Turkish adaptation of BeMaS Benign and Malicious Envy Scale: transliteral equivalence, reliability and validity study

Abstract

Even though the psychoanalytic approach was the first to study envy in psychology literature, those studies were limited to conceptualization and definition where studies of measurement have been carried out only in recent years. In the literature search, when the scales developed in different languages have been examined, it was seen that the commonly used scales evaluate envy only with its malicious dimension and do not measure motivating and positive dimension of envy, which is referred to as “gipta” in Turkish. Benign and Malicious Envy Scale (BeMaS) that was developed in 2015 is the first scale to measure envy both with its positive and negative dimension. In this study, Turkish adaptation, reliability and validity studies of the aforementioned envy scale have been implemented. In the transliteral equivalence study, Turkish and English forms have been administered to 44 English instructors with a 3-week interval. For the reliability and validity analyses, 422 individuals between the ages of 18 and 65 participated in the surveys of whom 64% was female and mean age was 32.92. Results of t test and Pearson correlation analyses showed that transliteral equivalence was supported. Test-retest, Cronbach alpha internal consistency, and item analyses also showed that the scale had high levels of reliability. Results of the exploratory and multitrait-multimethod analyses used for the validity study indicated that the scale consisted of two factors and achieved acceptable levels of fit indices. For convergent validity, the correlation between malicious-benign envy and social comparison orientation was examined and a significant relation was observed. In the analyses used for divergent validity, malicious envy was found to be in a positive correlation with neuroticism and self-esteem and significantly negatively correlated with gratitude. Results of this study revealed that BeMaS-T Benign and Malicious Envy Scale is a transliterally equivalent, reliable, and valid tool that can measure dispositional benign and malicious envy in adults.