Perceptual and motor Skills, 1987,65, 887-892.

@ Perceptual and Motor Skills 1987

DIMENSIONALITY OF THE BODY-IMAGE:

THE BODY-IMAGE QUESTIONNAIRE

MARILOU BRUCHON-SCHWEITZER
Universite' de Bordeaux IF

Summary.-A body-image questionnaire was administered to 619 French

subjects between the ages of 10 and 40 yr. A principal factor analysis of item
correlations yielded four meaningful factors. Some of them are associated with
personality traits of the Eysenck Personality Inventory, age, and sex.

The purpose of this study was to explore the structure of perceptions, feel-
ings, and attitudes induced by (or expressed towards) our own bodies. Also
validation of a short questionnaire assessing the possible distinct facets of body
image was undertaken.
Previous studies generally dealt with specific aspects of the body-image.
The best known is that of Secord and Jourard (1953), whose questionnaire
(the "Body Cathexis Scale") estimates the amount of one's body satisfaction,'
dissatisfaction. This dimension obviously is associated with many adaptative
traits although it does not exclusively account for the variety of evaluations
related to attitudes about the body.
There are in fact other concepts to be found in the literature, and we can
roughly group them into three categories. One of them deals with the in-
tensity of people's body concerns and worries. Different kinds of anxiety about
the body have been assessed by special devices such as Secord's "Homonym Test"
( 1953), Fisher's "Body Prominence Questionnaire", indexes or scales resulting
from larger devices such as the frequency of body references elicited by pro-
jective tests (TAT, Rorschach), some characteristics of human figure drawings,
and the I-Iy scale of the MMPI. The relationships between those different
clues and one general dimension remain to be demonstrated as well as the
nature of this common factor ( a specific anxiety focused on the body, or anxiety
as a general component of personality, state or trait).
In some miscellaneous studies, the limits set by an individual between
his own body and another one have been examined. Such "differentiation"
was studied by way of indexes of physical proximity or distance ("personal
space", "proxemic behavior", "interpersonal distance"), by questionnaires such
as Jourard's "Body Disclosure Questionnaire" ( 1966), or by projective tests as
Fisher and Cleveland's body-image boundary scores, derived from responses to
inkblots (1968). Accessibility could be a unitarian and coherent dimension
although strongly dependent on social context.

'U.E.R. des S.S.P., Section de Psychologie, Esplanade des Antilles, bit. E, Domaine
Universitaire 33405 Talence, France.
888 M. BRUCHON-SCHWEITZER

Another aspect of the body concept deals with a more or less feminine
or masculine body perceived as such. Instead of the classical masculinity/
femininity scales, roo "obvious" to elicit genuine responses, one could use more
indirect procedures. Some response "patterns" related to sex identification ap-
pear in fact in the Body Cathexis Scale (Jourard & Secord, 1954, 1955; Ma-
honey & Finch, 1976), in the Body Focus Questionnaire (Fisher, 1970; Bruchon-
Schweitzer, 1982), and in the Draw-a-Person Test. Having an efficient and
even quarrelsome body on the one hand and an attractive, passive body on the
other hand, could also characterize the body ideals of both sexes (despite the
present tendency towards an apparent similarity of activities and clothes).
The hypotheses for the present study are exploratory and therefore de-
scriptive.
H 1 : T h e body-image is multidimensional and comprises distinct perceptions (satisfaction,
anxiety, accessibility, and sexual identity).
HZ: These (possible) dimensions of body-image are related to other aspects of the self
like personality traits, sex, and age.

METHOD
Our first sample comprised 137 high school students of both sexes (65
boys, 72 girls). Through interviews or open questions ("say . . ." or "write
anything that comes to your mind when you think to your body") we collected
a corpus containing about 300 words related to the body. These words were
grouped into 13 large categories containing antonyms and synonyms. Each
category (according to the number of words it contained was illustrated by
one or two bipolar items. At last, 19 items resulted in the Body-image Ques-
tionnaire.
Sabjects
The French version of the Body-image Questionnaire was administered to
619 French subjects (245 males and 374 females aged 10 to 40 yr.), from high
school students to college and university undergraduates and people prematurely
professionalized (shorthand typists, sailors); these subjeccs were divided in 12
groups of the same sex and same level of schooling. Among those subjeccs,
515 also answered the Eysencl< Personality Inventory, Form B, French version
( 1 9 7 1 ) . V h e Body-image Questionnaire was administered two times to 89
students of both sexes to assess test-retest reliability.:'
Variables and Procedwre
The 19 items of the Body-image Questionnaire were considered as "active"
variables and analyzed. The other variables were merely considered as "addi-
Walf of the subjects answered the Body-image Questionnaire, then the Eysenck scale
and the reverse order for others. This was done collectively in groups of 20 to 25 per-
sons.
T h e average test-retest reliability of the 1 9 items was .67 for a 10-day interval.
 DIMENSIONALITY OF THE BODY-IMAGE 889

tional" variables (personality, age, and sex). As regards the Eysenck inven-
tory, four variables were kept: Extraversion/Introversion, Neuroticism/Emo-
tional Stability, Lie Scale, and Social Desirability S ~ a l e . ~For age and sex, the
center of gravity of each group was projected on the resulting axes. Consider-
ing the bulk of this material, we are not able to show the results related to age
and sex drawn from visual interpretation of the graphs. A principal factor
analysis was first performed on the responses to items of the Body-image Ques-
tionnaire (with communalities in the diagonals). Four axes accounted for
84.6% of the total variance. Given their unclear meaning, varimax rotations
were carried out.

RESULTSAND DISCUSSION
HI: The analysis of responses to the Body-image Questionnaire items
yielded four meaningful factors; see Table Factor I (Eigenvalue of 1.55)
opposes receptivity to various sensorial and sensual experiments to avoidance
of such experiences. It was labelled Accesribility/Closeness (Items 12, 18, 8,
15. . .). Factor I1 (Eigenvalue of 1.48) opposes pleasant body perceptions
(positive emotional states, dynamic and hygienic properties) to unpleasant
perceptions. It was identified as Satisfaction/Dissatisfaction(Items 5, 17, 9,
14, 3. Factor I11 (Eigenvalue of 1.44) opposes energy, physical efficiency, and
masculinity to opposite attributes. It was named Activity/Parriuity ((Items 16,
19, 1, 6, 4 ) . Factor IV (Eigenvalue of 0.88) was retained in spice of its small
eigenvalue because its meaning was clear. It was interpreted as Relaxation/
Tension (Items 10, 13, and 7 ) .
The first hypothesis may be considered as compatible with these results.
The four factors obtained are strangely reminiscent of the four aspects of body-
image that have been most frequently studied in the literature and described
in the introduction.
H2: The projection of the "additional" variables on these four factors
showed a few interesting trends; see Table 1. For personality extraversion
links positively with "Body Satisfaction" (Factor 11), Neuroticism negatively
with "Body Activity" (Factor 111), and "Body Relaxation" (Factor I V ) . Insin-
cerity does not affect the body-image factor scores. Social Desirability covaries

'For this study, each of those 57 Eysenck items was evaluated by 25 independent stu-
dents, judging from 1 (highly undesirable) to 5 (highly desirable). Twenty-six items
- . desirable in a concordant way were used ro obtain
considered hiphlv desirable or highlv
the Social ~Girabi1ii-yscore.
'Separate analyses were performed o n the whole population ( 6 1 9 subjects), o n the 245
msles and the 374 females, and o n the 515 subjects given both the Eysenck and the body-
image scales. The factor structures obtained after varimax rotation being practically
identical, the loadings of the "active" variables calculated for the 619 subjects (body-
image items) and those of the "additional" variables calculated from the 515 subjects'
responses (Extraversion, Neuroticism, Lie score, Social Desirability) are represented i n
Table 1.
890 M. BRUCHON-SCHWEITZER

only with "Body Activity", loading on Factor 111: 31. Sex is not represented
(Table 1). Women seem to appear less "accessible" than men (Factor I ) and
less "active" (Factor 111), but they claim to be more "satisfied" than men
(Factor 11).
Age is not represented in Table 1. With age, people depict themselves
to be more "accessible" (Factor I ) , slightly less "satisfied" (Factor II), and less
"active" (Factor 111).
If the four components of body-image described here are close to those
found in other studies but under different names, their concurrent validity must
be established later with regard to older concepts (Factor I and Body Closure/

TABLE 1
LOADINGS OF 19 BODY-IMAGEQUBSTIONNAIRH ITEMS AM) OP
FOUR PERSONAL~TYVARIABLES O N FOUR QUESTIONNAIREFACTORS
Body-image Questionnaire Items Facror I Factor I1 Factor 111 Factor IV
("active" variables, 617 Accessibility Satisfaction Activity Relaxation
subjects, English version) * Closeness ' Dissatis- ~ a s s i v i k Tension
fact~on
1 healthy/in bad health .07 .10 .42 .10
2 atrractive/unaaractive .38 .25 .13 -.I2
3 source of pleasure/displeasure .3S .35 .23 .02
4 masculine/feminine .03 -.28 .35 -.01
5 pure, clean/impure, ditty .06 .56 .08 -.03
6 daring/fearful .13 .18 .37 .06
7 full/empty .21 .16 .23 .25
8 something you can touch/
cannot touch .47 .10 .05 .06
9 loving, warm/indifferent, cold .25 .40 .05 .17
10 expressing appeasing/anger .04 .10 -.01 .59
11 expressive/unexpressive .2G .32 .11 .10
12 something you show/you hide .59 -.06 .16 .14
13 calm, serene/nervous, restless .06 .02 .24 .54
14 young/old .08 .37 .18 .08
15 erotic/not erotic .47 .24 .14 -.09
16 resistant, strong/frail, weak .06 .14 .61 .10
17 cheerful/sad .05 .47 .34 .2 1
18 something you look at/you
don't look at .>I .03 -.02 .07
19 energetic/not energetic .13 .31 .49 .O 1
Personality traits: "additional" Factor I Factor I1 Factor 111 Factor IV
variables, 5 15 subjects
Extraversion
Neuroticism
Insinceriry
Social Desirability
"These 19 items are not the original ones; they have been translated into English 04
purpose for this publication.
 DIMENSIONALITY OF T H E BODY-IMAGE 891

Disclosure, Factor I1 and Body Cathexis, for instance). Their stability needs
to be confirmed by later cross-validations.
The advantage of those four dimensions is their link to some personality
traits and their low contamination by response-shift bias (especially the body
satisfaction). They compare favorably with ocher scales affected by social desir-
ability (Douty, Moore, & Hartford, 1974) or with concepts proving to be
multidimensional (Mahoney & Finch, 1976; Tucker, 1981).

TABLE 2
MEANSAND STANDARD DEVIATIONSOF FEMALES(ALLGROUPS) AND MALES
( A L LGROUPS)
ON EACHOF 19 ITEMS OF BODY-IMAGEQUESTIONNAIRE

Items of Females Males Student's

Body-image Questionnaire* (n = 374) (n = 245) c
M SD M SD
1. healthy/in bad health 4.18 0.89
2. unattractive/atrractive 2.53 0.88
3. source of displeasure/
of pleasure 2.20 0.92
4. masculine/feminine 1.61 0.76
5. impure. diny/pure, clean 1.52 0.72
G. daring/fearful 3.36 0.98
7. full/empty 3.89 0.93
8. something you cannot touch/
you can touch 2.43 1.21
9. loving, warm/indifferent, cold 4.16 0.79
10. expressing appeasing/anger 3.62 0.97
11. unexpressive/expressive 2.06 1.06
12. something you show/you hide 3.36 1.14
13, nervous, restless/calm, serene 2.85 1.22
14. young/old 4.63 0.63
15. not erotic/erotic 2.70 1.06
16. resistant, strong/frail, weak 3.68 1.08
17. sad/cheerful 1.89 0.94
18. something you look at/you
don't look at 3.78 1.04 3.75 0.92 0.38
19. not energetic/energetic 1.89 0.97 1.78 0.81 1.52
<
" p .01. bp < .05.
*In the original version of the questionnaire, desirable and undesirable items were bal-
anced to avoid acquiescence bias (as in Table l ) .

The use of distinct components could enable us to consider body-image as

a pattern of simple traits and no longer as a gross process. Such configurations
would be interesting to study notably when people are faced with pleasant or
unpleasant body experiences. This would allow us to understand the function
of these different body-images within the whole personality.
See Table 2 for means and standard deviations for each item by sex and
the values of Student's t .
892 M. BRUCHON-SCHWEITZER

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Accepted November 13,1987.