Behavioral Inhibition and Behavioral Activation System (BIS/BAS) Scales

The Behavioral Inhibition and Activation Systems (BIS-BAS) Scales is a self-report questionnaire that was developed by Charles Carver and Teri White to primarily assess leveled dispositions for anxiety, depression, and manic behavior in adults. For manic behavior specifically, the assessment has shown substantial utility in predicting episodic occurrences for patients with bipolar disorder or substance use disorder. This assessment tool is theoretically grounded in Gray's reinforcement sensitivity theory, biopsychological personality theory, and also Richard Deque’s BAS dysregulation theory, which stipulates that bipolar disorder symptomatology is a result of unstable levels of BAS activity. Although the first iterations of the assessment were designed for adults, adaptations of the BIS-BAS assessment have been written for children as well. While slightly newer versions of Carver and White’s assessment have been developed, most of these BIS-BAS questionnaires are slightly shorter versions of Carver and White’s original assessment.





Psychometrics
The BIS/BAS Scales have had ample use in studies across many global populations, adolescent samples, clinical samples, and collegial samples. Additionally, the assessment has been used in various types of research studies, such as longitudinal, developmental, epidemiological, cross-sectional, and treatment studies. While the reliability of the four-factor structure of the BIS/BAS Scales has been deemed controversial by some researchers, revised models have increased the scales’ factor consistency and strengthened invariance across age and sex.

Development and history


Originally, conception a dual behavioral system was first proposed by experimental psychologist Jeffrey Gray, whose studies on the functional anatomy of the septohippocampal region of the brain suggested that avoidance (BIS) and approach (BAS) behaviors are facilitated by two dichotomous neurological systems. The BIS, Gray asserted, is responsible for the facilitating the intensity of anxiety in response to stimuli harboring non-reward, novelty, and punishment. Inhibitory, negative affect is thus the output of the BIS, which hinders an individual from participating in activities that are associated with stress, pain, and punishment. On the other side, the BAS is largely comprised of the dopaminergic and catecholaminergic pathways of the brain, and it is responsible for behavior concerning non-punishing, rewarding, and arousing stimuli. Given that it facilitates responses to more rewarding stimuli, the BAS is principally associated with positive emotions. As such, this distinct neurological array between negative and positive affect implies that levels of BIS and BAS sensitivity vary across the human population.

The initial disadvantage of Gray’s theory was that his experimental trials were only conducted on mice, but later researchers endeavored to validate the BIS/BAS theory on humans via assessment testing. Among the first attempts to develop an assessment was conducted by Wilson, Gray, and Barrett, which consisted of a six-factor structure for behaviors associated with BIS, BAS, and the fight-flight system. However, the assessment demonstrated poor construct validity after factor analyses, rendering the assessment an insufficient tool. Another assessment, developed by MacAndrew and Steele, was designed to only evaluate BIS sensitivity, which immediately had no use in measuring BAS sensitivity and did not measure dispositional anxiety. Seeing that previous BIS/BAS assessment tools were inadequate in observing Gray’s theory in humans, Carver and White embarked on forming a questionnaire that would concisely measure BIS and BAS sensitivity.

In their principal paper, Carver and White, in 1994, conducted 4 studies that tested their BIS/BAS scales for several types of validity and predictive success. Study 1 established the subscales, factors, and items for the assessment. Desiring a succinct measure of behavioral traits, Carver and White settled on four scales, which gave a simplified categorization for behaviors related to punishment and reward. In study 2, the BIS/BAS scale was compared to other assessment tools (i.e., MMPI Hypomania scale, CPI Socialization scale, MAS) for convergent and discriminant validity. Studies 3 and 4 tested the BIS and BAS scales respectively in laboratory settings; individual differences in BIS and BAS sensitivity among the participants were successfully found. Finally, Carver and White concluded that their four-factor model was empirically supported based on their cumulative findings.

Since the BIS/BAS scales’ development, adaptations have been used to assess specific populations (including children, adults, and parent assessment). Researchers have also revised the original factor model of Carver and White’s scales to reduce the effects of acquiescence bias, and additional studies have shown that having a unidimensional, one-factor construct for the BIS and BAS scales accounts for a higher amount of variance. Still, the theoretical basis underlying the BIS/BAS scales remains unchanged.

Applications to Bipolar Disorder and Other Psychopathologies


The BIS/BAS scales quickly found utility in measuring the symptomatology of patients with bipolar disorder, particularly in longitudinally predicting bipolar episodes. In addition, examining adolescents with mood disorders has revealed that the relationship between temperament and BIS/BAS sensitivities to be a complementary dynamic. But while some developmental studies with adolescent children have incorporated the BIS/BAS scales in their analyses, there is currently limited research on BIS/BAS sensitivity effects on brain development and biological sex. Research has jointly assessed bipolar disorder with the BIS/BAS scales and the General Behavior Inventory (GBI), but future studies should consider revalidating the factor structure of Carver and White’s BIS/BAS scales with other modern assessment instruments. Overall, investigations of bipolar disorder psychopathology have experienced modest advancement through the use of the BIS/BAS scales and theory; further research, however, should focus on sex differences in BIS and BAS sensitivity.

Without much surprise, depression and anxiety pathologies have been amply associated with higher BIS activity and lower BAS activity. Difficulty in emotional regulation is significantly connected to BIS sensitivity, whilst people with higher BAS sensitivity tend to express better regulation of negative emotion. Consistently, studies have found BIS/BAS activity to accurately measure depressive and anxiety behaviors.

Substance use disorder has also been studied with the BIS/BAS scales. Most notably, alcohol, methamphetamine, and marijuana usage are all related to BIS/BAS sensitivities. BIS activity has, unexpectedly, shown to be negatively correlated with drug use, and BAS activity has exhibited a positive correlation with drug use. As such, research into substance use pathology has benefited from the BIS/BAS scales.

The BIS/BAS Scales have been widely used in research. Here is a fairly specific search in PubMed. Note that there are probably additional relevant papers in other databases that concentrate on psychology research or social sciences, as PubMed only indexes a subset of more clinically oriented psychology journals. The original paper describing the development and initial validation of the scale has accrued a gargantuan number of citations in the psychological literature, with current statistics available here.

Relations to Behavioral Personality Traits
Not only have the BIS/BAS scales proven to be useful in measuring relative dispositions for arousal and anxiety, but these scales have also demonstrated to be significantly correlated with specific traits from the Big Five Factor Model. Trait Neuroticism has been shown to be positively correlated with higher levels of BIS activity Additionally, research indicated Extroversion to be positively correlated with all levels of BAS activity. Stability and Plasticity, two higher-order factors of the Big Five, have been shown to be related the BIS and BAS respectively.

Another personality model, the General Factor of Personality (GFP), has been shown to correlate strongly with Carver and White's BIS/BAS scales, implying that the BIS/BAS scales might serve as a "neurobiological basis" for the GFP. Particularly, positive loadings from the GFP related significantly to BAS; and negative loadings from the GFP related significantly to BIS.

Broadly, the BIS/BAS scales exhibit great utility in predicting certain behavioral personality traits that are not necessarily pathological.

Versions


The two things that chiefly differentiate versions of the BIS/BAS scales are the number of items selected from Carver and White’s assessment and the language used to address to the recipient of the assessment. For example, some versions have only 20 of the 24 original items, which is due to 4 of the original items acting as mere filler questions. As for the difference between parent and child versions, the subject nouns and pronouns of each item are the only changed to reflect a parent’s assessment of their child’s BIS/BAS scales; the child version, however, is akin to the original self-report version.

Below is a collection of useful citations that refer to different versions of the BIS/BAS scales:

The Original Self-Report, full length (English):
Carver, Charles S. & White, Teri L. (1994). Behavioral inhibition, behavioral activation, and affective responses to impending reward and punishment: The BIS/BAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(2), 319 – 333.

Parent-Report Scales for Children:
Vervoort, L., De Caluwé, E., Vandeweghe, L., De Decker, A., Wante, L., Van Beveren, M. L., Goossens, L., Verbeken, S., Sioen, I., Michels, N., & Braet, C. (2019). Parent-Reported BIS/BAS Scales for Children: Factor Structure and Measurement Invariance Across Age and Gender. Assessment, 26(7), 1282-1295. https://doi.org/10.1177/1073191117739017

Child Self-Report Scales:
Decker, Annelies, Verbeken, Sandra, Sioen, Isabelle, & Michels, Nathalie. (2017). BIS/BAS scale in primary school children: Parent-child agreement and longitudinal stability. Behaviour Change, 34(2), 1 – 19. DOI:10.1017/bec.2017.8

Use in Other Populations and Translations


The BIS-BAS assessment has been used in a variety of global populations, and several translations are freely available. To access available translations, please refer to the External Links section. The following list is a collection of citations for referring to different global populations (unless indicated otherwise, each version is a self-report measure):

The Chinese version:
Li, Y., Zhang, Y., Jiang, Y., Li, H., Mi, S., Yi, G., et al. (2008). Reliability and validity of the Chinese version of the behavioral inhibition system/behavioral activation system scales (in Chinese). ''Chin. Ment. Health J. 22'', 613–616.

The Croatian version:
Krizanic, V., Greblo, Z., & Knezovic, Z. (2015). Mjere osjetljivosti bihevioralnoga inhibicijskog i aktivacijskoga sustava kao prediktori dimenzija petofaktorskoga modela licnosti. Psychological Topics, 24(2), 305-324. Retrieved from http://libproxy.lib.unc.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/mjere-osjetljivosti-bihevioralnoga-inhibicijskog/docview/1700276005/se-2

The Czech version (Children):
Kubikova, Katerina, Lukavska, Katerina, Skaloudova, Alena, Pavelkova, Isabella, & Svobodova, Sandra. (2018). Measuring behavioral inhibition and behavioral activation in children – Validation of Czech BIS/BAS scale. Polskie Forum Psychologiczne, 23(3), 628 – 641. DOI: 10.14656/PFP20180310

The Dutch version:
Franken, I. H. A., Muris, P., & Rassin, E. (2005). Psychometric properties of the Dutch BIS/BAS scales. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 27, 25–30.

The French version:
Caci, H., Deschaux, O., & Baylé, F. J. (2007). Psychometric properties of the French versions of the BIS/BAS scales and the SPSRQ. Personality and Individual Differences, 42, 987-998.

The German version:
Strobel, Alexander & Beauducel, André & Debener, Stefan & Brocke, Burkhard. (2001). Eine deutschsprachige Version des BIS/BAS-Fragebogens von Carver und White [A German-language version of Carver and White's BIS/BAS scales]. Zeitschrift für Differentielle und Diagnostische Psychologie, 22. doi:10.1024//0170-1789.22.3.216.

The Italian version:
Balconi, Michela, Angioletti, Laura, De Filippis, Daniela, & Bossola, Maurizio. (2019). Association between fatigue, motivational measures (BIS/BAS) and semi-structured psychosocial interview in hemodialytic treatment. BMC Psychology, 7(49), 1 – 11. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-019-0321-0

The Japanese version:
Takahashi, Yusuke, Yamagata, Shinji, Kijima, Nobuhiko, Shigemasu, Kazuo, Ono, Yutaka, & Ando, Juko. (2007). Gray’s temperament model: Development of Japanese version of BIS/BAS scales and a behavior genetic investigation using the twin method. The Japanese Journal of Personality, 15(3), 276 – 289. https://doi.org/10.2132/personality.15.276

The Korean version:
Kim, K.H., & Kim, W.S. (2001). Korean-BIS/BAS scale. The Korean Journal of Health Psychology, 6, 19 – 37.

The Polish version:
Müller, Jörg M., & Wytykowska, Agata M. (2005). Psychometric properties and validation of a Polish adaptation of Carver and White’s BIS/BAS scales. Personality and Individual Differences, 39, 795 – 805. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2005.03.006

The Portuguese version:
Moreira, Diana, Almeida, Fernando, Pinto, Marta, Segarra, Pilar, & Barbosa, Fernando. (2015). Data concerning the psychometric properties of the behavioral inhibition/behavioral activation scales for the Portuguese population. Psychological Assessment, 27(3), 1117 – 1122. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pas0000108

The Spanish version:
Segarra, Pilar, Poy, Rosario, López, Raúl, & Moltó, Javier. (2014). Characterising Carver and White’s BIS/BAS subscales using the Five Factor model of personality. Personality and Individual Differences, 61 – 62, 18 – 23. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2013.12.027

The Romanian version:
Sava, Florin A., & Sperneac, Ana-Maria. (2006). Sensitivity to reward and sensitivity to punishment rating scales: A validation study on the Romanian population. Personality and Individual Differences, 41, 1445 – 1456. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2006.04.024

The Russian version:
Knyazev, G. G., Slobodskaya, H. R., & Wilson, G. D. (2004). Comparison of the construct validity of the Gray–Wilson personality questionnaire and the BIS/BAS scales. Personality and Individual Differences, 37, 1565–1582.

The Turkish version:
Şişman, Simge. (2012). Turkish adaptation of behavioral inhibtion system / behavioral activation system scales (BIS/BAS Scales): Validity and reliability studies. Psikoloji Çalışmaları Dergisi, 32(2), 1 – 22.

Hand scoring and general instructions
As a self-report assessment, the original BIS-BAS questionnaire designed by psychologists Carver and White contains 24 questions that evaluate a person’s BIS-BAS activities via subscales or factors, which consist of BAS Drive, BAS Fun Seeking, BAS Reward Responsiveness, and BIS. Questions are rated on an interval scale from 1 to 4, where 1 corresponds to “very true for me,” 2 to “somewhat true for me,” 3 to “somewhat false for me,” and 4 to “very false for me.” Following completion of the questionnaire, a person’s scoring for each factor is given from the magnitude of their responses to questions directly corresponding to each factor. A higher level of BAS activity is defined by more erratic, risk-taking behavior and positive emotion, whereas higher levels of BIS activity is an indicator of a more risk-averse behavior and negative emotion.

First, Carver and White structured the assessment in such a way that all items except items 2 and 22 are reverse scored.

The BIS Scale is assessed from the sum of the items:

2*, 8, 13, 16, 19, 22*, 24

The BAS Drive Scale is assessed from the sum of the items:

3, 9, 12, 21

The BAS Fun Seeking Scale is assessed from the sum of the items:

5, 10, 15, 20

The BAS Reward Responsiveness Scale is assessed from the sum of the items:

4, 7, 14, 18, 23

Finally, items 1, 6, 11, and 17 are fillers.

One might wonder why the BIS/BAS Scales contain four factors, especially given that BIS activity is only measured via a single factor. However, Carver and White asserted that this structure was not developed via preference, but rather through empirical findings during their initial studies using the BIS/BAS Scales.

R/SPSS/SAS syntax
#Scoring Carver and White's BIS/BAS Scales with R            #Assume that one has a dataset of responses ds <- #Type data set here #Questions are measured on an interval scale, and all items, save questions 2 and 22, are REVERSED SCORED. #Also note that questions 1, 6, 11, and 17 are fillers. #Give another name to the reversed columns for convenience revcols <- c("q3", "q4", "q5", "q7", "q8", "q9", "q10", "q12", "q13",             "q14", "q15", "q16", "q18", "q19", "q20", "q21") #Now, reverse score these questions by subtracting their values from the maximum possible score (4) plus 1. ds[, revcols] = 5 - ds[ , revcols] #After running the above code, the columns and reverse-scored values should be appropriately adjusted.

DATASET ACTIVATE DataSet [This would be a matrix of collected scores] COMPUTE q3 = 5 - q3            COMPUTE q4 = 5 - q4             COMPUTE q5 = 5 - q5             COMPUTE q7 = 5 - q7             COMPUTE q8 = 5 - q8             COMPUTE q9 = 5 - q9             COMPUTE q10 = 5 - q10 COMPUTE q12 = 5 - q12 COMPUTE q13 = 5 - q13 COMPUTE q14 = 5 - q14 COMPUTE q15 = 5 - q15 COMPUTE q16 = 5 - q16 COMPUTE q18 = 5 - q18 COMPUTE q19 = 5 - q19 COMPUTE q20 = 5 - q20 COMPUTE q21 = 5 - q21 EXECUTE.

SAS code goes here

Links to available translations:
•	English version (original)

•	French version

•	Polish version

•	Portuguese version

•	Turkish version

Additional links to related topics:

 * Dr. Charles Carver's Webpage at the University of Miami