Factor Structure and Validity of the Body Parts Satisfaction Scale: Results from the 1972 Psychology Today Survey

In 1972, the first major national study on body image was conducted under the auspices of Psychology Today. Body image was assessed with the Body Parts Satisfaction Scale, which examined the dissatisfaction people experienced with 24 aspects of their bodies. Despite the continued reliance on this scale and reference to the study, data on the factor structure of this measure in a sample of adults have never been published, and citations of the original scale have relied on an unpublished manuscript (Bohrnstedt, 1977). An exploratory factor analysis conducted on 2,013 adults revealed factors for men (Face, Sex Organ, Height, Lower Body, Mid Torso, Upper Torso, Height) and women (Face, Sex Organ, Height, Lower Torso, Mid Torso, Extremities, Breast). The factors were weakly to moderately intercorrelated, suggesting the scale can be analyzed by items, by subscales, or by total score. People who reported more dissatisfaction with their body also tended to report lower self-esteem and less comfort interacting with members of the other sex. The analyses provide a useful comparison point for researchers looking to examine gender differences in dissatisfaction with specific aspects of the body, as well as the factor structures linking these items

Berscheid, Ellen, Interpersonal Modes of Knowing, pp. 60-76 in Elliot W. Eisner, ed., Learning and Teaching the Ways of Knowing, Eighty-fourth Yearbook of the NSSE, Part II. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.

Describes social and interpersonal knowledge and ways these may be developed in classrooms

Outcome dependency: Attention, attribution, and attraction.

Theoretical and empirical work on the processes by which we attribute dis-positional characteristics to others has focused almost exclusively on how such processes proceed once the perceiver has been motivated to initiate them. The problem of identifying the factors which prompt the perceiver to engage in an attributional analysis in the first place has been relatively ignored, even though the influence of such factors may extend beyond the initiation of the causal analysis to affect the manner in which it unfolds and, ultimately, the form and substance of its conclusion. From the assumption that the function of an attributional analysis is effective control of the social environment, it was hypothesized that high outcome dependency upon another, under conditions of high unfamiliarity, is associated with the initiation of an attributional anal-ysis as evidenced by increased attention to the other, better memory of the other's characteristics and behavior, more extreme and confidently given evalua-tions of the other on a variety of dispositional trait dimensions, and increased attraction to the other. These hypotheses were tested within the context of