Beliefs are multidimensional and vary in stability over time - psychometric properties of the Beliefs and Values Inventory (BVI)

PeerJ

article

Joseph M. Barnby¹  Vaughan Bell¹  Luke Sheridan Rains³  Mitul A. Mehta¹  Quinton Deeley⁴ 

[1] Cultural and Social Neuroscience Research Group, Department of Neuroimaging, Kings College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience;Research Department of Clinical, Educational, and Health Psychology, University College London;Division of Psychiatry, University College London;Cultural and Social Neuroscience Research Group, Forensic and Neurodevelopmental Sciences, Kings College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience

关键词: Belief;    Delusion;    Psychometrics;    Dimensions of belief;    Cognitive neuroscience;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.6819

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Inra

【 摘 要 】

The cognitive processes underlying belief are still obscure. Understanding these processes may lead to more targeted treatment to better address functional impairment, such as occurs with delusions. One way in which this might be accomplished is to understand healthy, everyday beliefs, and how these may relate to characteristics observed in delusions. As yet, no such measure exists to accurately measure belief across a range of themes and dimensions. This paper outlines two studies documenting the creation and psychometric properties of a novel measure assessing three different dimensions of belief across themes of politics, science, the paranormal, religion, and morality in UK samples (n 0.8 per theme) with moderate to excellent reliability at 48 h (ICC = 0.61 –0.96) and 3.5 months (ICC = 0.61 –0.89). Factor analyses suggested good support for our five chosen themes of belief, suggesting they are distinct topic areas. Correlations across theme and dimension suggested dissociable characteristics within themes. These results have implications for 1. understanding the stability and relationship between themes of belief in a population and, 2. exploring how beliefs may change over time or as a result of an intervention. Full analysis code and data are available from the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/hzvwr/).

【 授权许可】

CC BY