and shape, some individuals /C0those high in social physique anxiety /C0become quite distressed when they think
their physique is being judged.
Sample
A sample of 195 undergraduate students (97 women, 98 men) from health and fitness classes was used to
develop the scale. The items were then administered to 89 participants (46 women, 43 men) to examine the scale’s
reliability and factor structure. To examine construct validity, the SPAS was administered to a sample of 187 par-
ticipants (93 women, 94 men) ( Hart et al., 1989 ).
Description
The Social Physique Anxiety Scale (SPAS) is a 12-item self-report scale that measures people’s concerns about
others’ perceptions of their bodies. Respondents indicate how characteristic each item is of them on a 5-point
scale (1 5not at all characteristic of me; 55extremely characteristic of me ).
This scale was validated using two university samples ( Hart et al., 1989 ). For Sample 1, the mean score for
men was 30.2, and the mean score for women was 37.9. For Sample 2, the mean score for men was 30.1 and the
mean score for women was 37.0.
Reliability
Internal Consistency
Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was found to be 0.90, and all items on the SPAS correlate at least 0.50 with the
sum of all other items ( Hart et al., 1989 ).
Test-Retest
Test-retest reliability was found to be 0.82 over an interval of 8 weeks ( Hart et al., 1989 ).
Validity
Convergent/Concurrent
The SPAS correlates moderately with interaction anxiousness ( r50.33) and fear of negative evaluation
(r50.35). These relationships reflect the fact that all three constructs involve concerns about others’ impressions,
but the correlations are low enough to suggest that social physique anxiety is a distinct construct. The SPAS also
correlates positively with public self-consciousness ( r50.30).
Divergent/Discriminant
The SPAS does not correlate significantly with private self-consciousness ( r50.05) but correlates negatively
with body esteem ( r520.36 to 20.43). In addition, the SPAS accounted for 17% of the variance in negative
thoughts about one’s body over and above the variance accounted for by typical measures of physique such as
weight, body fat, and body self-rating.
Evidence suggests that the SPAS accounts for only a small proportion of unique variance in predicting exercise
behavior. For example, Lantz, Hardy, and Ainsworth (1997) found that the SPAS and Beck’s Depression
Inventory account for a great deal of the same variance in predicting engaging in physical exercise. In fact, social
physique anxiety accounted for only about 2% additional variance in engaging in physical exercise over and
above depression ( Lantz et al., 1997 ). In addition, the SPAS did not account for any unique variance in exercise
behavior over and above self-perceptions of physical conditioning ( Kowalski, Crocker, & Kowalski, 2001 ).
Construct/Factor Analytic
Hart et al. (1989) reported that for two samples ( n589 and n556) a principal components analysis showed
that all 12 items loaded greater than 0.55 on a single unrotated component. However, other studies have obtained
multiple factors ( Eklund, Mack, & Hart, 1996; Motl & Conroy, 2000; Petrie, Diehl, Rogers, & Johnson, 1996 ),
although these factors may simply represent positively- versus negatively-worded items ( Motl & Conroy, 2000 ).
They found that a unidimensional solution better fit both 9-item and 7-item versions of the scale.
Criterion/Predictive
Scores on the SPAS are related to actual and perceived fitness. Compared with women who scored in the
lower third of the distribution of scores on the SPAS, women who scored in the top third weighed significantly461 OVERVIEW OF THE MEASURES
IV. INTERPERSONAL STYLES