Approbation of the Russian version of the Body Investment Scale (BIS)

Abstract

Introduction. Modern psychological research requires constantly expanding the diagnostic apparatus which is transformed and supplemented depending on current issues of scientific and societal development. Among these diagnostic issues are problems associated with self-awareness and body awareness, with self-destruction and with human body boundaries, which underlie a person’s ideas about themselves. Materials and Methods. The 2022 study included 866 participants of both sexes, aged 13-41. Of these, 263 participants had various forms of deviant behavior, including self-destructive behavior. The control sample comprised several subgroups (respondents of different educational levels, age and lifestyle) and amounted to 603 people. Research methods included: specialized literature review, testing, and data interpretation and analysis. The study was based on the BIS created by I. Orbach and M. Mikulinser to study the emotional processes associated with a person’s attitude towards their body, as well as to identify markers of self-destructive and suicidal behavior. The mathematical statistics methods were as follows: principal component analysis with varimax rotation, Ward's method, and Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Results. The obtained results revealed that factor and cluster organization of the questionnaire confirm the original author’s version and allow using not only the integral indicator but also subscale components such as bodily care, self-acceptance, body protection, hostility towards one’s body, risk-taking, tactile comfort, and distance control, all allowing for a more differentiated approach to assessing various behavioral deviations. Cronbach's α coefficient analysis (0.831) also confirmed the reliability of the BIS. Conclusion. An initial check of the BIS by main psychometric indicators reveals a possibility of using its Russian version to assess both individual bodily experiences and attitudes towards one’s body as a whole.