place Phenomenon' (HPP), this 27-item scale broadens the scope of inquiry to include other common triggers, specifically driving a vehicle and standing near train tracks. By capturing these diverse contexts, the COVS offers a more comprehensive assessment of these jarring cognitive intrusions.
Beyond merely tracking the frequency of these thoughts, the COVS introduces critical clinical dimensions by measuring the ego-dystonic nature of the impulses and the Safety Behaviors individuals employ to manage them. Ego-dystonia refers to how alien or unacceptable the thought feels to the individual's core personality, a hallmark feature that helps differentiate these benign intrusions from genuine suicidal intent. Meanwhile, the assessment of Safety Behaviors provides insight into the potential obsessive-compulsive mechanisms that might maintain or exacerbate the distress associated with these thoughts.
Developed and validated using a robust split-sample methodology, the COVS represents a significant advancement in Clinical Psychology and psychopathology. It provides researchers and clinicians with a standardized tool to explore the intersection of Intrusive Thoughts, anxiety, and suicidality. By systematically measuring the Call of the Void, the scale facilitates a deeper understanding of how everyday cognitive glitches relate to broader mental health vulnerabilities, ultimately aiding in more accurate clinical formulations.
📊 Psychometric Scorecard
27
Multidimensional
📍 Germany
Authors
Purpose
The primary purpose of the Call of the Void Scale is to systematically measure a broader spectrum of sudden, fatal intrusive urges beyond the well-documented High Place Phenomenon. Historically, researchers and clinicians lacked a standardized tool to assess these bizarre but common thoughts in everyday contexts like driving or waiting for a train. This measurement gap left a blind spot in understanding how these specific cognitive intrusions operate across different environments and how they might overlap with or differ from other psychological constructs.
For clinicians and researchers, the COVS is a vital diagnostic and theoretical aid. A major clinical challenge is distinguishing between an intrusive, non-lethal thought (like the Call of the Void) and active Suicidal Ideation. By explicitly measuring the ego-dystonic quality of the thoughts—how alien they feel to the patient—and the subsequent Safety Behaviors used to neutralize them, the COVS helps map these experiences more closely to obsessive-compulsive phenomena rather than pure suicidality. This distinction is crucial for accurate risk assessment and for developing targeted cognitive-behavioral interventions.
Construct
The psychological construct captured by the COVS is rooted in the framework of unwanted Intrusive Thoughts, drawing heavy theoretical parallels to obsessive-compulsive phenomena. The 'Call of the Void' is conceptualized not as a genuine desire to die, but rather as a sudden, distressing cognitive misfire where the brain simulates a fatal action. The scale operationalizes this construct across five distinct dimensions. The first three dimensions are situational, measuring the frequency of these intrusive urges when exposed to heights, driving a car, or standing at a train platform.
To capture the clinical nuance of the phenomenon, the construct incorporates two additional cognitive-behavioral dimensions: Ego-dystonia and Safety Behaviors. Ego-dystonia evaluates the degree to which the individual perceives the thought as exaggerated or fundamentally disconnected from their true personality and desires. This is a critical theoretical bridge to OCD literature, where the unacceptability of a thought drives distress. The safety behavior dimension measures the behavioral response to the intrusion, such as active suppression or mental neutralization. In cognitive-behavioral theory, these Safety Behaviors are understood as maladaptive coping mechanisms that, while providing short-term relief, ultimately reinforce and maintain the frequency of the Intrusive Thoughts.
Validity
The developers established the convergent validity of the COVS by examining its relationships with established measures of psychological distress and suicidality, specifically the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS) and the Suicide Ideation and Behavior Scale (SIBS). The results aligned well with theoretical expectations: the subscales measuring the frequency of the phenomenon across all three contexts (heights, cars, trains), as well as the safety behavior subscale, demonstrated positive correlations with depression, anxiety, stress, and Suicidal Ideation. This suggests that individuals with higher general psychological vulnerability or distress are more prone to experiencing and reacting to these Intrusive Thoughts.
Interestingly, the validity testing revealed a unique profile for the Ego-dystonia subscale. Unlike the frequency and safety behavior dimensions, Ego-dystonia did not correlate with broader measures of depression, anxiety, or suicidality; it only correlated with the safety behavior subscale. This divergent finding is theoretically significant, as it isolates the 'alien' feeling of the thought from general psychopathology, reinforcing the idea that recognizing a thought as bizarre or uncharacteristic is a distinct cognitive appraisal process linked specifically to the urge to suppress or neutralize it.
Convergent & Discriminant Validation Correlations
| Reference Instrument | Correlation Coefficient (r) |
|---|---|
| Suicide Ideation and Behavior Scale (SIBS) | |
| Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS) |
Ego-dystonia, are connected with arrows showing correlations and path coefficients. Each factor has associated items numbered from one to fifteen, with different error terms indicated." class="scale-lightbox-img" onclick="arabScaleLightbox(this.src)">Reliability
To ensure the psychometric stability of the COVS, the researchers evaluated its internal consistency using Cronbach's alpha. In scale development, internal consistency is a critical metric that indicates how well the individual items within a specific subscale correlate with one another, ensuring they are all measuring the same underlying facet of the construct. The researchers utilized the standard psychometric threshold, where alpha values of 0.70 or higher are considered indicative of good reliability.
While the specific alpha coefficients for the final COVS subscales were truncated in the provided text, the methodological approach demonstrates a rigorous adherence to classical test theory standards. By confirming internal consistency, researchers can be confident that the items assessing, for example, the frequency of thoughts while driving, reliably cluster together to form a cohesive and dependable measurement unit across different individuals.
Factor Analysis
The structural validity of the COVS was rigorously tested using a cross-validation approach, splitting the total sample of 476 participants into two independent halves. On the first half, the researchers conducted an Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) utilizing maximum likelihood estimation and an oblimin rotation, which allows for the underlying factors to correlate. This data-driven approach successfully extracted a five-factor solution, cleanly separating the situational frequencies (heights, cars, trains) from the cognitive appraisals (Ego-dystonia) and behavioral responses (Safety Behaviors).
To confirm this structure, the researchers applied Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to the second half of the sample using the lavaan package in R. The CFA tested how well the five-factor model derived from the EFA fit a new set of data. The researchers evaluated the model against stringent, standard psychometric fit indices, looking for an RMSEA between .05 and .08, CFI and TLI values exceeding .90 to .95, and an SRMR below .08. The analysis yielded a good fit for the five-factor solution, providing strong empirical evidence that the Call of the Void is a multidimensional construct accurately captured by the scale's architecture.
Subscales
| Subscale | Items | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Frequency HPP | Measures the frequency of Intrusive Thoughts about jumping when exposed to high places. | |
| Frequency car | Measures the frequency of Intrusive Thoughts about crashing or driving into oncoming traffic while driving. | |
| Frequency train | Measures the frequency of Intrusive Thoughts about stepping in front of an oncoming train while at a platform. | |
| Ego-dystonia | Assesses the degree to which the Intrusive Thoughts feel alien, exaggerated, or contrary to the individual's true personality. | |
| Safety behavior | Evaluates the cognitive and behavioral strategies used to suppress, ignore, or neutralize the Intrusive Thoughts. |
Instrument
| Test Type | Self-report questionnaire |
| Format | 27 items, 5-point Likert scale |
| Scoring | Items are rated on a 5-point scale (ranging from 1=never/not at all to 5=always/very much). Scores are likely aggregated or averaged within the five distinct subscales. |
| Language | German |
| Population | General population, Adults, College students |
| Age Group | 18-67 years |
| Administration | Self-administered via anonymous online survey |
Figures
Call of the Void Scale Items
Items are currently not available
The individual items of this scale are not publicly available. Researchers interested in using this instrument should contact the original authors directly to request the scale materials.
Sample
N = 476 participants (71% female, 28% male, 1% diverse). The mean age was 30.85 years (SD = 11.5), ranging from 18 to 67 years. The sample primarily consisted of German citizens (85.1%). Participants were recruited via university advertisements and a university news portal article.
Cite This Paper
Lara Wiesmann, Laura Melzer, Tobias Teismann (2025). Call of the Void Scale. Frontiers in psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1685791
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Cite this article
Mohammed looti (2026). Call of the Void Scale. PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES. Retrieved from https://scales.arabpsychology.com/s/call-of-the-void-scale/
Mohammed looti. "Call of the Void Scale." PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES, 14 Aug. 2026, https://scales.arabpsychology.com/s/call-of-the-void-scale/.
Mohammed looti. "Call of the Void Scale." PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES, 2026. https://scales.arabpsychology.com/s/call-of-the-void-scale/.
Mohammed looti (2026) 'Call of the Void Scale', PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES. Available at: https://scales.arabpsychology.com/s/call-of-the-void-scale/.
[1] Mohammed looti, "Call of the Void Scale," PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES, vol. X, no. Y, ص Z-Z, August, 2026.
Mohammed looti. Call of the Void Scale. PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES. 2026;vol(issue):pages.