The psychometric properties of the behavioral inhibition scale in a college-aged sample

Abstract

The Behavior Inhibition Scale (BIS) (Gest, 1997; Muris, Merckelbach, Wessel, & vand de Ven, 1999) has shown adequate psychometric properties in previous research using samples of children and adolescents. The purpose of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the BIS in a college-aged sample of 112 females and 72 males. The results indicated that the BIS showed good internal consistency, was unitary and the scores were normally distributed. As predicted, BIS scores were significantly correlated with extraversion, neuroticism, self-reported depressive symptomatology and subjective well being. Contrary to previous findings, the BIS scores were not significantly correlated with self-reported anxiety symptomatology, and were more closely aligned with extraversion than neuroticism.