title: The Body Image Psychological Inflexibility Scale: development and psychometric properties.
abstract: Body image disturbance and body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) have been researched from a variety of psychological approaches. Psychological inflexibility, or avoidance of one's own cognitive and affective states at a cost to personal values, may be a useful construct to understand these problems. In an effort to clarify the role of psychological inflexibility in body image disturbance and BDD, a measure was created based on the principles of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). The scale was developed by generating new items to represent the construct and revising items from an existing scale measuring aspects of body image psychological inflexibility. The study was conducted with an ethnically diverse undergraduate population using three samples during the validation process. Participants completed multiple assessments to determine the validity of the measure and were interviewed for BDD. The 16-item scale has internal consistency (α = 0.93), a single factor solution, convergent validity, and test re-test reliability (r = 0.90). Data demonstrate a relationship between psychological inflexibility and body image disturbance indicating empirical support for an ACT conceptualization of body image problems and the use of this measure for body image disturbance and BDD.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, San Jose State University, San Jose, CA, United States.
authors.forename: Glenn M
authors.initials: GM
authors.lastname: Callaghan
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Lafayette, LA, United States.
authors.forename: Emily K
authors.initials: EK
authors.lastname: Sandoz
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States.
authors.forename: Sabrina M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Darrow
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Nevada, Reno, Reno, NV, United States.
authors.forename: Timothy K
authors.initials: TK
authors.lastname: Feeney
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D057215:Body Dysmorphic Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D001828:Body Image / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000379:methods; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Acceptance; Assessment; Avoidance; Body dysmorphic disorder; Body image disturbance; Body image flexibility; Measurement