Establishing Low, Moderate, and High Thresholds for Psychological Constructs: A Data-Driven Approach Using Psychological Distress and Safety As Examples

Arbitrary cutoffs (e.g., -/+1SD) are often used to characterize employees as low, moderate, or high on constructs of interest. We report a non-arbitrary, data-driven approach to determine such categories and to develop empirical thresholds using a psychological distress and psychological safety scale as examples (N = 13,112).