The Beliefs about Emotions Scale: validity, reliability and sensitivity to change

Area of Science:

• Psychological assessment
• Emotion regulation
• Clinical psychology

Background:

• Beliefs about the unacceptability of negative emotions are prevalent in various psychological conditions, including chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).
• These beliefs impact emotion regulation and are targeted in therapies like cognitive behavior therapy (CBT).
• A validated self-report measure is needed to assess these specific beliefs.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate the Beliefs about Emotions Scale (BES), a self-report questionnaire.
• To assess the internal reliability and validity of the BES.
• To examine the scale's sensitivity to change following cognitive behavior therapy (CBT).

Main Methods:

• The BES was administered to individuals with CFS (n=121) and healthy controls (n=73).
• A subset of individuals with CFS (n=22) completed the BES before and after CBT.
• Psychometric properties including internal consistency, factor structure, and correlations with other measures were analyzed.

Main Results:

• Individuals with CFS scored significantly higher on the BES compared to healthy controls.
• The BES demonstrated high internal consistency (alpha = 0.91) and a single-factor structure.
• BES scores correlated significantly with negative perfectionism, dysfunctional attitudes, depression, anxiety, and fatigue, and reduced after CBT.

Conclusions:

• The Beliefs about Emotions Scale (BES) is a reliable and valid measure.
• The BES is sensitive to changes in beliefs about emotions following CBT.
• The scale can be a useful tool for assessing and potentially treating unhelpful emotion beliefs in clinical populations.