Measuring positive and negative body talk in men and women: The development and validation of the Body Talk Scale

Abstract

Research suggests that positive and negative body talk are important factors in people’s body image, however, the instruments designed to measure body talk are generally designed for use with a specific gender and primarily measure negative body talk. To address the shortcomings in the existing measures, the Body Talk Scale (BTS) was designed to measure both positive and negative body talk in men and women. The current study examines the development and psychometric properties of this new scale in two samples of adults, both including men and women. Study 1 focused on the development and examined the factor structure of the original scale items. Study 2 confirmed the factor structure and examined the concurrent validity, incremental validity, test-retest reliability of the scale, and also gender differences. The results indicated that the BTS is a 14-item scale that contains three subscales (Negative Fat Talk, Negative Muscle Talk, and Positive Body Talk) and demonstrates good concurrent validity, incremental validity, and test-retest reliability. Gender comparisons on all three subscales indicated that men engage in more positive body talk than women. The findings demonstrate that the BTS is a useful measure of positive and negative body talk in both men and women.