Development and validation of the Brief‐Mentalized Affectivity Scale: Evidence from cross‐sectional online data and an urban community‐based mental health clinic

Abstract

Objective: To develop and validate the Brief-Mentalized Affectivity scale (B-MAS), a shorter version of the Mentalized Affectivity Scale (MAS). Methods: In Study 1 (N = 978), participants from Amazon's Mechanical Turk were administered a battery of questionnaires including the B-MAS and traditional emotion regulation measures. In Study 2 (N = 230), clients from a community clinic completed a separate battery of measures, including the B-MAS, and personality and emotion regulation measures. Results: There were four main findings: (1) the B-MAS is a psychometrically robust measure of emotion regulation and mentalization; (2) scores on the B-MAS are highly predictive of many clinical diagnoses; (3) scores on the B-MAS are just as or more predictive of wellbeing than traditional emotional regulation measures; and (4) as observed in an urban clinic with a diverse population, the B-MAS is useful clinically, especially because of its brevity. Conclusion: The B-MAS contributes to the expanding scope of research on emotion regulation and has valuable clinical applications.

Mentalized affectivity in a nutshell: Validation of the Italian version of the Brief-Mentalized Affectivity Scale (B-MAS)

“…The third and last factor explains 12.87% of the variance, showing loadings from 4 items evaluating a self-assessment of one’s ability to be aware of one’s own emotions. Following Greenberg and colleagues [ 18 ], we decided to maintain the same factors’ labels, namely: 1 = Expressing; 2 = Processing; 3 = Identifying.…”

“…The first aim of the present study was to evaluate the factorial structure of the B-MAS [ 18 ] in an Italian sample. Findings from the EFA and CFA strongly mirrored the three-factor model already proposed by Greenberg and colleagues [ 18 ], finding the same three-factors structure. However, we observed some differences in the order of those factors.…”

“…To do this, Jurist and colleagues have developed a self-report instrument called Mentalized Affectivity Scale (MAS; [ 17 ]). In addition, the authors have recently validated a shorter version of the tool, the Brief-Mentalized Affectivity Scale (B-MAS; [ 18 ]). We will further illustrate both the long- and short- form of the instrument in the next paragraph.…”

“…However, since it consists of 60 items (35 in the Italian version), its length may make it too demanding to be used in clinical and research settings. Greenberg and colleagues [ 18 ] have thus developed the Brief-Mentalized Affectivity Scale (B-MAS) to create a less burdensome tool still able to capture all three components of the original one. After selecting 12 representative items among the original 60, the authors asked various mentalization and emotion regulation experts to evaluate if the chosen items (grouped in three main clusters) appropriately measured each of the three original factors.…”

“…Moreover, Greenberg and colleagues [ 18 ] also investigated the correlation between mentalized affectivity and other dimensions of psychological functioning in a clinical population. They found that the scores obtained at the B-MAS were predictive of numerous mental health diagnoses, and of the general degree of wellbeing (and more so than traditional measures).…”