Introducing an instrument to measure body and fitness-related self-conscious emotions: The BSE-FIT
Section snippets
Conceptualization of shame, guilt, and pride
Shame implies the perceived or feared loss of social status and a failure to meet internalized standards, with a focus on deeply rooted global causes about the self (e.g., “I am an unfit person”; Lewis, 1971, Tracy and Robins, 2004). The phenomenological experiences that accompany shame include a sense of worthlessness, humility, and shrinking, and the desire to hide, or disappear (Tangney, Miller, Flicker, & Barlow, 1996). Shame experiences are consistently linked to a host of maladaptive
Extant body-related shame, guilt, and pride measures
Few published instruments have been developed to assess body-related self-conscious emotions. Such instruments include: (a) the Body and Appearance Self-Conscious Emotions Scale (BASES; Castonguay, Sabiston, Crocker, & Mack, 2014); (b) the Weight and Body-Related Shame and Guilt Scale (WEB-SG; Conradt et al., 2007); (c) the Body Image Guilt and Shame Scale (BIGGS; Thompson et al., 2003); (d) the Objectified Body Consciousness Scale (McKinley & Hyde, 1996); (e) the Shame and Guilt Eating Scale
Research overview
The overall purpose of this series of studies was to develop and evaluate select psychometric properties of a trait self-report instrument designed to assess fitness-related self-conscious emotions (the Body-related Self-Conscious Emotions Fitness instrument; BSE-FIT) assessing shame, guilt, and authentic and hubristic facets of pride. Three studies were conducted to develop items and to provide validity evidence based on content, internal structure, test-criterion relationships (concurrent),
Study 1: Generation of initial questionnaire items
The specific aim of Study 1 was to develop and refine the items comprising the BSE-FIT. Following item generation, preliminary refinement of the BSE-FIT items was done using quantitative and qualitative responses on item quality and content from colleagues and a sample of older adolescents and adults.
Study 2: Content validity
The objective of Study 2 was to examine item content relevance and representation of the initial pool of BSE-FIT items. Content domain experts completed an item matching task, and content validity index and representativeness of the construct scales. Results from this study provide validity evidence based on content of the BSE-FIT instrument.
Study 3: Item quality and validation evidence
The objectives of the third study were to: (a) test the BSE-FIT with adolescents and adults to examine endorsement frequency, item means, variability, scale distributions, inter-item and item-total correlations, (b) investigate evidence of the internal structure of the BSE-FIT, and (c) investigate evidence of the internal consistency and concurrent, convergent, discriminant, and incremental validity of the BSE-FIT subscale scores.
General discussion
The overall aim of the current study was to develop a new self-report instrument to assess fitness-related experiences of shame, guilt, authentic pride, and hubristic pride. The BSE-FIT subscale scores demonstrated evidence of reliability and relations with other variables and internal structure sources of validity in a sample of older adolescents and adults. Addressing some calls for more self-conscious emotion research in specific domains of the self (Tangney & Tracy, 2012) and a focus on
Conclusion
In summary, the BSE-FIT is the first published instrument to effectively capture fitness aspects of shame, guilt, and the positive emotional experiences of authentic and hubristic pride. The BSE-FIT showed evidence of reliability, concurrent and convergent validity evidence, and the shame, guilt, and both pride subscales displayed discriminant validity correlational patterns to other respective subscales. Nonetheless, it is important to remember that validation is an on-going process (Zhu, 2012
Acknowledgment
Castonguay was supported by SSHRC doctoral and CIHR Postdoctoral Fellowships during the preparation of this manuscript. Sabiston holds a Canada Research Chair in Physical Activity and Mental Health.
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