Review
Fifty years of the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale: An update and review

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Abstract

The Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11) is a 30 item self-report instrument designed to assess the personality/behavioral construct of impulsiveness. Originally developed as part of a larger attempt to relate anxiety and impulsiveness to psychomotor efficiency, the BIS is arguably the most commonly administered self-report measure for the assessment of impulsiveness in both research and clinical settings. Over the last 50 years the BIS has significantly influenced the way that impulsivity is conceptualized in psychology and psychiatry. On its golden anniversary we thought it important to update the literature in relation to this influential psychometric instrument. The goal of this paper is threefold: (1) describe the history and development of the BIS-11; (2) present new data supporting the psychometric properties of the subscales; and to (3) review the clinical and personality literature that has reported on the BIS-11 subscales.

Introduction

Impulsiveness is a construct relevant to explaining both normal individual differences in personality and more extreme personality pathology among clinical populations. Impulsiveness has long been viewed as a complex construct (Barratt & Patton, 1983), which is reflected in one of the more popular definitions of impulsiveness “as a predisposition toward rapid, unplanned reactions to internal or external stimuli without regard to the negative consequences of these reactions to the impulsive individuals or to others” (Moeller, Barratt, Dougherty, Schmitz, & Swann, 2001).

The question of whether a person is capable of modulating their cognition and behavior to fit the demands of a given environment is imperative in almost any conceivable situation. Because of this there is wide spread interest in understanding the role of impulsiveness among healthy populations in activities ranging from employment behaviors (Everton, Mastrangelo, & Jolton, 2005) to educational performance (Diamantopoulou, Rydell, Thorell, & Bohlin, 2007). Generally though, impulsive behavior is viewed as counterproductive by society, and individual differences in impulsivity have been found to be related to a number of socially deviant behaviors like aggression (Houston, Stanford, Villemarette-Pittman, Conklin, & Helfritz, 2003) and substance abuse (Swann, Dougherty, Pazzaglia, Pham, & Moeller, 2004). Finally, impulsivity is a symptom of several disorders including attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, borderline personality disorder, and antisocial personality disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 2000), as well as the basis for a separate section in the DSM-IV-TR entitled Impulsive Control Disorders not Elsewhere Classified (which includes intermittent explosive disorder, kleptomania, pyromania, and pathological gambling; American Psychiatric Association, 2000). Given its relevance to both healthy and harmful behaviors, the accurate assessment of impulsiveness has been of wide interest in the scientific literature.

Section snippets

History of the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale

This year (2009) will mark the 50th anniversary of the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS; Barratt, 1959). The BIS, currently in its 11th revision (Patton, Stanford, & Barratt, 1995), is a 30 item self-report instrument designed to assess the personality/behavioral construct of impulsiveness (see Appendix). It is arguably the most commonly administered self-report measure specifically designed for the assessment of impulsiveness in both research and clinical settings. As of March 2009 there have

New BIS-11 psychometric data

Patton et al. (1995) stated that “the [BIS-11] subfactors are of primary value in helping define impulsiveness in general and exploring more subtle relationships between impulsiveness and different clinical syndromes.” While interest in the second-order subscales has steadily increased since the publication of the BIS-11; few studies have attempted to look at the reliability and validity of these scores. Further, no study has published psychometric data on the first-order subscales, even though

Clinical populations

While the BIS-11 has been used in a diverse set of clinical samples, the predominance of studies have tended to focus on Substance Use Disorders, Axis I disorders other than substance abuse/dependence specifically: Depression, Bipolar Disorder, and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD), as well as suicide attempters and criminal offenders. In this section we will briefly review BIS-11 results from studies in these four clinical populations that have reported meaningful differences in

Conclusions

It is clear even from this brief review of the literature that the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale has not only shaped the current conceptualization of impulsiveness as a construct but continues to be an important tool in sparking further research in personality 50 years after its initial development. Few personality traits are as socially relevant as impulsiveness. Its impact is felt across a broad range of domains including mental health, business, criminal justice, and education. It is our hope

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